"WE KNOW THEY'RE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE..."

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

"WE KNOW THEY'RE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE..."

NEW LONDON, Connecticut, December 15, 2000 (ENS) - Officials
managing the decommissioning of a nuclear reactor at the Millstone
plant in Connecticut say they cannot account for two spent fuel pins
that were removed from a fuel assembly in October 1972. As part of
the ongoing decommissioning of Millstone Unit 1, a detailed
documentation of the fuel now stored in the Unit 1 spent fuel pool is
underway. A detailed verification of spent fuel pool content records
was part of this effort. During this process, workers identified a
discrepancy in the paperwork relating to the location of two spent
fuel pins that were removed from a fuel assembly in October 1972,
plant officials said. "A search is underway; however, these fuel pins
have not yet been located among the 2,884 fuel assemblies
containing more than 140,000 fuel pins currently in the spent fuel
pool," plant officials wrote in a report to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). 

Workers are searching pertinent records to determine the fate of the
missing fuel pins. But they reassured the NRC that the fuel pins could
not be posing a health or environmental risk. "Due to the radiation
levels of the fuel pins, if they were removed from the spent fuel pool,
the use of a shielded cask would have been required and the
shipment could have only been made to a licensed facility," plant
officials told the NRC. "Any other movement of these pins from the
site would have been immediately detected by the site radiation
monitoring system. Therefore, there is a high degree of confidence
that these pins are not in an unrestricted area and are under the
control of a licensed facility; either here in the spent fuel pool or
possibly at a licensed radioactive waste disposal site. As a result, we
are also confident that no overexposure of workers or members of the
public has resulted." An independent team is helping with an onsite
investigation to determine the location of the two fuel pins. 
-- 
.....................................................
Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee
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