Three workers at a Westinghouse plant in South Carolina were briefly hospitalized last week after reporting an “unusual taste in their mouths” while handling equipment contaminated with hydrofluoric acid.
The incident occurred Oct. 14 at the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility, according to an Oct. 16 event notification report submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). There was no radioactive material involved, and no impact to workers or the environment was discovered.
“The area around the equipment was monitored for airborne concentration levels of HF with no readings approaching any safety limits in the immediate or adjoining areas,” Westinghouse said in its report to the NRC. “Access to the area is controlled, and the equipment remains shutdown pending completion of maintenance activities and appropriate testing before return to operation.”
Westinghouse did not immediately respond to questions on the incident, including where on-site the event occurred, if other workers were involved, and how hydrofluoric acid is used at the plant. Westinghouse told the NRC that the employees were conducting work that is not done on a routine basis, according to agency spokesman Roger Hannah. He could not elaborate on the nature of the work or provide further details about the incident.
“The vented tank adjacent to the work contained a higher concentration of HF than usual due to the preparation activities for this non-routine maintenance,” Hannah wrote in an email on Wednesday. “All employees were released from the hospital within 24 hours with no work restrictions. There were no health or safety consequences to the public or the environment.”
One worker did receive additional treatment, separate from the other two, but it is unclear what that involved.
The NRC is investigating the event, which also required Westinghouse to file a report with the South Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
This is the latest of multiple safety-related incidents this year at the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility, a 550,000-square-foot plant in Hopkins, S.C., about 15 miles southeast of Columbia. The facility has been producing nuclear fuel for power plants since 1969.
On May 12, workers discovered that rainwater leaked through the roof of a carrier and into a drum filled with uranium that was inside, causing a trace amount of uranium inside the drum to also leak out. On July 12, a drum filled with mop heads and other radioactively contaminated “wet recoverable material” had just been sent to a storage facility when a chemical reaction caused it to briefly ignite and the drum lid to pop off. There were no injuries or contaminations in either incident.
The NRC also investigated these events. The agency is expected to close out its investigation of the July incident later this month, and has not provided any details on what it might conclude or actions that it might take.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) took up the carrier incident, since it is regarded as an environmental issue rather than a regulatory matter. Spokeswoman Laura Renwick said the state agency found no irregular levels of contamination from a soil sample taken after the leakage. The agency will continue taking routine soil samples to check for contamination, and is also investigating areas in the carriers where potential leaks could occur.
Westinghouse in 2014 applied for a 40-year renewal to the operations licenses for its Columbia facility. The current license expires Sept. 30, 2027. A public hearing on the application is scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Medallion Conference Center in Columbia, S.C.
Last year, the NRC issued a formal finding that license renewal would have no significant impact on the environment. However, subsequent incidents – including a July 2018 uranium leak from a site building into the subsurface and a December 2018 discovery that uranium levels in the groundwater were above drinking standards – prompted the federal agency to withdraw its environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact (FONSI).
The NRC has issued a new draft environmental assessment that “reassesses the potential impacts on land use, geology and soils, water resources, historic and cultural resources, socioeconomics, environmental justice, waste management, air quality, noise and visual resources, public and occupational health, transportation, and aquatic and terrestrial species.”
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control also had concerns over issues at the Columbia facility, which led to the agency inking a consent agreement with the company. Signed in February, the agreement requires Westinghouse to take a more active role in testing uranium and contamination levels at the facility.
In addition, Westinghouse has increased its contamination monitoring efforts by adding new monitoring wells and increasing the number of locations to retrieve soil and groundwater samples. The NRC added two licensing conditions: the company must enter elevated ground and surface water results into its corrective action program; and Westinghouse must submit its environmental monitoring and sampling program to the NRC for review and approval.
The submission must come within five years of license renewal, or after DHEC has approved Westinghouse’s remedial investigation report.
