Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
10/2/2015
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced last Friday it is inspecting BWX Technologies’ (BWXT) Lynchburg, Va., fuel facility following the discovery of a criticality safety incident. The NRC is investigating “the circumstances surrounding the discovery that workers may have exceeded controls for criticality safety in a production line glovebox,” the announcement says. The safety controls are meant to limit the amount of radioactive material in glove boxes “to prevent a criticality, which can occur when uranium accumulates in sufficient quantity and shape to initiate a chain reaction,” the NRC said, noting that “there were no safety related consequences” following the incident but that the process in question “remains shut down.”
BWXT spokeswoman Aimee Mills said in a statement that the incident did not threaten the safety of facility workers or the public and that “BWXT self-reported this matter to the NRC in a timely manner following a review of activity logs on a project for a commercial customer.” She added that the company is “developing a number of corrective actions” and “will review the results of the NRC’s inspection for any additional improvements that need to be taken.” The NRC said the special inspection of the circumstances surrounding the event and subsequent corrective actions will likely “take at least a week.” Findings will be released in a report within 30 days of completion.
