Employees at the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project set a safety milestone on Sunday, Dec. 7, by working five years - more than 7.7 million hours - without a lost workday injury.

Few companies ever achieve a million hours between serious injuries, much less the sustained level of performance that AMWTP employees have achieved. AMWTP's safety streak began Dec. 7, 2003, following the last lost workday injury, caused when an employee tripped on a stairway.

"Employees at AMWTP have set a high standard at our Idaho site for safely performing their jobs," said Richard Provencher, deputy manager for the Idaho Cleanup Project. "This is in keeping with DOE's expectation that the environmental cleanup of this site be completed in a safe and efficient manner."

Employees at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project retrieve, characterize, treat and ship radioactive transuranic waste out of Idaho to the Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, located in New Mexico. It's an industrial production operation where safety is critical to the success of overall operations.

AMWTP is managed and operated for the Department of Energy by Bechtel BWXT Idaho.

"Safety and compliance are the basis for how we work at AMWTP," said Bechtel BWXT Idaho President and General Manager Jeff Mousseau. "While more radioactive transuranic waste has been shipped to the Department's permanent storage facility in New Mexico than from any other site in the DOE Complex, this remarkable safety statistic is the most important measure of our project's successful operation."

All companies have a goal of avoiding injury to employees, yet few achieve this level of success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics companies performing similar operations as AMWTP (North American Industry Classification System, Category 562, Waste Management & Remediation Services) would have had 92 lost workday injuries in a five year period; AMWTP had none.

"By most measures, this is a world-class safety accomplishment," Mousseau said. "And while it is impressive, employees at AMWTP believe that all accidents are preventable and are committed to achieving and sustaining a zero accident performance on this project."