NMC UPDATE
Prairie Island addresses containment issue
May 10, 2006
Prairie Island has been in the news this week because of an incident that occurred last week at the plant. Unit 1 is in the midst of a refueling outage.
As workers were preparing on May 2 for planned work on the Unit 1 steam generators, an inadvertent release of airborne radioactive contaminants into the containment building prompted a halt to work and workers exited the building. Approximately 110 workers in the containment building at the time were exposed to very low doses of radiation; none was contaminated. There was no release outside the building.
NMC officials said plant operators had anticipated higher levels of radiation as a result of a small fuel failure and had prepared to mitigate with filters and ventilation. The mitigation, however, was not as effective as it should have been. As a result, once elevated levels of radiation were detected in the containment building, work was stopped and every precaution was taken to safeguard the workers.
As noted, average worker exposure levels were low—between 0 and 15 millirem. The highest was 25 millirem. For comparison, an X-ray is about 10 millirem; a mammogram is about 30.
Workers in the containment area wear protective clothing as part of routine protective safety requirements. Following the increase in radiation levels, workers removed their protective clothing per routine procedure when they left containment, and they then were monitored.
Follow up monitoring was scheduled as appropriate and the workers were released to go home. The issue was corrected and work was resumed within 12 hours.
A report about the incident from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) resident inspector at Prairie Island was posted Monday (May eighth) on the NRC’s Web site, and it resulted in substantial coverage by the news media. NMC officials say they did not publicize the event earlier because it posed no danger to the public.
Sounds like a routine Outage, hardly fits the term "'incident". Everytime a valve is breached there's a chance of release of airborne contaminants.
Workers evacuated due to bad air? Not stated....but did CTMT monitors alarm? If so, then what kind? Rad or Contam.
110 workers in CTMT were exposed to low levels of radiation.... let's see, this is a PWR, low levels sounds normal. If they were in CTMT then they would certainly be exposed to radiation, where's the news?
How did OPs plan to mitigate higher levels of radiation with filters and ventilation? Odd.....
Again, are they talking radiation or contamination?
0-15mRem per dive seems about normal outage work in CTMT. the highest was 25mRem....WOW...talk about "burn 'em and turn 'em".
Now, really.. sounds like someone reporting the news has no clue what he/she is saying.
If workers actually picked up in excess of 30mRem exposure due to airborne contaminants that would mean that their CTMT was ~12DAC. Hmmm
I suspect that this is prob the case considering the continued monitoring.
Plant news reps should really better explain situations in order to better educate the public/news. Maybe more clarity will occur after the mud settles.