A building that handles high explosives at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, briefly shut down earlier this month after a worker’s dosimeter showed up with an unusually high dose — after it was “inadvertently lost” in the facility by its wearer, a spokesperson for the plant said Tuesday.
“It is believed that the employee’s dosimeter had been misplaced in the facility, leading to the abnormally high dose,” the Pantex spokesperson wrote in an email to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. “Plant officials do not believe the employee was exposed to the high radiation dose.”
Since Pantex got word of the high dose, the employee has been cleared to return to work in radiological areas and work has resumed at the site’s Building 11-50. Pantex has had no on-site dosimetry processing since September, when it outsourced the work to the Y-12 National Security Complex.
It was not clear exactly how large a dose the employee’s dosimeter showed. The dose did exceed levels allowed by federal regulations and DOE’s order on radiation protection of the public and the environment, and the Pantex spokesperson called it “abnormally high.”
Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Pantex and Y-12 contractor until OCt. 1, is investigating the incident and “will identify corrective and improvement actions to prevent recurrence and improve overall performance,” the spokesperson said Tuesday.
