ML20149M721
| ML20149M721 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07003074 |
| Issue date: | 01/13/1997 |
| From: | Hamawy G COLUMBIA UNIV., NEW YORK, NY |
| To: | Kinneman J NRC OFFICE OF INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IRM) |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9701270109 | |
| Download: ML20149M721 (4) | |
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1 CowMBIA UNIVERSITY l
IN THE CITY Of N EW YORK E NVIRONME N TAL AN D OCCUP ATION AL H E ALTH i
January 13,1997 l
l U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission l
Attn.: Document Control Desk l
Washington, D.C. 20555 l
Attn: John D. Kinneman, Chief Docket No. 070-03074 License No. SNM-1995 i
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Dear Mr. Kinneman:
l Thank you for your letter of December 23,1996 regarding your inspection of our facility i
that was conducted on November 6,1996. A license application for using radioactive material in international waters and Antarctica is being submitted in a separate l
correspandence.
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In respw a to your Notice of Violation, we would like to address each of the two l
siolations:
l A) The Special Nuclear materials in our possession can be divided into two groups:
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l l-Sealed Plutonium - Beryllium neutron Sources:
In order for us to address properly the issue that you have raised regarding missing acquisition documents, we would like first to present the following facts:
Our current inventory of sealed Pu-Be neutron sources are:
Amount Location RJ 4 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis
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0 5 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis
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.5 Ci E.T. 173 Fiorakis 270046 9701270109 970113 7
PDR ADOCK 07003074' C
PDR s
j 39H Engineering Terrace h1allCode 2215 500 West 120th Street New York, NY 10027 212-854 8749/4442 Fax 212-31(>-4937 l
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e 1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis 1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis 1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis i
1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis 1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis 1 Ci E.T. 173 Florakis 2 Ci Barnard / Alt 808 Chapman 5 Ci Pupin/602b Blaer j
0.125 Ci Nevis Marino l
The total number of sealed plutonium sources in our possession is 12.
As our records indicated, all the sealed sources are inventoried and leak tested every 3 month as required. This task is performed by the Radiation Safety Oflice personnel. All records are being kept and were presented for your inspection during your recent visit to our facility.
l The majority of these sealed sources was acquired by Columbia University in the 1960's, whereas several acquisition documents either never existed or were lost over the years.
However, The Los Alamos Laboratory was contacted by us to register all our sealed neutron sources for a potential disposal of few of these sources. Serial numbers on each sealed source will be provided and will be matched with the Los Alamos registration 1
information data base. All sealed sources will be registered for the ultimate disposal of some of the sources afler the required waiting period.
2-Unsealed Special Nuclear Material:
)
All other Special Nuclear Materials in our possession are kept in a locked safe in room 284C E.T. These items include powder, foils and precipitates of Pu-239, U-235 and U-233. These items have been in storage and were not used for many years. It is apparent that these articles were home-made and were used for research and development purposes during the early age of the atomic energy of the 1950's and 1960's.
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Documents for the original acquisition of the Pu-239 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission as well as the original acquisition of the U-233 from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are available in our files. However, *.o documents were found for the U-235 acquisition.
As we have mentioned previously, these items were not of any benefit to us in recent past and we do not anticipate any use of them in the future. Therefore, the disposal of these items is a priority on our list of present tasks.
We are currently in contact with the Department of Energy to arrange for a possible return of these items to them. If this approach does not work, we will seek a possible commercial disposal alternative. Your office will be infonned regarding any progress in this matter.
Regarding the issue of fmding differences between the inventory records of October 25,1994 and November 17,1995 is due to the fact that the second inventory record was conducted by an outside contractor for a disposal cost estimation. The list was never intended to be used as an oflicial inventory of materials in our possession.
As your inspectors determined in 1994 (See Docket No. 070-03074), the small amount of l
special nuclear materials in our possession is stored in envelopes, plastic bags and bottles, some of them with fading or illegible labels, and their contents and amounts are rougn estimates at best. This fact might explain the reason for the discrepancies among the past official inventory lists.
The appropriate disposal of these unwanted small amount of Special Nuclear Material is the only way for putting an end to this matter that has cost us and you a great deal of aggravation.
All progress regarding the return of the special Nuclear materials to the Department of Energy and the classification of the Plutonium sealed sources with the Los Alamos Laboratory will be reported to you within the next 60 days.
B) Refresher Radiation Safety Training:
The occasional users of the sealed plutonium sources were identified as follows:
Responsible Invesitigator Supporting Stati Chapman (Barnard)
O. Jebejian, Blaer (Pupin)
B. Ohagan, C. Finley l
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~.... -...
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4 Florakis (Engineering Terrace)
Marino (Nevis) l Three of the above list ofindividuals have not used the sources for at least a year.
All individuals will be offered a refresher radiation safety training session within the next j-30 days. A refresher course will be offered to them annually thereafter.
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l We hope that our answers to your inquiry are sufficient. If you would like any funher l
information or clarification, we will be happy to supply them.
l Again we thank you for the information that you have supplied to us and the opportunity to meet with you and with Dr. John McFadden.
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Sincerely, h Q 'l6"1( $
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George Hamawy l
Radiation Safety Officer cc:
Dr. D. Brenner L. Greenholtz J. Lewis NRC - Region 1 i
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