The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has concluded that the contractor for the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility project in South Carolina committed two violations involving structural welding.
A Sept. 28 letter from the NRC to CB&I AREVA MOX Services said the base civil penalty of $35,000 would be waived “to encourage prompt and comprehensive correction of violations.” The finding follows the investigation of two “apparent violations” the NRC identified in a July 25 letter to the Department of Energy contractor.
The MOX facility under construction at the DOE’s Savannah River Site is intended to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Russia. The Obama administration has sought to cancel the facility in favor of another means of disposing of the material, while Russia last week suspended participation in the deal itself.
An NRC inspection of facility construction identified two violations by the contractor stemming from previously identified problems with welds on some ledger assemblies that support floor panels in the Aqueous Polishing Building, the facility meant for weapon-grade material purification.
One violation involved the contractor’s failure to verify the validity of documents certifying that the welded ledger assemblies procured from Specialty Maintenance and Construction Inc. (SMCI) met requirements; the second involved failure to adequately audit SMCI to ensure documentation of “objective evidence of inspections” of manual welding.
These issues led to the installation of roughly 100 ledger assemblies with deficiencies that included being undersize, shorter than the specified length, and undercut – ultimately requiring repairs to meet requirements, the NRC said.
Though the violations did not impact workers or the public, they “reflect a breakdown in your Quality Assurance (QA) program for construction, related to receipt inspections and audits of structural components,” the NRC said in its latest letter to the contractor. This problem could have caused a more significant consequence in another case, it said.
The contractor’s immediate corrective actions included full capacity repairs on the ledger assemblies, weld inspection training for receipt inspectors, and a contractor audit of SMCI; long-term corrective actions will involve evaluation of SMCI welds in inventory to ensure compliance with facility requirements, as well as inspection of all welded equipment installed in the facility, the letter said. The contractor is not required to respond to the letter.
