The prime contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee has been fined $120,000 for not getting proper approval before carrying out certain work at the long-retired molten site reactor experiment (MSRE) during 2017.
The Office of Enforcement within DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments outlined the penalty in a March 22 letter to URS CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) President Kenneth Rueter. Although there was no injury or environmental release associated with the improper operations, DOE still considers this a serious matter, according to the letter and accompanying consent order.
UCOR has agreed to carry out various corrective actions.
For example, within six months after issuance of the consent order, UCOR must complete an analysis of its nuclear and high hazard operations, with an eye toward improving communications with its front-line employees and the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
As part of its contract with Oak Ridge, UCOR carries out surveillance and maintenance of the MSRE facilities. But UCOR did some work to “confirm the location of boundary valves without proper work authorization or procedure,” according to DOE.
Great care should be taken for work at MSRE and its reactive gas removal system (RGRS), DOE said in the letter. UCOR operators failed to receive proper work authorization on Feb. 16, 2017, before carrying out the tasks in question.
The experimental reactor ran from June 1965 through December 1969 before being retired. The unit was designed to investigate feasibility of the molten salt reactor concept. After its retirement, DOE would later remove the reactor fuel from MSRE under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
If determined to be transuranic waste, the salts from the reactor could eventually be disposed of at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
UCOR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
