Re: nrc rule 20.2205 (proposed)

[bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Bob Flood)]

>For a paranoid licensee with past experience with agressive
>inspection practices, this rule is a classic "catch-22".  If you
>have not reported every small, trivial event and have not
>conducted a full investigation complete with documentation of
>such events to demonstate that you can prove the negative, i.e.,
>that they were not 'intentional', you can be cited by that
>inspector.

I not only agree, but ccn see where this issue can be taken much further
with much more serious consequences. Lawyers have been arguing with each
other in radiation injury litigation over what constitutes the "standard of
care" that must be shown in any lawsuit for compensation. Then the plantiff
must show that the defendant breached this standard of care. The new rule
becomes part of the standard of care, and failure to investigate and report
to the NRC becomes evidence of a failure to meet the standard of care. Each
licensee becomes obligated to investigate/report each event to protect
itself in court. Clearly, the wording has to be carefully considered by the
NRC. Perhaps the regulation should require reporting if there is evidence
that the exposure was intentional or if the cause of the event cannot be
determined within some timeframe, e.g., 30 days. This would permit normal
evaluation of relatively commonplace events to be handled by standard
in-house event analysis practices such as personnel contamination reports, etc.
Bob Flood
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.
(415) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu