Bruce Power looks into contamination

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

Analysis is under way into contamination at Bruce A nuclear power plant which could have affected up to 217 workers.

 

Bruce A: four Candu pressurized heavy-water reactors in Ontario, Canada

There was no impact outside plant buildings and nobody is known to have been hurt by the contamination during maintenance work, but Bruce Power has notified the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission early because the incident could receive substantial media coverage or have high visibility.

 

As part the refurbishment of unit 1 in late November last year, corrosion products containing cobalt-60 were dislodged during grinding work on reactor feeder pipes. The immediate response was to reinforce radiation controls and increase the frequency of sampling. Follow-up analysis confirmed the presence of cobalt-60 and alpha-emitting contamination and this was confirmed by outside experts in late December.

 

Radiation doses to all nuclear power plant workers are logged every day and Bruce Power did not mention to the CNSC that any workers's records showed anything unusual. The company noted that "regulatory limits are not likely to have been exceeded" although "up to 217 people may have been affected by this event."

 

Bruce said that maintenance work was stopped for clean up and the Chalk River Laboratory has been working to determine the actual radiation doses workers received. In the meantime, all the workers potentially affected have been taken off radioactive duties.

 

The CNSC said it was monitoring all this activity and ensuring that Bruce Power is "aware of the extent of condition of cause of the event and that they are taking appropriate corrective actions." Bruce said it had installed an additional alpha-sensitive radiation monitor in the area and is working on a detailed report for the CNSC.

 

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News