Re: Drill Scenario - Trojan Incident

[James Willison <BBRE263@barms036.b-r.com>]

>Two workers were killed during a refueling outage at the Trojan nuclear 
plant
>many years ago.   They were inside the containment near the fuel transfer 
tube
>where spent fuel is moved from the refueling cavity to the spent fuel pool. 
 I
>wonder about the validity of your calculations.   Ernie

The incident occured during Trojan's first refueling in 1978, and involved 
three people, not two.  The three were in an unbarricaded and unlabeled maze 
that provided access to the fuel transfer tube in the lower level of 
containment.  The three recieved assigned doses of 27, 23, and 17 rem.  NONE 
of the three died as a result of this incident, and two of the three 
continued in their jobs at Trojan until the plant shut down.  The third 
person left the utility a few years later for another job, but was in good 
health.

The overconservatism described in the drill scenario serves no useful 
purpose.  By instantly killing off the station personnel with some new death 
ray (because it obviously wasn't the fuel assembly), the scenario planners 
might as well include an evil alien spaceship in their next scenario.  It 
would have just as much credibility.

I can't help but wonder if the story about the drill scenario has been blown 
out of proportion as much as the "deaths" at Trojan.

Jim Willison, CHP, PE
Former Trojan Health Physicist