OSHA orders reinstatement of Wolf Creek whistle-blower

• File
• A fired employee goes back to work at Wolf Creek

There’s more bad news this week surrounding the closest nuclear reactor to Kansas City after regulators determined that a contractor for the Wolf Creek Generating Station was fired in retaliation for calling out unsafe practices there.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on May 15 published an order to reinstate an unnamed employee for Enercon, a contractor for the nuclear power plant 80 miles away near Burlington, Kansas. Enercon, which does engineering work at Wolf Creek, had workers dig a trench directly over pipes that circulate water to keep the reactor working within normal temperatures. The trench was dug in order to install a security fence. But the employee noticed that the trench was dug deep enough and close enough to those water pipes that it violated safety protocols about how much soil should cover the pipes.