The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a “white” safety finding to the Columbia Generating Station in Washington state after completing an evaluation of a waste shipping incident to US Ecology on leased land at the Hanford Site. Energy Northwest, operator of the nuclear power plant near the city of Richland, was notified of the decision on July 7.
The NRC evaluates regulatory performance of commercial nuclear power plants on a color-coded scale of green, white, yellow, or red, with white indicating an incident of low to moderate safety significance. The Columbia Generating Station will be placed under increased oversight for at least six months until it shows improvements in shipping practices were effective.
In November, the plant shipped a cask of radioactive waste, including filters, from the plant to the US Ecology disposal site about 10 miles away, with much of the trip on Hanford land closed to the public. US Ecology accepts Class A, B, and C low-level radioactive waste from commercial and government customers in 11 western states.
The Energy Northwest cask held waste that was more radioactive than it was approved to haul because some contaminated items in the shipment had not been properly labeled or inventoried, in an issue dating to 2010. In addition, radiation survey results were improperly recorded as contact radiation rather than a measurement taken 6 inches away from the waste.
US Ecology rejected the shipment when it found radiation levels seven times higher than declared on the shipping manifest, according to Energy Northwest. The Washington state Department of Health subsequently suspended Energy Northwest’s radioactive disposal permit. The state gave conditional approval to resume shipments in April and restored full privileges in June.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 29 issued a notice of violation to Mallinckrodt Nuclear Medicine for an incident in which a worker spread contamination at the company’s nuclear medicine production facility in Maryland Heights, Mo.
The October 2016 incident, identified in a routine NRC inspection from Jan. 23-27 of this year, represents a Severity Level IV violation of agency regulations, according to the letter posted Monday on the NRC documents website. In the regulator’s parlance, that is a “more than minor” safety breach but still at the low end of the Severity Level ranking system.
“The inspectors determined that the October 10, 2016, contamination incident resulted from ineffective contamination control techniques by the individual who worked in the cyclotron chemistry laboratory,” according to the inspection report.
Specifically, while the worker had noticed that his hands had been contaminated, he still left the restricted area with a laboratory notebook that was also contaminated, the NRC said. That led to contamination of material in his office, which is designated as an unrestricted area. That is particularly worrisome as the contamination produced “a significant personnel exposure,” inspectors found.
The worker did not carry out sufficient personal surveys, encompassing material he took with him from the laboratory in which radioactive material was in use, the report says.
Mallinckrodt Nuclear Medicine has 30 days from the date of the notice to provide a written statement or explanation of the event to the NRC, covering four matters: the reason for the breach, or cause for disputing the breach or severity level; corrective actions that have been made; corrective actions that will be made; and the date of full compliance.
Mallinckrodt Nuclear Medicine was sold to IBA Molecular last year, then officially combined with the company in April to become nuclear imaging provider Curium.
From The Wires
From The Journal News: A look at the impact on local communities when nuclear power plants close.
From Reuters: French Environment Minister says nation could shut down up to 17 nuclear reactors by 2025.
