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Safety Culture:"At this time, we plan to pay the fine and move on to implement our correctiveaction"
Company fined $15,000 for uranium oxide mistake
Linda Ashton; The Associated Press
YAKIMA - Framatome ANP Inc. will pay a $15,000
civil penalty imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday for
violating safety rules designed to prevent uncontrolled nuclear reactions.
The NRC levied the fine in response to an April
incident at the company's Richland plant, which makes fuel assemblies for
commercial nuclear reactors.
In that case, an employee poured radioactive
uranium oxide powder into a 45-gallon barrel that was missing a safety barrier
to prevent a criticality, an uncontrolled nuclear reaction with bursts of
potentially fatal radiation.
No radiation accident occurred as a result of
the mistake, which was reported by the employee.
"At this time, we plan to pay the fine and move on
to implement our corrective action," said Chris Powers, director of quality
assurance for Framatome. "We don't intend to challenge the imposition of the
civil penalty."
The standard industry practice is to have two or
three barriers in place to prevent a criticality from occurring.
Barriers can take a variety of forms. Some are
chemical, such as the removal of all moisture from the material in use, or the
addition of an element that would prevent a nuclear reaction. A barrier can also
be physical, such as a wall that would keep materials separate, or a container
that keeps them a specified distance apart.
The idea is that even if one barrier fails, the
others would prevent a criticality.
In this case, there was one barrier: The
uranium oxide was in a dry, powder form. But a second one, an assembly
containing boron, which absorbs neutrons to prevent a criticality, was
missing.
The NRC has ordered a number of safety changes,
or corrective actions, which are being phased in at the 650-worker
plant.
Framatome will improve training and testing for
operators, while working to make instructions and rules simpler and easier to
understand, Powers said.
(Published 12:30AM, August 31st, 2002)
Jose Julio Rozental
Israel