The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found BWX Technologies violated safety protocols in the runup to a fatal 2020 flash fire sparked by exposed wires and alcohol-soaked rags.
However, the commission will not fine the company, which has already paid a separate penalty to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an NRC spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor Monday.
“They are required to address the identified issues within their corrective action program and ensure all concerns are resolved,” the spokesperson said. “The NRC will conduct a routine follow-up on the violations later this year.”
On the morning of June 19, 2020, a BWX Technologies employee died in a flash fire in the company’s Lynchburg, Va., plant supercompactor facility. The fuel for the deadly fire, sparked by exposed wires, was 25 gallons of isopropyl alcohol squeezed from a pair of 55-gallon drums that the powerful compactor had crushed into small pucks for disposal.
Aside from the rags, each drum was allowed to contain a 100-gram limit of special nuclear material per drum. The NRC, which does not regulate non-radiological workplace hazards, found that approximately 25 gallons of alcohol spilled was potentially commingled with trace amounts of special nuclear material.
“BWXT did not implement the established fire protection program and work area spill response requirements to control the flammable liquid, nor did it minimize the amount of alcohol present in drums compacted for disposal,” the commission wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to BWXT Vice President and General Manager James Bittner. “In addition, the licensee did not control bare electrical wires, which created a source of ignition.”
BWXT had banned solvent-soaked rags from the supercompactor for years after a 2007 incident in which another drum containing isopropyl alcohol and metal filings ignited from the inside during compaction. In 2012, BWX Technologies allowed solvent-soaked rags back into the supercompactor, on the condition that workers ensured that no drum scheduled for compaction contained freestanding liquid.
In last week’s letter, NRC wrote that “BWXT performed an inadequate analysis for the restart of the supercompactor in 2012, which failed to properly identify the use of alcohol as a hazard.”
All of these lapses “challenged the safety margin for licensed material,” the NRC said.
