RE: 1988 Irradiator Incident

["Jeff Ching" <chingj@saic.com>]

The University of Hawaii had an irradiator facility in Honolulu that had a
major leak into it's storage pool in the late 60's to early  70's timeframe.
The problem was caused by improper shipping of the sources for the initial
loading.  The pencil-shaped encapsulated sources were shipped in a vertical
orientation in a partially flooded cask.  The encapsulation became etched at
the water-air interface and leaked when placed into the storage pool.  There
probably wouldn't have been a problem if either the cask was dry or was
completely flooded.  Dr. Alexander Dollar ran the facility at the time.

Jeff Ching   [chingj@saic.com]
UC Davis/McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center



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