Man charged with stealing data about enriching uranium

A CONTRACT employee at a nuclear material cleanup site in Tennessee was charged yesterday with allegedly stealing classified data about enriching uranium to sell to foreign governments, law enforcement officials said.

The man, who was not immediately identified, sold the sensitive material to undercover FBI agents, said two officials.

The data neither made it out of the country nor was it transmitted to criminal or terror groups, officials said.

The suspect appeared in court last night. He was arrested months ago when the sale took place, then released. He worked for Bechtel Jacobs Co at the East Tennessee Technology Lab, a cleanup site that once housed the US government’s gaseous diffusion plant used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

The diffusion plant was closed in 1987 and cleanup of the site, including radioactive waste, has continued under a contract with Bechtel. The site is part of the Oak Ridge reservation but separate from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Oak Ridge is the US Department of Energy’s largest science and energy laboratory. Between 1942 and 1945, it was part of the nuclear bomb-building Manhattan Project.