NRC Investigating Uranium Hexafluoride Leak at Honeywell Plant

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Monday said it has initiated a special inspection of a uranium hexafluoride leak reported Saturday at the Honeywell Metropolis Works in Illinois. “This special inspection will analyze all details of this incident,” said Victor McCree, the NRC’s Region II administrator, in a press release. “While no workers were affected and there was no offsite release, any release of uranium hexafluoride is a potentially serious event.” An Alert, which the NRC said “is the lower of the NRC’s two emergency classification levels for fuel facilities,” was declared at 5:55 p.m. CDT Saturday following discovery that a valve put in place during maintenance work was leaking. Personnel stopped the leaking at 7:48 p.m. There were no injuries and no material escaped the facility. 

 

“The special inspection will look at the sequence of events leading up to the release, verify that the company followed its procedures for mitigating the release and notifying local and state agencies, verify the initial information indicating that the material remained within the plant boundary, and assess the performance of the plant’s detection and sampling systems,” according to the press release. “The NRC inspectors will also review any corrective actions the company has taken or is planning to take.” The NRC probe is likely to take no less than seven days, and findings are to be released within 45 days of the investigation’s completion.