nuclear-news

Workers dropped bundles of uranium

2 SRS workers fired over dropping uranium

AugustaChronicle.com By Rob Pavey | Staff Writer

Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009 Savannah River Site officials have taken corrective actions — and fired two workers — after two incidents in H Canyon in which bundles of highly enriched uranium were dropped by a crane. According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report — dated Aug. 21 and made public Thursday — the incidents “had potential criticality safety implications” and halted reprocessing operations for a week.

A criticality accident is one in which a chain reaction occurs, said Charles Nickell, the site’s nuclear materials disposition manager. “It is something we definitely don’t want to happen.”

The H Canyon area is where highly enriched uranium is loaded by cranes into vats of acid, called “dissolvers,” that help purify and convert the material from solid to a liquid form. The liquid is later blended with natural uranium to create low-enriched uranium and shipped off-site for use in the manufacture of fuel rods for commercial reactors.

On Aug. 3 — and again a week later — 200-pound bundles of highly enriched uranium fell from the crane and dropped about 15 feet into the dissolvers. It was later determined that a third bundle had become tangled but did not disengage and fall.

“The event had potential criticality safety implications because a damaged insert could allow undissolved fuel to drop to the bottom of the dissolver,” the board’s report said, adding that the failure of employees to properly report the problem compounded its significance. …….. http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/latest/lat_702040.shtml?v=1618

September 25, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium