Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
12/19/2014
As the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) continues the investigation into the worker death at the EnergySolutions Erwin, Tenn. facility, the company began restarting initial operations this month, EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said this week. Following the accident in October, EnergySolutions suspended operations so it could conduct an internal investigation into the cause of the death. The company concluded, along with TOSHA, that it could safely restart the facility and resume operations under EnergySolutions management, led by Licensing, Processing, and Disposal President John Christian. “The entire staff and management team worked enthusiastically to complete the restart prerequisites and demonstrate their readiness,” Walker said. “A readiness assessment was performed and the EnergySolutions’ management authorized the Erwin facility to restart certain shipping, receiving, and processing activities effective December 3, 2014. The Erwin facility is expected to resume its full complement of operations no later than January 15, 2015.”
While TOSHA’s investigation remains ongoing, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s investigation concluded without finding any violations. Due to the facilities radiological materials handling license, TDEC also needed to look into the accident. “We have completed our investigation,” TDEC spokeperson Kelly Brockman said. “There were no violations of the radioactive material license nor the Tennessee State Regulations for Protection Against Radiation resulting from this event, thus there will be no enforcement action taken by TDEC.”
An EnergySolutions worker died in October after suffering a fall of approximately 25 feet at the company’s Erwin facility. The worker was identified as Gary Reedy, 51. Walker said in October that Reedy had been employed at the facility for “a couple of years.” Walker also emphasized that the worker’s death was not tied to radioactive material at the facility, which EnergySolutions bought from Studsvik earlier this year. The Erwin Facility leverages EnergySolutions’ THOR process that safely dewaters, chemically reforms, homogenizes and reduces the volume of spent ion-exchange resins into a solid-phase, stable waste form, according to the company’s website.
