ML20248L969
| ML20248L969 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07001051 |
| Issue date: | 02/13/1998 |
| From: | Metzger J US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) |
| To: | US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20248L208 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-98-19 NUDOCS 9806120173 | |
| Download: ML20248L969 (6) | |
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'g February 13, 1969
. Noms to File U. 8. MICLEst CERREATE05, M CALIFORNIA, MWWE W. 83>1002 FREmmmT SERTET OF BISASM McEEE LATME, DISCOBSEON OF FROWDMES RE WORK IN TER OUIER FACILITY, 30T CINENICATEONS, AND BIO &SSAT E M E.TS, CONDUCTED ON FEBRUARY 6, 1969 IIERMS The primary purpose of the visit was to make a eenfirestery survey of sertain lathe meshine parts which had beam disassembled by the licensee and h =* d==*ad.
Alae, additiemal infocusties was gathered on bio-assay results ressived by the licenses freut Treserlab Corporation se samples audmitted in h 1968 Discussions were held concernias e-fantions with the Department of Transportatieur by U. 8. Musimr.
as well as dieeussions semocrains precedures-for transferring a lathe from the ester facility to unste, and semeral precedures involving eleanup of the famility.
h The asettag was held in Burbank with ter. A. L. Baietti and W. Merle l
Layport, who is the Assistant Radiation Safety Officer for U. 8. Nuclear.
l dessa the several items diseassed at the meeting were biassasy results and whole body esmating results, sa===ications by ter. Estetti with Departmaat of Transportaties, and cammmiestions with Ihasante Essesteh Corporaties regardias a shippias cask. Also discussed was a draft letter by ter. Baietti to the Regies T ABC offies, uhteh was reesived by that office on February 6, 1969 and which insladed a discussion of U. 8. Buslear's plans to h saion the U. S. Nuclear facility. The procedures were in draft form and only subad.tted for Region V's review, i
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Gangral Risemasian unsers. Beietti and Layport were present far all disenssions held at U. 8. Besteer and for the surveys candested by the inspester sa the Classing istbe. these present were asked if any survey records had been developed durius work en the lathe. Ber. Layport replied that omcc>
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Homo to File February 13,1%9 they had only worked on the lathe for four hours during the week and had not developed any records of the surveys performed but would do so 3
l l
as the work progressed. He said that so far they had found only a few l
contaminated spots on some of the machine parts, which wwre contaminated l
up to 250 dpa alpha. He said they had just started cleaning the equip-ment and were in the process of disassembly and taking Q-tip smears of
.the various gear teeth in the machine. He said this would give them more of an idea of the extent of contamination, even though direct surveys had pointed out that the machine was not too cataminated.
Hr.
Layport said that he was personally supervising the job of the machin o l
disasses61y using two eeployees, the names of whom were Verne Wrgan (who is a technician and who was trained by%. Collinkor a period i
of six months during earlier U. S. Nuclear operations) and Leon Cowan
- (who is a laborer and had worked-at U. S. Nuclear for a year. -siso during earlier operations),
i BiosesaYs Mr. Baietti said that they had received a refinement of the analysis on the who1~e body counts o
on September 4,1%8. That original E )(Q analysis showed that ximately 93 nanocuries of plutonium-238 in his ungs a had about 173 nanocuries of osa Mr. Philip H. Dean of the Biophysica Section, M ium-238 in the lungs. According to the letter sent t Biomedical Research Group, University of California, Los Alamos, these numbers were subject to revision when calibrations of the whole body counting equip-ment had b n completed.
Mr. Baietti said that the ref t e owed i
that had approximately 176 nanocuries a 170 nanocuries.
Mr. Baietti did not have the letter showing t e refinement but said that Dr. Koch had taken it with him to the State of California h
s.
He said t ulty with the original saalysis of t
chest thickness and body weight.
He sa t
he same amount of internal deposi-tion of plutonium as all along but that it was very difficult i
to measure.
i Hr. Baietti produced a copy of urinalysis results for December, which i
had been analyzed by the Tracerleb Corporation and which showed that two personnel had positive cesults suits showed that M had 14 dpa per~810 m1 sample an had 1.3 dpa,er 650 mi sample.
Mr. Baietti said that the saeple submitted for had been lost and a new saeple had been sent to Tracerlab. He also said I
that he would send half of each sample submitted in the future to both Tracerlab and U. S. Testing Corporation of Richland, Washington, to compare results. He said that samples for January had been submitted (procedures require monthly bioassay samples).
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4 Neus: to File February 13, 1969 Denart==* of Transportation-haanto Research Cornaration
=ications l
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- k. Baietti said that he had had no ca-==fcations at all with the Departaset of Transportation regarding evaluation of U. S. Nuclear shipping containers for shipment of bulk quantities of gNN. Be said that he had been too busy and would attesyt to establish cossaanications l
- in the future. W. Baietti said he had had no personal contact with Itzessato Research Corporation coig(erning a g,sdik suitable for use in shipping bulk SNM. He said that$Dr. CollifiR had had several discussions with Mensanto Research and had told k. Baietti that Mensanto had determined that the cask in question may not be suitable for the uses prescribed by U. S. Nuclear,
- k. Baietti said, however, that he would i
attempt to smoke personal contact with Monsanto in order to personally l
verify the status of the cask. '
Survey of Clausinn Lathe Parts Disassembly of the Clausing lathe was being done in the U. S. Nuclear mail room in accordance with procedures substitted to the Bureau of I
Radiological Health, State of California. The door.had been widened to about ten feet to allow access for the machine shop equipment. The floor was noted to be papered and two technicians were observed to be taking smears of the various gear teeth and component parts of the machine. It was observed that nome of the equipment had been cleaned for release; there was an oil film on many of the internal parts and the gear boxes were still half-full of oil. The parts were observed to be teostly inaccessible for direct surveying for alpha contamination and those parts surveyed revealed about ten or twelve spots of contami-nation, ranging from 500 to 1000 dpa, alpha, with one spot showing a r
merimum of 20,000 dpa, alpha. The contamination was not general and consisted of specks. Mr. Layport said that the papered floor area where the disassembly and wiping were being performed was not a shoe-cover area. However, the inspector found 500 cpm of alpha contamina-l tion on one shoe after the survey had been completed.
Mr. Leypert i
then made the area a shoe-cover area and advised the technicians to don shoe covers in addition to the coveralls and gloves they were already wearing.
r Mr. Layport said that the technicians were taking Q-tip wipes of the l
[
various gear teeth, which would be counted in a gas proportional counter to determine the extent of the contamination. He said he l
realised that the oil and grease musy cover up some of the contami-nation, but at least they would be able to see any gross activity.
l Mr. Layport said that they would remurve all of the oil film and clean out the seer boxes using solvent, after which a survey would be per-formed by himself and the machine put back together, probably on Wednesday, February 12 The area was observed to be roped off with signs reading " Caution - Radiation Area", " Caution - Radioactive b
i Memo to File February 13,1%9 l
Material Area" at various locations. An air sampler was cperating tausediately outside of the widened door. W. Layport said that air-borne radioactivity would not be a problem since the sparse enount of activity was held down with liquids and grease. He said that the air sample was indicative of general airborne radioactivity for the entire area. A desk, which had been brought into the roost fross the operating
- srea of the facility, was observed to be generally contaarinated with fixed contamination up to 2000 dpe, a1pha.
It was the tuspector's opinion that W. Layport did not realize the desk was contaminated at all. He said they would have it reserved to the operating area once again.
f 1
Checkout instruments for surveyin8 for alpha-beta-gaans radiation were j
observed to be available for personnel, as well as several Clearvue
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face moska available on a bench near the room.
Mr. Layport said that
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he would personally survey the personnel after they had completed 1
their work at the end of each day. He also said that the total time
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that the work had progressed was approximately four hours since Monday, February 3. Since the equipment was not ready for a release survey at this time. W. Layport and W. Baietti vare asked to notify the Region V office when they felt that the parts were r ady for release.
They said they would do so.
J Hr. Layport said that since the gear boxes had been gasketed, ne would assume that if no contassination was found on the gasketed rists, there i
should be no contamination on the gears inside the box. He said, however, that the oil would be drained and the parts cleaned with solvent.
Discussion of Procedures A somewhat langthy discussion was held regarding conesunications between W. Baietti sud the Region V personnel regarding U. S. Nuclear's intent to use prior procedures which had been approved by Region V, particu-larly for the outer facility.
Mr. Baietti said that Messrs. Book and Roy had advised him that he did not have approval for work in the outer
- facility, i.e., disposing of the lathe. He said that even though j
letters of approval dated October 14 had been received, these were no l
longer applicable since he had been advised that the Bureau of Radio-l logical Health must also approve of procedures for working in both the l
outer f acility and inner plutonitun facility. He was told by the l
inspector that he would h.sve no apptovs1 far work in the outer facility l
if he refused to acknowledge the procedures submitted earlier by Dr.
l ioch and which had been approved by Region V in a letter dated i
October 14,1%8. k. Baietti said that he did not intend to " throw l
out" the earlier procedures but to use his own procedures (submitted
)
as lYoject II) in addition to the serlier ones. He said to consider that he was giving this inspector verbal consuunication stating that he vould use the procedures submitted by Dr. Koch and for which approval had been granted for work in the cuter facility.
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m Menno to File
~5-February 13,1%9 Baietti said he would use the Project II procedures in addition to those already approved as long as they did not contradict the earlier pro-cedures. He said that in reading the procedures submitted by Dr. Koch, the only difference he could find was that observers would have to use l
face useka while watching the work in the outer facility, whereas his precedures did not require this. He said that meeks would be available i
for observers who were present during work in the outer facility. He j
.said that the only reason he would now go ahead with the outer facility was because the State had given him verbal approval for transferring the lathe only. He said that additional procedures would have to be I
submitted to the State for resswir.g the paraffin blocks from the outer I
facility and for any work in the plutonium laboratory in addition to any procedures approved by the AEC.
W. Baietti was told that it was'the inspector's understanding that the State would not be concerned with approvals for work in the outer i
facility or the plutonium laboratory, that these were areas of primarily ABC interest. W. Baietti said that in a telegram from the Sta;e, they had denied any amendment to the U. S. Nuclear license for per-forming any work in the entire facility. He understood this to mean that this included the plutonium facility and outer facility as well.
Mr. Baietti said that another letter dated October 14 from the Region V office indicated that approval would have to be granted by the State for work in the general facility.
(This letter was in addition to the outer facility approval letter from Region V.) He was told once again that the approval dated October 14 for work in the outer facility did not require State approval. He said he would then go ahead with plans to trsasfer the latne into a waste barrel and scheduled the job for Friday, February 14, and invited Region Y repre-sentatives to be present.
On Friday, February 7 Mr. Baietti called the Region V office to con-firm the date of February 14 for transferring the outer facility lathe, provided he still had approval. He was told that he had approval to perform this operation, providing he intended to use the procedures on which the approval was based. He said he would.
In a draft copy of procedures submitted by Mr. Baietti to the Region V office, it was indicated that U. S. Nuclear would submit approvals to r
both the AEC and State for all future operations. The draft stated that U. S. Nuclear did not have approval to work in the outer facility l
without State approval, and many references in the draft are made to discussions between Messrs. Book, Roy and Raietti, as well as various approvals and letters of correspondence submitted by the State and the AEC. Mr. Baietti said that since it was suplained to him that he had approval, he would new anodify this draft copy, leaving out all refer-ence to the outer facility work since he had approval for that work.
He srid that future procedures would include his own book on radio-logiril safety entitled "NAVSHIPS 250-341-3, Volume II" as well as a step-by-step breakdown job sheet, an example of which is entitled I
1
e Mesmo to File February 13, 1969
" Project II" for transferring the lathe from the outer facility.
Hr.
Baietti said that in the future he would not use the procedures sub-I unitted by Dr. Koch in his request for appsoval but would subadt his own procedures, i.e., the radiation safety book and job breakdown sheets.
I l
. Mr. Reietti said that future submittals would be sent to both the State and the ABC, requesting approval from both regulatory agencies on any work in the plutonium inner facility, disposal of the glove box train, and the shipping of plutonium-beryllium sources. He was told once again that primary approval for deconta=1 nation of the plutonium facility and removal of the glove box train would be granted by the AEC. Mr. Raietti re-emphasised that the State had to siso give approval for work in that facility because of the amendment denial.
Conclusicqq It was the inspector's opinion that Mr. Baietti was thoroughly confused regarding approvals, procedures and various submissions. or was trying to provid2 an excuse for not proceeding with decommissioning the outer plutoniums facility.
Mr. Baietti said he had reviewed earlier procedures and found them to be " poor" and also said he would revise his rough draft regarding the types of approvals required for decosadesion of the U. S. Nuclear facility. Mr. Baietti said he would notify Region V two or three days in advance for the outer facility lathe transfer.
The phone call of February 7 was the final confirmation date.
Original Si,:r.' '
J. ft, f/4 J. R. Metzger Radiation Specialist cc G. Roy. CO HQ (2) i l.