Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Nuclear Leak At Washington State Facility

Nuclear Leak At Washington State Facility

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Hanford Leak
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Event Reports #49524 and #45402 detail a leak at a nuclear facility in Richland, WA. The incident report states that the primary and secondary HEPA filters failed on November 8, 2013 at the AREVA uranium fuel fabrication facility in Richland, WA.
The leak involved Ammonium diuranate, also known as  yellow cake.  It is the chemical that America invaded Iraqi over as a weapon of mass destruction. The chemical has irreversible effects if met with skin contact, inhaled, or swallowed.
The report states,
“The K-32A HEPA filters were examined by air balance personnel at approximately 1045 PST on November 8, 2013 based on a request to follow-up on some stack monitoring results which indicated some elevated levels. Air flow was diverted to HEPA filters in a parallel upper housing in order to check the filters in the lower housing. Investigation showed apparent deterioration of both the primary and final HEPA filters.
“The processes running at the time served by these HEPAs were the ammonium diuranate process, miscellaneous uranium recovery process, and cylinder wash. Air monitor samples were pulled on the K-32A system. Air monitoring samples showed negligible release levels. A Health and Safety Technician survey of the downstream side of the final HEPA housing of K-32A revealed no surface contamination above ‘clean’ criteria.
The overriding question is why have these filters been allowed to deteriorate? Is this bad maintenance or is there some other problem causing a rapid deterioration of filters?  This isn’t the first incident at the facility with filter failure. A similar incident happened at this facility in 2009. It appears that the 2013 report is a copy of the 2009 report.
Corrective Action
This plant is located within 200 miles two major population centers: Portland and Seattle. It is also in a region that feeds into the westerly winds the travel across the United States.
So, it is acceptable for a French multinational to leak yellow cake on the American people? Inquiring minds are wondering if this was an American company, would they be allowed to get by with repeated violations of the primary and secondary air filter systems?
If this was health insurance, rather than a health risk, would there be fines and penalties.

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