In a summons issued on December 13th, the French labour ministry has ordered utility giant EDF to take “every appropriate measure to remedy a dangerous situation” at the company’s flagship European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) plant under construction at Flamanville, situated on the Channel coast in northern France, and which is due to become one of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the world.
EDF has been given six months to correct the problems on the crane used to build the reactor, and which is to be kept out of operation until they are resolved.
The unusual intervention of the ministry followed EDF’s failure to heed warnings issued to it by France’s nuclear safety agency, l'Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN), concerning serious flaws in equipment used at the site.
The ASN listed 15 problems affecting heavy machinery used for the construction of the reactor, and notably the polar crane, a powerful lifting and manoeuvring device that sits at the top of the reactor building funnel and which is used to hoist into position parts of the reactor, some of which weigh in excess of 550 tonnes. The ASN warned of a grave risk of accidents to the workforce employed at the site. In parallel to the ASN’s report, a private firm, Socotec, commissioned by EDF to check the safety of the machinery, discovered 43 anomalies in the functioning of the machinery. But EDF chose to ignore the problems and continue with the crane’s operations.
EDF, which operates 58 nuclear reactors in France and 16 in Britain, is under increasing pressure to complete the site within the latest delayed deadline of 2016. Initially planned to be completed in 2012 at a cost of 3.3 billion euros, the most recent estimates forecast a cost of at least 8.5 billion euros. The continuing woes are a major embarrassment for EDF, which developed the EPR system – a third-generation pressurized water reactor – with French nuclear technology and mining company Areva, while both companies are engaged in an energetic campaign to commercialise the EPR system around the world, including the building of four in Britain.
The latest problems at Flamanville were revealed after a piece of the polar crane’s central carriage used for hoisting, broke off and fell some 20 metres from the top of the building. By chance, no-one was injured in the incident, which prompted the ASN to send a team of experts to inspect the polar crane on October 25th.
Mediapart has gained access to the ASN team’s report, which reveals that EDF added two provisional carriages to the polar crane in order to lift significantly heavy parts of the reactor into place, notably a 560-tonne steam generator. However, the two carriages are not operationally compatible with the one already in place, raising the danger of a collision during the transportation of the heavy objects. Furthermore, there is no contingency mechanism to halt the crane’s operations in event of an emergency.
Despite being formally notified of the problems by the ASN on November 8th, and while receiving the parallel report of on-site dangers sent by Socotec on November 25th, EDF even planned to use the faulty system to hoist the reactor vessel into place on December 18th. That prompted the ASN to alert the labour ministry to the immediate danger on December 12th, resulting in the ministry’s order (see above) issued to EDF to take action to resolve the issue.
A backdrop of flouted safety and labour laws
Contacted by Mediapart, EDF initially declined to comment. However, after the initial publication of this report in French, a spokesman for the utilities group told French press agency AFP that “the construction site is not at a halt”, adding that it was working in collaboration with labour ministry work inspectors. “We have been discussing and exchanging [information] with them for the past two months,” he added. “We have already produced a provisional report, we’re in the process of working on [a] definitive report.”
Among the lesser problems recorded by the ASN experts, some might appear almost comical if they did not concern the building of one of the world’s largest nuclear plants. “The instructions that appear on the controls of the temporary carriages are in English,” the ASN inspectors report, adding that this was because “the operators in charge of operating this machine are of Dutch nationality and do not speak French”.
Less light-hearted was the observation that there was no system in practice to limit the weight of objects being lifted by the crane (and no access for emergency services at the far ends of the polar crane). That means that it is currently possible to engage the crane to lift more than what is in fact a 650-tonne capacity without any alarm being raised – and which could have catastrophic consequences.
In its warning to EDF, the labour ministry underlined the risks for the workforce engaged in hoisting operations “notably the risks of falls, collisions and crashes of objects being lifted, the crushing of workers or workers being hit during operations”.
“These risks are all the greater given the current situation involves significant weights [being lifted], up to 560 tonnes according to the construction project manager, which will be handled by different parts of a same machine operated by employees from different companies, some of which are foreign, which requires communicating in a common operational language,” the ministry continued.
EDF now faces further embarrassment as separate investigations into other disturbing events at Flamanville are near to conclusion.
One of these concerns the death on January 24th 2011of a welder at the site, who fell 18 metres after a crane crashed into the scaffolding he was standing on. The gendarmerie investigation has concluded that two construction companies involved in work on the plant should face charges of “involuntary homicide” following “deliberate non-respect of safety regulations”. A trial into that tragedy is due to open in Cherbourg on January 31st, when civil engineering group Bouygues, contracted to manage much of the site’s construction work, will be among the defendants.
A second investigation concerns undeclared work accidents. Out of a total of 377 accidents among the workforce at Flamanville between 2010 and 2011, a gendarmerie investigation has established 112 went undeclared to the health and safety authorities.
A third investigation involves the employment of foreign workers at the site, notably Polish and Romanian, who were hired to work on operations managed by Bouygues via two temporary employment agencies, Elco and Atlanco, the latter domiciled in Ireland. The French government agency in charge of combating illegal employment, the ‘Office centrale de lutte contre le travail illegal’ (OCLTI), found that workers hired by the temping agencies, but whose activities were managed by Bouygues onsite, were engaged on wages that were below the official rates for their jobs, and they had neither holiday leave nor unemployment rights. The OCLTI has accused Bouygues of “dissimulation of activity and staff”, “knowingly using dissimulated labour” and the “illicit loan of labour”.
The OCLTI investigation concerns the period between 2009 and 2012, and the French social security office estimates the loss in salary contributions it would have received if the workers were hired under regular French employment conditions at between 9 and 12 million euros.
-------------------------
English version by Graham Tearse