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Reference, Questions and Help => Nuke Q&A => Lessons Learned => Topic started by: jjordan on Jan 24, 2007, 08:41

Title: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 24, 2007, 08:41
Inquiring minds at BNP are wondering if any commercial facilities in the US still permit CA entries in just booties and gloves? If you know of a plant, could you enlighten me on any restrictions: ie contamination levels or limits, no climbing, kneeling,or inspections only. If possible, could you also provide a point of contact.
Thanks,
JJ 8)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: shayne on Jan 24, 2007, 09:17
I remember doing a few entries into spaces with booties/gloves and lab coat.  Generally it was the type of entry where I was just walking into a space to look at something from the ground and leave... I don't remember what the contamination levels were, I imagine they were barely dirty with such little protection.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Brett LaVigne on Jan 24, 2007, 10:10
At DC Cook there is a allowance for Operators to walk through a CA at the entrance of lower containment with booties and gloves because of an isolated clean area on the other side, they take a clean pair with them for the trip back in a bag.  I don't know about any other areas where that would be allowed at that facility.

Also a similar situation with SONGS and the security force there.  There is a post just inside the step off pad to containment that is a clean room.  They do it like the example at Cook above.  I do know that there is an allowance at SONGS for lab coat, booties and gloves for certain situations but not just booties and gloves.  More and more I hear that plants have gone away from the practice.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 24, 2007, 10:43
Ok, Thanks Bat Man and Shayne. I'm most interested in just booties and glove, no lab coat. We have areas posted CA, that you could roll around on the floor and not get contaminated. Full dress is a pain, espeacially if you are just "looking"!
JJ ;)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: vikingfan on Jan 24, 2007, 11:02
I know some of the cleaner plants such as v.c summers allows workers to enter containment in booties and gloves for a lot of the general work. full pc's were required for entry into the cavity, and anything inside the bio wall.I don't recall off hand the exact contamination levels but i believe at summers the general area contam levels were about < 10K.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: justme on Jan 24, 2007, 11:33
Some places allow booties and gloves if you are not going to climb, knee or crawl over pipes and equipment. But you must not be wearing street clothes.  One must be in scribs to do this.  No clothing reimbursements.  Needless to say most end up wearing pc's. 
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Roll Tide on Jan 24, 2007, 12:27
Sequoyah allows booties and gloves through a traverse path to Upper Ice (inside containment) as long as you are wearing long-sleeved scrubs.

Most TVAN general RWPs now make the same allowances for OPS that they had previously reserved for RP Techs. Gloves and booties are sometimes the designated dressout for OPS and RP (even with the NRC Resident watching), but not usually for other crafts.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Dustball on Jan 24, 2007, 01:48
We use booties and gloves.
Any CA for inspection purposes.
No climbing, crawling, tight spaces.
RP's use booties and gloves for routines, surveys, etc.

We've recently had some issues where maintenance workers were working in booties and gloves.  We changed so all work in a contaminated area has to be done in a full suit up.  Prior to that we did allow some minor work in booties and gloves.

We still allow contaminated work in rubber gloves reaching across boundaries.  I&C uses this a lot on instrument racks that are potential contaminated internally.  They are also allowed, per RWP, to reach across C/A's in gloves and do work on contaminated systems.  We allow this on an as needed basis for maintenance.  Pop quite a few valves open with just gloves until we establish conditions.  Is this crazy?  We have a decent database of past  levels of many components.  We routinely verify past radiological conditions prior to entering.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Dustball on Jan 24, 2007, 02:52
Ok, Thanks Bat Man and Shayne. I'm most interested in just booties and glove, no lab coat. We have areas posted CA, that you could roll around on the floor and not get contaminated. Full dress is a pain, espeacially if you are just "looking"!
JJ ;)


We worked hard at deposting our plant's CA's.  We are now less than 7% C/A.  For a BWR that's pretty good.  If you can roll around and not get contaminated, can you release from a CA?  Sometimes it's a mindset to get over.  We still have workers wondering if areas are "really" clean.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 24, 2007, 04:27
justme, which plants? Dustball what plant do you work at? How do you work the Turbine during outages?
JJ :-\
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: SloGlo on Jan 24, 2007, 07:39
Ok, Thanks Bat Man and Shayne. I'm most interested in just booties and glove, no lab coat. We have areas posted CA, that you could roll around on the floor and not get contaminated. Full dress is a pain, espeacially if you are just "looking"!
JJ ;)

sumbuddy gotta axe dis.... why are areas posted c.a. without enuff contamination to git crapped up?  iffen ya gots components that are crapped up, post them 'n leaf da floor posted clean.  doy!
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 24, 2007, 09:57
SloGlo,
Our biggest area is the Turbine. we are a BWR. During an outage we do lots of breeches and it's slighty contaminated. But with the amount of floor space lack of HP's it's easier to leave large areas posted CA. We do release  a lot but some stays in the CA.
JJ :P
Don't kill the messanger, I was asked to find out who still did it, and how they justified it with INPO  and ANI.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: mattrev on Jan 25, 2007, 05:12
SloGlo,
Our biggest area is the Turbine. we are a BWR. During an outage we do lots of breeches and it's slighty contaminated. But with the amount of floor space lack of HP's it's easier to leave large areas posted CA. We do release  a lot but some stays in the CA.
JJ :P
Don't kill the messanger, I was asked to find out who still did it, and how they justified it with INPO  and ANI.

That's your problem. You gotta' get that cleaned up. Our turbine area (early model BWR) is all clean. Anybody can walk all around the hoods with no PC's. Any HRA's are roped off.

I would suggest looking into who has the lowest %CA of the BWR's and make a road trip. Go see what they do.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Melrose on Jan 25, 2007, 06:46
Inquiring minds at BNP are wondering if any commercial facilities in the US still permit CA entries in just booties and gloves? If you know of a plant, could you enlighten me on any restrictions: ie contamination levels or limits, no climbing, kneeling,or inspections only. If possible, could you also provide a point of contact.
Thanks,
JJ 8)

Entering a CA in just booties and gloves is a novel idea, imagine the cost savings of not laundering.  A quick rinse before exiting the RCA and you're good to go.
May help in the heat stress areas also.  I wonder what the stay time would be, factoring heavy work and just booties and gloves.  Climbing over those hot pipes is gonna be a bitch.   :'(
I reckon the only drawback is the sites seen inside the CA while everyone's running around donned in just booties and gloves.   :o
Scenes probably better left to their loved ones and mothers.
 ;D
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: SloGlo on Jan 26, 2007, 02:12
Scenes probably better left to their loved ones and mothers.
 ;D

amen!  roflmao!  mercy.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 27, 2007, 10:12
Melrose your killing me! I just got back from Vegas, and Dangerfield is dead! There's an opening! Everyone wants to be a comedian. No Respect, No respect at all!! SloGlo hesh up! Yew aynt bin tue a kumershal syte sinz racters waz maid frum would!!! RangerRoy and Dustball, you ever consider a carreer in politics? You responded to the question, but never aswered it. Then you blamed poor old JJ for all of the contaminated sqaure footage.Ok I accept it. It's all my fault. I'm going to change things here. I'm going to clean it up this outage. :P But I want to do it in booties and gloves. Now where did you say you worked! Summer doesn't do it and neither does Seqouya. We checked. But thanks for the leads! Any where else folks? I've just got to know!
Thanks Again,
JJ 8)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: illegalsmile on Jan 28, 2007, 08:38
it's a common practice at a some (if not all) of the Exelon plants to allow B&G w/ Scrubs for 'inspection only' in low C areas....say <10k avg
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 28, 2007, 09:33
it's a common practice at a some (if not all) of the Exelon plants to allow B&G w/ Scrubs for 'inspection only' in low C areas....say <10k avg
Thank You,
This will help. I will check it out :D
JJ
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: JessJen on Jan 29, 2007, 03:08
Ok, Thanks Bat Man and Shayne. I'm most interested in just booties and glove, no lab coat. We have areas posted CA, that you could roll around on the floor and not get contaminated. Full dress is a pain, espeacially if you are just "looking"!
JJ ;)

I dont believe it JJ ;)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: hml on Jan 29, 2007, 01:44
Nine Mile also uses booties and gloves for inspections and observations under the following conditions: 400-25,000 dpm/100cm2, dry work only, and no climbing, kneeling, or sitting. For the most part this dressout is used for supervisor walkdowns or to check on crews, RP surveys, OPS walkdowns or to hang clearances or security walk throughs. Usually if the activity involves "work" then it goes to a single set.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Melrose on Jan 30, 2007, 08:00
Are we talking 'boobies and gloves' while wearing civies or while wearing scrubs?  ;)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Roll Tide on Jan 30, 2007, 10:54
Booties and gloves while wearing "utility provided clothing". OPS clothing is acceptable, personal scrubs should not be.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 30, 2007, 08:31
Company issued scrubs, booties and gloves with no lab coat. Mainly for ops and HP, but inpections and walkdowns also.
Thanks,
JJ ;D
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Dustball on Jan 30, 2007, 10:36
Nine Mile also uses booties and gloves for inspections and observations under the following conditions: 400-25,000 dpm/100cm2, dry work only, and no climbing, kneeling, or sitting. For the most part this dressout is used for supervisor walkdowns or to check on crews, RP surveys, OPS walkdowns or to hang clearances or security walk throughs. Usually if the activity involves "work" then it goes to a single set.

Sorry JJ, I don't check nukeworker out on a daily basis, so I haven't replied earlier.  Not too political savy here.  More of a straight shooter.  Plant is Monticello.

Nine Mile has real similar rules/guidelines to ours.  No "WORK" in B&G.  We've recently gone overboard on percons attention.  ANYTHING >100ncpm is considered a percon ~ even on scrubs, shoes, etc.  We don't require scrubs or anything special when wearing B&G.  Street clothes are fine.   During the outage we try to minimize our postings on the TB Floor.  We post turbine internals C/A when we pull the hoods off. The majority of our Condenser room is clean right now.  We keep it that way during the outage.  Under the water boxes is posted C/A. We do post around stop/control valves when entering them of course.   Our C/A limit is <1000dpm/100cm2.  But we attempt to control alara.  Turbine would be tough.  I've been in the drywell several times in booties and gloves.  Some posters here seem scared of allowing people in B&G.  I guess it depends on your average contamination levels.  Most of our CA's are <5k dpm general area.  Again, popping valves open and working them under the control of RP has been allowed with rubber gloves too.  Typically under 10k and smaller valves, but no hard and fast rules.

I was at Crystal River in the 90's.  I seen Big Al McClosky (sp) down in the cavity with shorts on (yes shorts!) booties and gloves and a labcoat.  As an RP you could go where no man has gone before.  BUT, if you got crapped up you had hell to pay.  If anyone remembers... a tort is a tort is a tort.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Dustball on Jan 30, 2007, 10:45
Melrose your killing me! I just got back from Vegas, and Dangerfield is dead! There's an opening! Everyone wants to be a comedian. No Respect, No respect at all!! SloGlo hesh up! Yew aynt bin tue a kumershal syte sinz racters waz maid frum would!!! RangerRoy and Dustball, you ever consider a carreer in politics? You responded to the question, but never aswered it. Then you blamed poor old JJ for all of the contaminated sqaure footage.Ok I accept it. It's all my fault. I'm going to change things here. I'm going to clean it up this outage. :P But I want to do it in booties and gloves. Now where did you say you worked! Summer doesn't do it and neither does Seqouya. We checked. But thanks for the leads! Any where else folks? I've just got to know!
Thanks Again,
JJ 8)

You ask for help, but come out swinging?!?!  :-\  Nice.   
You sound like a typical beat down house mouse! :'(
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: justme on Jan 31, 2007, 08:47
Sorry I didn't get back sooner, JJ.   I was referring to Nine Mile and Diablo.  Diablo allows some bootie and glove stuff, mainly inspections and minor rp stuff.  But now that they went to Orex for everything (even most generator work), most just wear the orex.  Contaminations have gone down and it is more comfortable for workers.  Also, no contaminations from rewashed PCs.  They only wash the rubber gloves and boots.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: UncaBuffalo on Jan 31, 2007, 02:50
Are we talking 'boobies and gloves' while wearing civies or while wearing scrubs?  ;)

Haven't seen 'boobies & gloves' since just before WPPSS decided it was time to mandate modesty garments!  ;)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Jan 31, 2007, 06:36
You ask for help, but come out swinging?!?!  :-\  Nice.   
You sound like a typical beat down house mouse! :'(
Thanks Dustball, I wasn't swinging, was asking again. Tried to be funny, no offense! Thanks for the info.. Been to Nine Mile, have some friends there, will ask them how they pull it off. I think Bob Hite is RPM at Diablo, will ask him also. Been to CR3 as a shared resource, wouldn't go into their cavity in singles now! Good plant, but way contaminated.
Thanks,
JJ
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: oldodge52 on Feb 04, 2007, 01:27
JJ,
If I remember right, at Calvert we can go into a contaminated area (<10K, I believe), in booties, gloves and scrubs provided that the scrubs have long sleeves. This was really popular for deconning wide open areas where we wouldn't be rubbin' up on any equipment, like the SOP after the outage. And for pulling trash and laundry. Most engineers and operators don't have a good stock pile of long sleeved scrubs, though... might want to throw them in doubles and a respirator just cuz you can. just kiddin' ;D
Hey! Aren't you ready for that outage yet?
t.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 04, 2007, 08:34
thanks oldoge52,
we don't shut down until March 3rd. Still a little time. We have plenty of long sleeved scrubs. I'll check out CC, been a while since I've been there, but I still think I have a few friends there!
JJ
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: ageoldtech on Feb 05, 2007, 04:37
Comanche Peak does most of thier O/S biowall power entries in the old booties and gloves. No one goes inside the biowall at power, too many neutrons.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Mike McFarlin on Feb 05, 2007, 06:19
Hey Bone, are you volunteering?
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: ageoldtech on Feb 07, 2007, 12:44
I went in last tuesday wearing them, Where were you Mike?
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: South_African on Feb 08, 2007, 02:38
I had the same question as you JJ and it seems that everyone has a different policy. Some allow it and some don't. But have a look at this website:

www.nppd.com/About_Us/Energy_Facilities/facilities/gen001-01-11.pdf

I think its page 15 - where they stipulate the requirements for entering a CA in modesties. Although they don't say it - I presume it also includes booties and gloves.

Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 08, 2007, 09:54
South African,
That is most helpfull! Do you work in the US? We are looking for an inturperator so we can understand what Geoffrey Brewer has been saying to us for the past 15 years! ;D
Thanks,
JJ
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: South_African on Feb 09, 2007, 12:10
I wish I did work in the States!! But unfortunately I don't, but I have been able to visit one of the nuclear power plants (twice) and see how they do things. And its not that much different to the way way we do things.

We used to follow a similar approach as mentioned in that document, but now require a full PC's every time we enter a CA. That means that there is one occasion after doing a survey, where we have to get dressed into a full set of PC's simply to walk about 4 meters to change the radiological signposting! And in that case the approach of booties and gloves would be more sensible, especially since the contam levels are low.

We are now looking at following the approach as mentioned in that document.

Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Limited Quanity on Feb 18, 2007, 05:14
Hey JJ.  Watts Bar uses booties and gloves for anything <10k as long as there is no crawling, kneeling, or climbing.  RP, Ops, maint., eng., doesn't matter.  Every routine CA rwp is written that way.  Anything >10k or doing either the three mentioned requires fulls.  Hope it helps.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Melrose on Feb 18, 2007, 09:47
Hey JJ.  Watts Bar uses booties and gloves for anything <10k as long as there is no crawling, kneeling, or climbing.  RP, Ops, maint., eng., doesn't matter.  Every routine CA rwp is written that way.  Anything >10k or doing either the three mentioned requires fulls.  Hope it helps.

Booties and gloves over ....scrubs..., not civies.  Ops wear their own company supplied clothing.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 18, 2007, 10:31
Hey JJ.  Watts Bar uses booties and gloves for anything <10k as long as there is no crawling, kneeling, or climbing.  RP, Ops, maint., eng., doesn't matter.  Every routine CA rwp is written that way.  Anything >10k or doing either the three mentioned requires fulls.  Hope it helps.
That does thanks. Don't all TVA plants go by the same rules? I was told that Seqouya didn't do booties and gloves anymore. But if you do at Watts bar, this will help, maybe. It's David against Goliath again. Why do i keep doing this???
JJ
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 18, 2007, 10:48
Booties and gloves over ....scrubs..., not civies.  Ops wear their own company supplied clothing.
We use company issued scrub here for everyone. This is part of the issue. initially BNP used scubs for low level PC's, and modesty garments at the same time. I protested, but as usual, was overruled. Now we currently don't allow Booties and Gloves anymore. We use the scrubs to expedite exit from the RCA, due to SLIGHT issues of offgass. If you alarm, you can frisk <100 cpm, and determine that it would be offgas (no CA entries, and marked decay) you change scrubs, pass the portals, and on your merry way. I've been told by my management that the Booties and Gloves issue was not allowed due to issues with ANI, and that nobody does it anymore. Sounds like someone is mistaken, or their are a lot of plants in jepardy of loosing their insurance. I think they just don't want to do the work to justify the use of booties and gloves. So i'll do it for them, take my whipping like a man. Make BNP a better more freindly place to work. It's hot in the PC's and creates a lot of unneccessary Rad Waste. Orex aint cheap either. (NYSE Ticker MTMD, $4.71/ share) I've made better than 30%. If you can't beat em, profit from them!!!!
JJ 8)
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: Limited Quanity on Feb 18, 2007, 11:53
Booties and gloves over ....scrubs..., not civies.  Ops wear their own company supplied clothing.

That's correct.  I didn't mean to imply that we let anybody willie nillie walk right into a CA with their personal clothing.  I meant to imply that yes we do have a policy for the provision of a dressout with "booties and gloves". 

The plant doesn't hand out cloth scrubs to everybody anymore.  Your section has to buy them from Frahm or out of power stores for you if available.  I usually get mine from Browns Ferry or Sequoyah when we are resource sharing during outages, it's easier than here.  We used disposable scrubs more this time and used Orex for the first time.

Yeah, all three TVA sites are different.  Fixing to all go through some major stuff with the Goodnight study.  We call it the Goodbye study.   ANI inspectors are here this week and I'll let you know if they have a issue with our dressout.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 19, 2007, 05:48
Limited quantity, Thanks, You've been most helpfull!
JJ ;D
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: flamatrix99 on Feb 19, 2007, 07:57
My last plant we (operations) could go into a CA in booties, gloves and a labcoat (over our street clothes) provided we were not going to be rubbing up against piping/equipment and the contamination levels were low enough.  At the new plant they do not have labcoats but everyone wears scrubs, booties and gloves.
Title: Re: Booties and Gloves
Post by: jjordan on Feb 19, 2007, 01:58
My last plant we (operations) could go into a CA in booties, gloves and a labcoat (over our street clothes) provided we were not going to be rubbing up against piping/equipment and the contamination levels were low enough.  At the new plant they do not have labcoats but everyone wears scrubs, booties and gloves.
Which plants are we refering to?
Thanks,
Jj