Workers at Westinghouse Electric’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF) in South Carolina violated federal safety codes in September when they shipped contaminated barrels of uranium hexafluoride to Washington state, adding to the growing list of safety issues that have plagued the plant in recent years.
The incident resulted in a Level IV violation from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), reflecting a minor error that caused no injuries or contamination to workers. The industry regulator did not fine or otherwise penalize the company.
Still, the violation will hold some indirect weight in the NRC’s decision regarding Westinghouse’s pending license renewal for its facility, an agency spokesperson said via email.
During an NRC inspection of the plant from Sept. 23-26, officials confirmed that two of the 30 barrels that had been shipped to Washington had trace amounts of uranium on the valve covers that keep the containers closed. Details of the inspection were outlined in a Nov. 22 inspection report.
The containers left the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility on Sept. 10 and arrived two days later at a Framatome facility in Richland, Wa. Framatome, a France-based nuclear equipment and fuel supplier, would use the Westinghouse-produced uranium hexafluoride contained in the barrels for production of fuel for nuclear reactors.
Framatome employees noticed the cylinders were compromised and immediately decontaminated them before notifying the NRC. Subsequently, Westinghouse conducted an apparent cause analysis to determine how the cylinders left the South Carolina plant without being vetted for contamination. The company then submitted its findings to the NRC on Oct. 10.
“The inspectors reviewed the licensee’s apparent cause analysis and determined that the findings identified by the licensee were contributing factors of the licensee’s failure to perform adequate surveys on outgoing shipments of two 30B cylinders containing licensed material,” the NRC stated in the Nov. 22 inspection report.
Westinghouse violated the Code of Federal Regulations by failing to “evaluate the magnitude and extent of radiation levels, concentration, and the potential radiological hazards” of the cylinders,” according to the report. In response to the incident, Westinghouse initiated multiple corrective actions, including: suspending all outgoing shipments of cylinders; added surveying of valve covers to ensure there is no contamination; and establishing more strenuous procedures to examine cylinders before they are shipped.
The violation will remain open until the NRC’s next inspection at the Westinghouse plant. At that time, the agency will determine if Westinghouse’s corrective actions have been sufficient. The inspection has not yet been scheduled.
In the meantime, Westinghouse is still seeking a 40-year license renewal for the 550,000-square-foot plant in Hopkins, S.C., about 15 miles southeast of Columbia. The company has been producing nuclear fuel for power plants since 1969 and applied for the renewal in 2014. The current operations license expires on Sept. 30, 2027.
In a June 2018 environmental assessment, the NRC found that there would be no significant impact to the environment if Westinghouse received its license renewal. But subsequent events at the plant prompted the agency to rescind that decision.
Those include an equipment leak in July 2018 that resulted in uranium entering the subsurface of facility. Then, in December 2018, the NRC discovered that uranium levels in the groundwater below the plant were above drinking standards.
In May, Westinghouse workers found that rainwater had leaked through the roof of a carrier that was transporting a drum of uranium. The water then leaked into the drum inside the carrier, causing a trace amount of uranium inside the drum to also leak out. And on July 12, a drum filled with uranium had just been sent to a storage facility when a chemical reaction caused it to catch fire and the drum lid to pop off. There were no injuries or contaminations in either incident.
Last month, the NRC accepted public comments on its draft environmental assessment for the license renewal. Released in October, the assessment acknowledged these incidents at the plant, but still concluded that a license renewal would result in no significant impact. The NRC is currently reviewing the comments as it decides if it will renew the operating license.
There is no timetable for a decision. Agency spokesman Roger Hannah said incidents like the Washington state shipment don’t directly factor into a license renewal since that decision is based on Westinghouse’s ability to operate the facility.
