One Bruce worker 'potentially' over dose limit
One of the workers exposed to contamination during refurbishment of Canada's Bruce A nuclear power plant in November could potentially exceed the annual regulatory dose limit.
One of the workers exposed to contamination during refurbishment of Canada's Bruce A nuclear power plant in November could potentially exceed the annual regulatory dose limit.
Additional information released by Bruce Power to the national regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), has shown that for one individual, the contamination, combined with the worker's 2009 exposure from other sources, could potentially exceed CNSC's annual regulatory dose limit.
The contamination occurred when corrosion products containing cobalt-60 were dislodged during grinding work on reactor feeder pipes. The presence of cobalt-60 and alpha-emitting contamination was confirmed by outside experts in late December.
Since then, Bruce Power has been conducting checks on 192 staff that could have been affected by the contamination incident. So far, according to the information released by Bruce Power, preliminary dose assignments have been made for 39 workers. Bioassays have been carried out at Canada's Chalk River laboratories, but the CNSC has also approved the use of other alpha dosimetry laboratories, at Bruce Power's request, to increase the throughput of the time-consuming studies.
"While we expect the vast majority of these tests to come back negative, we believe it is a necessary process to ensure every employee has actual test data that allows them to eliminate any question as to whether or not they were exposed," Bruce Power's report to CNSC noted.
"The CNSC continues to monitor the situation and Bruce Power's remedial activities. There is no risk to the public or the environment," the regulator said.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
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