More on St Lucie incident

[Norman Cohen <ncohen12@comcast.net>]

Workers exposed in reactor incident



                   By Deborah Circelli, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

                   Saturday, October 12, 2002



                   HUTCHINSON ISLAND -- Federal officials are reviewing

an

                   "unexpected" incident Sunday at the St. Lucie Nuclear

Plant in which 28

                   workers were exposed to radiation.



                   Employees of Florida Power & Light Co. and outside

contractors inhaled

                   radioactive particles during maintenance and

refueling of Unit One at the

                   two-unit plant on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie

County, FPL said.



                   "The dose is expected to be kept as low as reasonably

achievable, and in

                   this incident we're not sure that's what occurred,"

said Len Wert, an

                   Atlanta-based branch chief for the U.S. Nuclear

Regulatory Commission

                   who supervises NRC inspectors at Florida's nuclear

plants.



                   Two workers were pressure-cleaning beneath the top

part of the reactor --

                   known as the reactor vessel head -- when radioactive

particles were

                   released into the air, FPL said. The reactor houses

the nuclear fuel.



                   The utility said it expected some contamination to be

released, which is why

                   the two workers, who were located on the lowest level

of the containment

                   building, were wearing protective respiratory

equipment.



                   But FPL officials said they did not expect the

radioactive particles to travel

                   upward 62 feet to where other employees, who were not

wearing

                   protective gear, were working in the building, which

is 230 feet tall.



                   Sunday marked the first time at the St. Lucie Nuclear

Plant that the vessel

                   head was pressured-cleaned before it was tested for

cracks. In August, the

                   NRC ordered 69 of the nation's 103 nuclear reactor

facilities to test certain

                   reactor heads after inspections revealed corrosion

and cracks at two plants

                   in South Carolina and Ohio last year and this year.



                   The two workers who were pressure-cleaning were not

exposed.

                   Twenty-eight other workers inhaled what FPL called

"very low" levels of

                   radiation, in the 1- to 2-millirem range. Radiation

is measured in rems; the

                   annual exposure limit for nuclear workers, according

to the NRC, is 5 rems.

                   It takes 1,000 millirems to equal 1 rem.



                   "It is not unusual or unexpected to have some

exposure to the workers in

                   the containment building during every refueling

outage," said Rachel Scott,

                   FPL spokeswoman.



                   No one was injured or had any negative health impact,

Scott said.

                   Everyone on Earth is exposed to about 300 millirems

of radiation every

                   year from natural sources, she said.



                   But the NRC said the incident was "unexpected" and

"not desirable."

                   Commission officials did not know Friday whether any

similar incidents

                   have been reported at other plants.



                   "Anytime there is unexpected or unplanned exposure,

that is something that

                   piques our interest," said Roger Hannah, NRC

spokesman. "That is

                   something you don't want to see occur."



                   The NRC agrees preliminary findings show the exposure

was "well within"

                   the federal limits, but it tis still trying to

determine if FPL followed all federal

                   guidelines.



                   FPL is also investigating to see what measures can be

put in place to

                   prevent a similar problem when cleaning work is done

at Unit Two and the

                   Turkey Point plant near Homestead next year, Scott

said. FPL, a subsidiary

                   of Juno Beach-based FPL Group, operates the St. Lucie

and Turkey Point

                   plants.



                   Rick Curtis, a worker at the plant and president of

the local International

                   Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, has been

approached by several

                   employees who were worried about exposure. He said he

is trying to gather

                   information from management to ease employee

concerns.



                   "I'm not aware of what the errors were or how

significant the

                   contaminations were," Curtis said.



                   deborah_circelli@pbpost.com

























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