The U.S. Department of Energy spent $8.6 million during the last fiscal year on remediation of a cesium-137 spill at a hospital research facility in Seattle.
Remediation is ongoing at the Research and Training Building for the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, according to Al Stotts, a spokesman for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The agency contracted the work to Perma-Fix Environmental Services.
“The date when the building will return to full, normal operations is contingent on the work being done by the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors, as well as a review of the completed work by the Washington State Department of Health, which has ultimate authority to release the building for occupancy,” Stotts wrote in a Nov. 20 email. “We will not know the full and final cost of remediating the Research and Training Building until the operation is completed.”
Details of the cleanup operation were not immediately available from the NNSA. Perma-Fix, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
“PermaFix is still assessing what is necessary for proper remediation in the building,” Kristen Maki, a spokeswoman for the Washington state Health Department, said by email Thursday.
Fiscal 2019 ended on Sept. 30.
In May, International Isotopes, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was removing a blood irradiator from the facility under contract to the NNSA through the agency’s program to secure potentially dangerous radionuclides. Workers accidentally breached a cesium-137 capsule during the operation, dispersing contamination over seven floors of the building.
A DOE-established joint investigation board should issue its report on the cause of the incident by the end of the year, according to Stotts.
International Isotopes, a nuclear medicine company that specializes in radioactive source removal, said earlier this month it had incurred $2.1 million in expenses related to the event through the end of September. However, the company had also received $964,958 in insurance payments and anticipated receiving slightly more than that going forward.
The company has also requested full indemnification from the Department of Energy, according to a 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Stotts said the NNSA had no comment on that request.
