ML20248L973
| ML20248L973 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07001051 |
| Issue date: | 03/20/1969 |
| From: | Metzger J US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) |
| To: | US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (AEC) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20248L208 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-98-19 NUDOCS 9806120176 | |
| Download: ML20248L973 (8) | |
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UNITED STATES
.l j.
i ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION y
DIVIStoN OF COMPLIANCE v
REGION V 2111 BANCRoFT WAY BERKELEY, CALIFoRN! A 94704 im, m.sisi cxv.es:
March 20, 1969 c
Memo to File U. S. NUCLEAR CORPORATION, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA, LICENSE NO. SNM-1002 FIRE SAFETY INSPECTION OF THE U.
S". NUCLEAR FACILITY BUILDING, DISCUSSION OF U. S. NUCLEAR STATUS WITH REGARD TO DECOMMISSIONING THE FACILITY AND SHIPPING BULK QUANTITIES OF SNM Puroose u
The primary p'urpose of the visit to U. S. Nuclear on March 18, 1969, was to perform a fire safety inspection of the facility building. That l
pot tion of the inspection was conducted by a representative from the Technical Services Division of the San Francisco Operations Office.
In addition, discussions were held with representatives of U. 5. Nuclear pertaining to shipping of bulk quantities of special nuclear material, status of shipping the glove boxes, bids submitted by other companies
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for decommissioning of the facility, and bioassays and U. S. Nuclear's answers to the letter dated March 13, 1969, from L. D. Low to M. Panic, 1
President, ICN, were also discussed.
Summary Accompanying the inspector to U. S. Nuclear was Mr. W. W. Maybee, Tech-nical Services Division, San Francisco Operations Office, who made the fire safety inspection; Mr. J. Heacock, Division of Industrial Safety, State of California; and Mr. William Parrish, Captain, Burbank Fire Department Station No. 4.
Persons contacted or met at U. S. Nuclear were Mr. A. L. Baietti, Corporate Radiation Control Director for ICN, and Mr. Merle Layport, Assistant Radiation Safety Officer for U. S.
Nuclear.
The fire safety inspection was conducted by Mr. Walt Maybec and Mr.
William Parrish.
Mr. Maybee inspected the facility with respect to AEC criteria for fire safety; the same as if it were an AEC installation.
Mr. Maybee stated in a telephone conversation on March 21 that his inspection was performed using the criteria in AEC Manual Chapters 6300 (Appendix) on General Design Criteria and 0552 on Industrial Fire l
Protection, t
9806120176 900603 PDR FOIA FRIEDMAN 98-19 PDR
Memo to File March 20, 1969 Concerning the shipment of bulk quantities of special nuclear material, Mr. Baietti stated that he had obtained a copy of the DOT authorization for a special " crush-pack" container which he said would be used in conjunction with a specially designed paraffin filled container,for shipping the bulk quantities of special nuclear material. He said he would submit the drawings and the proposal to DOT during the last week of March 1969 Also discussed were the bids being submitted by four separate firms for decommissioning the U. S. Nuclear facility.
Mr.
Baietti said that Eberline Instrument Corporation had submitted a bid and that Atcor Corporation and Dougias United Nuclear will submit bids on or before March 25, une deadline. He also said that Nuclear Services Incorporated wrote them a letter stating they would not bid on a con-tract for decontaminating the facility.
Mr. Baietti asked the inspector to read the letter from the Commission (dated Nbrch 13, 1969) and U. S. Nuclear's answer to the letter. It was noted that the answer included a schedule for decommissioning the laboratory, a,date for shipping the bulk quantities of sppcial nuclear material, and a date for final decommissioning of the building.
Information was also gathered on the most recen't bioassay results on fffgp ime of this inspection, results on bioassays fo were available, and it was noted that half of the submitted sample had been sent to Tracerlab Corporation and the other half to U. S. Testing Company of Richland, Washington, for comparison purposes. Results had been received from Tracerlab but none as yet from U. S. Testing, f
Information was also obtained on the current status of the lathe decon-tamination work (referenced in inspection report dated February 17, 1969),
the amount of surveillance provided by U. S. Nuclear for the unoccupied building, and the amount of surveillance provided by the fire and police departments of Burbank.
Details Fire Safety Inspection On the morning of Nbrch 18, 1969, P.essrs. Metzger, Heacock, Maybee and Captain Parrish met at U. S. Nuclear.
Mr. Fbybee began an inspection of the outside of the U. S. Nuclear facility which included buildings surrounding the facility (namely, Ace Salvage Company to the rear of the building. Environmental Sciences to the right of the building, snd l
the paint and chemical company directly across the street from the facility).
In a discussion with Captain Parrish, he said that they had been making monthly inspections of U. S. Nuclear. He said no
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Meno to File March 20, 1969 inspection had been made in February because of the heavy workload in his department. Captain Parrish also said that, if an alarm were ever turned in on U. S. Nuclear, they would be able to reach the building in 1h minutes. He said that, of the buildings inspected in that area of Burbank, the regular inspection of U. S. Nucicar had the highest priority due to the types of materials located within the building.
Those present, as well as the U. S. Nuclear representatives, accompanied Messrs. Maybee and Parrish on a fire inspection of the inside of the building.
Mr. Maybee told the inspector and Captain Parrish at the conclusion of his inspection that he would write a report to Region V, Division of Compliance, indicating his findings which would include, among other things, the following. He observed there was no sprinkler system inside of the building, that the electrical wiring was poor, that the heating system was badly placed and arranged, that the venti-lating system was badly designed (gravity flow system on roof), and that red cansNof gasoline used to fuel the forklifts were located inside the building, whereas he felt they should be located outside the building. Also, he noted that the forklifts were fueled inside the building rather than outside, a bad practice.
Mr. Maybee said he realized that it may be impractical for U. S. Nuclear to' install a sprinkler system and it may be impractical for them to shut down their electrical supply completely since the ventilation system must remain on.
He said that among his recommendations, the first and foremost would be that U. S. Nuclear should decontaminate the building as quickly as possibic. Captain Parrish asked if a copy of Mr. Maybee's report could be sent to the Chief of the Burbank Fire Station No. 4 The inspector told him that it may be possible, at which time Mr. Maybee I
said that he would indicate on his report that a copy should be sent to J. Egan, Chief. Burbank Fire Department. Some of the conclusions reached by Mr. Maybee on his inspection were not revealed to repre-sentatives of U. S. Nuclear.
Mr. Parrish had no other comments except to say that the fire station was well equipped and had good capabilities for answering a fire quickly. Later, Mr. Baietti said that, in addition to the fire department making monthly inspections of the facility, the police department had been contact;d by him, and he said they told him they were making a patrol, paying particular attention to the U. S.
Nuclear building, once ou the 8-4 shift, once on the 4-12 shif t, and twice on the 12-8 (graveyard) shift, seven days per week.
l Containers for Shippina Bulk Quantities of SNM At the conclusion of the fire inspection, discussions were held with Messrs. Baietti and Layport, with Messrs. Maybee, Heacock and the inspector present.
Mr. Baietti was asked what the status was on con-tainers for shipping bulk quantities of SNM. He replied that they had a copy of a DOT permit which had been issued to Nuclear Engineering l
Memo to File March 20,1969 Company for a crush-pack (or over pack) wooden container which had been used by Nuclear Engineering to contain barrels of waste for shipment.
The specification and authorization and drawings were examined by the inspector.
It was noted that the permit number was No. 5674 and that it had been approved for shipping barrels of waste.
Mr. Baietti said that he was in the process of designing a special paraffin-loaded shipping container which would be used to ship two sources at a time and which would be enclosed with the over pack. He said the design would be similar to U. S. Nuclear's containers with B of E permit No. 920, submitted to DOT in November 1968. He said that he had already contacted the Albert bbrtin Company, architectural engineering group of Los Angeles, who would fabri-cate the source container for U. S. Nuclear. He said that if he could obtain approval from DOT, it would take about one or two weeks to fabricate the container. He said that he would send in drawings of his proposed container, together with the permit specification on the crush pack, to DOT during the last week of March 1969. He said that his plans were to ship four sources, the seven capsules of Pu nmtrix in a piece of pipe counted as one source, the ruptured source and two large sources. He said that calculations had been maAa on the dose rates for each of the sources thedoseratesatonemeterfromeachofthefoursources{f ArecordofL'esecalculations(performedbyl[.Collin to be shipped.
n showed that should be 400 mrem /hr, 80 mrem /hr, 420 mrem /hr and 505 mrem /hr, respectively.
(It should be noted that the weights of the sources were reported in the September 6 procedures as being 30 grams each for the two large sources,
<3 grams for the ruptured source, and 13 grams for the matrix. The ratio of dose rates to the source weights is not consistent.) He said that with two sources per shipment, they should be able to meet the 1 rem /hr at or.e meter criteria specified by DOT.
Baietti also stated they would check the dose rates with a Nenosphere dose rate meter to verify the calculations.
He said that these calculations do not include any kind of shielding or the special form 2R pipe, so that it should be relatively simple to meet this criteria. He said this evaluation would be provided for DOT.
Mr.
Baietti also said that he would include on the drawings submitted to DOT the specifications for the tape dope to be used on the 2R containers (i.e., teflon base, high temperature), the information of which was supplied to him by the inspector. He said he would also indicate that a minimum of five threads would be covered by the end caps on the 2R con-tainers.
Mr. Baietti was told that procedutes had not yet been submitted for trans-ferring and loading the bulk quantities of special nuclear material. He answered that procedures would be drawn up in plenty of time. At this point, Mr. Baietti was given copies of all the updated procedures, as revised, which had been submitted by Dr. Koch of U. S. Nuclear. These l
included AEC-approved general procedures, AEC-approved specific procedures for certain jobs, and procedures for shipping bulk quantities of special nuclear material not yet approved by the AEC, He was told that in his I
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Memo to File March 20, 1969 submission he may want to include these procedures or something very similar which had been worked out in some detail by members of the AEC:HQ staff, Dr. Koch and Region V inspectors. He said he would read over the procedures and modify them to suit his own needs if necessary and probably use them in his submission.
Mr. Baietti said that allowing approximately i
four to six weeks for DOT approval on his proposal and another week or two for container fabrication, he should be able to ship the bulk quantities of special nuclear material beginning May 22, 1969, the target date. He clso said that his procedures would be submitted to both the AEC and the l
State on any activities proposed for,.U. S. Nuclear in decommissioning the l
- facility, i
i Status Regardine Bids Submitted by Firms for Decommissioning the Facility 1
Mr. Baietti said that one bid had been submitted from Eberline Instrument l
Corporation for decommissioning the facility. He said that the bid was l
being considered by Mr. Panic, President of ICN, and that he could not offer an opinion as to whether the bid would be acceptable to ICN at this time. He did feel, however, that the bid appeared to be higher than he expected, with the result that ICN may end up decontaminating the f acility themselves. He also said that Nuclear Services Incorporated wrote them a letter stating that they would not, bid on decommissioning the facility.
He also said thr4 Atcor Corporation and Douglas United Nuclear had indi-cated they will submit bids no later than the closing date of March 25, 1969 Baletti stated that Nuclear Engineering Company had indicated that they would only transfer the waste and glove boxes, that they would not bid on decontaminating the facility.
Mr. Baietti said that the bids may include the plutonium laboratory and other associated work including loading and removal of the 21ove boxes; however, he felt that U. S. Nuclear was obligated to let Nuclear Engineering take care of shipping the boxes since a lot of money had been spent on designing a special box for this purpose. He felt that U. S.
Nuclear employees would actually load the box into the container to deliver to NECO for shipment to a burial site. With regard to this, Mr.
Baietti explained that his last contact with Nuclear Engineering Company indicated that they. had not rcccived any word from DOT yet for approvalo on the special glove box shipping container.
Schedule of Various Activities in Decommissioning the Facility Mr. Baietti said that he had devised a schedule in which things would be done at U. S. Nuclear in the decommissioning effort with certain target dates. He said that they hoped to ship the bulk quantities of special nuclear material first, not later than May 22, 1969. He said that the second thing they wanted to do was to ship the glove boxes, followed by final decontamination of the plutonium laboratory and then complete
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j Memo to File March 20, 1969 l
I decommissioning of the entire facility no later than mid-October 1969.
Hr. Baietti was asked at this point about preliminary decontamination o( the plutonium laboratory. He said that the letter he had received from the Bureau of Radiological Health, State of California, ha4 indi-cated that they may proceed with work where the AEC has given prior approval provided that, in the event they became involved with removal of walls or breaking the integrity of the Pu Lab or finding large quantities of beta-gamma contamination, they must submit procedures to the State for ~ continuing the operation. He said that in view of this, he did not wish to commence any work in the plutonium laboratory and then have to stop in the middle of the job to get further approval from the State to continue, which might take several weeks. Instead, he said he wished to decontaminate the laboratory only after the bulk quantities of special nuclear material had been alpped and the glove boxes transferred to NECO.
s Bioassays Mr. Baietti said that they are continuing to submit urine samples on the samples beginning in January ave been and w, basis. 'He said that all n a monthly ould continue to be divided in half, and half sent to Tracerlab Corporation for analysis and the other half to U. S. Testing Company, Richland, Washington, analysis. He said that this had been done on jj{)[. [g7 and that they had received results back from Tracerlab on both of those individuals but had not received any results from U. S. Testing at this time. The records that Mr. Baietti produced showed Ttacerlab had indi-here were 63 dpm of alpha per 900 ml of sample submitted on Mr. Baietti said that there originally had been 1,800 m1, of ich 00 m1 were sent to Tracerlab and 900 m1 to U. S. Testing. He said that if Tracerlab could be used as a criteria, this would amount to 126 dpm alpha per 1,800 ml or 24-hour sample. Results for showed that there were 9.6 dpm alpha for one-half of the sample submitted, for which the volume was unknown. Fr. Baietti said that this probably amounted to about 19 dpm alpha per 1,500 ml.
It was pointed out to Nr.
Baietti that prior to this, none of the samples had exceeded 1,000 ml and the submission oi 1,800 ful did not seem consistent.
Mr. Baietti said that nevertheless 1,800 mi-were submitted.
Baietti also asked Mr. Layport at this point to hereafter indicate in his record the volumes of samples submitted.
(Previous analyses from U dpm alpha per 24-hour sample o g. S. Testing had indicated about 20 Machine Tool Decontamination and Building Surveillance It was observed during the tour of the facility that the Clausing lathe decontamination had not been completed. According to Mr. Layport, there remained one gearbox and shaft to be decontaminated before the lathe could be reassembled for release. He said that they had not had w
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l Memo to File March 20, 1969 time to finish the lathe and that the machinist who had been there to direct disassembly and reassembly of the lathe was called out of town.
He said that their plans included completing the Clausing lathe and to sh'ip it out of the facility; he said that the milling machine which had been partially disassembled would be put back together and not decon-l taminated.
Mr. Layport was asked whether the small Clausing lathe was the lathe on which the plutonium capsule had originally been cut into in early 1968 He said he did not think it was, that he thought a larger lathe located in the middle of the machine shop had been used.
The inspector looked into the machtne shop and found that the lathe which had been used to cut into the plutonium capsule had been removed from its location, and later Mr. Baietti confirmed that this was the lathe that had been used in cutting the capsule.
Mr. Layport said that he had been spending three to four days per week at the U. S. Nuclear facility for eight hours per day performing surveys and otherwise just occupying the building. He said that when the facility on Anmr Road, City of Industry, required more of his time, he was planning to spend four hours twice a week at U. S. Nuclear doing surveillance.
Discussion of Letter from L. D. Low to M. Panic' dated March 13. 1969 Mr. Baietti said that he had received a letter from the AEC inquiring as to what they intended to do about expediting their decommissioning of the U. S. Nuclear facility.
Baietti said that he had already drafted an answer to the letter and asked the inspector to read both the AEC Ictter (which had not been reviewed by the inspector) as well as Baietti's answer to see if any additional comments could be added.
Mr. Baietti was advised that since the inspector had not read the Conndssion's letter, he was not prepared to discuss the contents of the letter. However, Mr.
Baietti insisted that both the letter and his answer (which had yet to be reviewed by Panic end ICN's lawyer) be read with the understanding that the inspector would not make any suggestions on the appropriateness of his answer.
M. Baietti's draft was observed to contain most of the r
information cited above under the heading " Bulk Quantities" with respect to DOT shipping containers, time schedules, etc.
In addition, the 1errer also contained various excuses as to why U. S. Nuc1cer had not been able to proceed expeditiously with decommissioning the facility.
-In particular, the letter made reference to the highly restrictive license conditions imposed on U. S. Nuclear by the State regulatory agency and the extensive time required for AEC, State and DOT approvals.
It was the inspector's opinion that the letter may have adequately answered the Comadssion's letter in that the statements indicated posi-tive action would be taken in shipping the bulk quantities of special nuclear material as well as a schedule for various job completions.
Mr.
Baietti's letter also indicated that' during previous inspections performed by the AEC at U. S. Nuclear, the inspectors from Region V had agreed to I
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Memo to File March 20,, 1969 l
his methods of operations, the proposals he had made with regard to his own procedures, etc.
Mr. Baietti was told that the inspector's opinion was that the AEC had not agreed to anything other than the two letters of' approval for transferring the lathe from the outer facility and for preliminary decontamination of the plutonium laboratory.
Mr. Baietti said that he thought a lack of response on the part of the AEC to his procedures (NAVSHIP Instructions, etc.) constituted acceptance of the procedures.
Mr. Baietti was told that his general procedures, although good, were not specific enough with regard to deconnissioning the facility.
Mr. Baietti said that he understood and would change that part of his let.ter to read that th[AEC had been informed of his actions, plans of attack, etc.
At the conclusion of the inspection, Mr. Baietti stated that he would keep Region V informed of any new change in status or any new actions that U. S. NucJear desired to take.
Miscellaneous On March 19, 1969, J. Heacock, State of California, Division of Industrial Health, was contacted by telephone to obtain thes name and address of the persons who owned the U. S. Nuclear building, which is leased by U. S.
Nuclear. He said that the building was owned by:
Ef6 Martin T. and Owen E. Dossen l
,I J. R. Metzger CO:V:JRM Radiation Specialist
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cc:
G. Roy, CO:HQ
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L________.____.______._.
J. R. Roeder, Chief g y ) jggg Materials Inspection & Enforcement Branch Division of Compliance, Headquarters H. E. Book, Senior Radiation Specialist Region V Division of Compliance
- d. c...: a INVESTIGATION:
INTERIM REPORT U. S. NUCLEAR CORPORATION BIRRANK, CALIFORNIA LICENSE H0. SNM-1002 CO:V:JRM RADIOGRAPHY OF SIX NEUTRON PLITFONIUN-BERYLLI0pt, SOURCES FOR SHIP 1ENT To irss4 usuta>USE Purpose 1.
H. S. North and J. R. Metzger, Radiation Specialists, Region V, Division of Compliance, visited U. S. Nuclear Corporation, Burbank, California, on February 20 and 21, 1968, for the pri-mary purpose of observing the radiography of six nominal 35-40 curie plutonium-beryllium neutron sources to be shipped to Westinghouse.
In addition, information was gathered on the progress of the decontamination operation, information was gathered concerning the investigation report, and surveys were conducted of various areas which had been decontrainated.
1g113 for Visit 1
2.
The telegram dated February 15, 1968, from R. W. Smith to L. D.
l Low (attached as Annex A) indicates the results of the survey of the U. S. Nuclear " Outer Facility" on February 15. A copy of the t slegram meiosed as Annex B dated February 16, 1968, from L. D. Iaw to M. Panic, authorized the licensee to proceed with the radiographic inspection c( the six sources in question and transfer them to Westinghouse. The telegram also states that no repairs or modifications of.hese sources, nor any other plutonium sources, is authorized.
3.
In a telephone conversation between J. Roeder, CO:HQ, and Messrs.
North, Metzger and Smith, it was pointed out that certain condi-tions aust be understood prior to performing any radiographic I
operation, which were not indicated on the telegram described I
in the previous paragraph. The items discussed will be brought out later in this report.
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As per request in the telegram from Low to Panic described earlier, a telegram enclosed as Annex C from W. J. Bradley I
to Mr. Metzger was received on February 19, requesting that the inspectors be present during the radiographic operation which was to take place beginning Tuesday, February 20.
Menamoment Discussion 5.
On February 20, Messrs. Metsger and North met with Messrs.
Fallis and tradley at U. S. Muclear Corporation. At that time, the inspectors inquired if any more information had been received relating to the incident. Of partic. alar interest were environmental asupling results for both soil and vegetation, the stack smear analysis (relates to con-tamination found on the outlet of the exhaust stack over labs 6 and 7 described in the investigation report), film
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badge results on employees involved in the incident, and bioassay results. Attached as Annex D are the results of the environmental samples and the stack smear analysis from Nuclear Science Division, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and as Annex g, a copy of the Radiation Detection Company dosimetry 1
report. R. Fallis stated, at this time, that they had re-ceived no bioassay results for urine and fecal samples from U. S. Testing Services in hichland, Washington.
6 Also at this meeting, the licensee was asked for copies of -
the letters to employees [ Collins, Hedger, Brown and Koesle)_
as required by 10 CFR 20.405(b). On February 21, these were given to the inspectors and are attached ee Annex F.
W.
Fallis was asked what his future pisos were for whole body counting of W. Bruce Hedger. He replied that they planned to send him To Rocky Flats for cooperison whole body counts and to Battelle-Northwest (whatever the case may be) on a quarterly basis, indefinitely.
7.-
At this time W. North clarified the conditions for radiog-raphy noted in the telegram from Low to Panic.
W. North also emphasised, and clarified certain conditions proposed by W. J.
j Roeder of CO:HQ regarding future plans of the facility and I
present status of the facility. These conditions included the I
following:
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- a. The telegram (Low to Panic, February 16) outhorizes only radiography and shipment of the six sources in question, with no other work.
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J. R. Roeder g } } pgeq
- b. gefore any other work under licensed activities is per-formed, it is necessary that U. S. Nuclear submit in writing to CO:HQ the procedures, the description of the operation, equipment to be used, and the status of any remaining contamination in the U. S. Nuclear building, prior to authorization by CO:HQ to perform auch work.
- c. No painting over contamination is to be allowed,
- d. It would be acceptable for U. S. Nuclear to decontaminate and ship non-nuclear items (such as gas bottles) as long as surveys are recorded showing all data, including the date of shipment, type of object to be shipped, serial number of object, the recipient of the material, as well as a cosplete radiation survey to ascertain the absence of contamination in excess of AEC de minisus levels.
- e. No work is to take place in the plutonium inner facility.
In particular, no work is to be performed on the boxes or with anything in the boxes until U. S. Nuclear has applied fc in amendment to do such work. The exception is to de-contaminate the walls and floors as long as adequate safety precautions are followed.
8.
Prior to this visit, the 30-day incident report was received by Region V, in which several errors were indicated. These errors were discussed with hessrs. Fallis and Harwood. 'the errors were minor in nature, indicating mostly differences in contamination levels. A compilation of these errors may be found attached to the 30-day report, which in turn is attached to the original investigation report.
9.
A meeting was then held with Mr. Fallis alone, in the presence of the two inspectors, at which time R. Fallis indicated that they were getting close to being as clean as they were aver going to get. He indicated that this condition should be reached in about a week. Be said that the roof rafters, which before had readings of greater than 10,000 c/m, were now reading from 2-5,000 c/m. He indicated these surfaces were three to ten times AgC de minisms levels. He also indicated that the proposed contract with Atomics International to perform some of the work heretofore done by U. S. Nuclear had not been negotiated.
Mr.
Fallis indicated that whereas they could probably reach the AEC de minimus contaednation levels for surfaces auch as floors and equipment, this might not be possible with porous wood, lath l
J. R. Roeder g ggg materials, the rafters in the roof, and the vertical sheet-rock walls. The inspectors consnented that U. S. Nuclear could make complete surveys of all of those areas where de minimus levels could not be reached and describe in writing their cleanup procedures, the levels they propose they would reach, and submit these to CO:HQ for determination. Mr. Fallis also indicated that if they could not start producing in three weeks from this date, the company might go out of business. Radiography Operation 10. Theinspectorsmetfkr.FrankCollins',whowastoassistin 3 the radiography operation, along with a radiographer from ( Magnaflux Corporation, whose name was Mike Yurcich. It was F noted that the Outer Facility was unchanged following the survey of February 15 by the AEC inspector. 'Mr. Collins said they had leak checked the six sources to be ridiographed on the day before, February 19. The results of the wipe tests were reviewed. It was noted that of the counts taken on the wipe papers for the sources, themaximumregvablecontamina-tion detected by U. S. Nuclear was 4.5 x 10' uc/ smear (area 2 less than 100 cm ). Prior to the radiography, the inspectors observed the conditions or the Outer Facility. It was noted that the x-ray tube, which was setting across the paraffin blocks directly over the facility, was wrapped in polyethylene and that there were moist towels laying on the Outer Facility table to keep the sources clean (within five micromicrocuries removable per source). At this time, the inspectors took a few wipe checks of the Outer Facility surfaces, which were all found to be less than 100 c/m removable contamination.
- 11. The transfer of the sources from the inner facility to the Outer Facility was observed. All the sources were placed in clean fruit jars setting on the Outer Facility table, and(Hr. Collins used 14-inch tongs.to transport these from the inner facility.
h It was noted that W. Collins had a wrist badge and pocket do-p simeter taped to his wrist; the radiographer was also badged. The dose rate outside the Outer Facility, after all the sources were stored in fruit jars, was noted to be 35 mrem /hr as ob-served on a NDDSPHERE neutron detector. Mr. Collins was sur-veyed using an Eberline PAC-4G instrument 'after transferring the sources, and no contamination was found on him. It was noted that Mr. Ehrlich (radiation safety carbnician) was in the process of surveying the papered floor areas once again to make sure no contamination had been spread.
) l M I I Eb J. R. Roeder ~
- 12. The radiography job for botht Mr. Collins' and the radiographer lasted,s total of 27 hours. The final tfotal reading on(Mr.
( Collins'j pocket dosimeter, which was taped to his wrist, was 1 95 arem for the entire job. Part of his job consisted of placing the sources under the x-ray tube each time a shot was to be made. Altogether, 26 shots were made of the sources. It was noted that an air saeple, which was taken during the entire radiography job, indicated 6 x 10-12 uc/cc ~.
- 13. All the source shipping containers were surveyed both by the licensee (with the inspectors observing) and by the inspectors.
One container had 1,200 d/m contamination in one spot, which was removed, and all other surfaces of this container were found to be less than 100 d/m direct Three other containers were and the fifth container had found to be less than 100 d/m fixed,2 fixed. The wipe tests of a maximum spot of 400 d/m per 100 cm all the containers revealed no removable contamination. The method of smearing the containers was one complete smear of each side, one smear of the entire bottom, and one smear of the en-2 cire top, or about 1,000 cm / smear. 14. Loading of sources into the containers was observed at 2:00 p.m. on February 21. The six sources varied in size according to the application to which they would be put. All the sources have a neutron flux of between 6.5 and 7.5 x 107 neutrons per second. The two smallest sources were loaded into one cask, and it was observed that the dose rate at the side of the cask, maximum, was 22 arem/hr as measured with a NgMOSPHgRg neutron detector. A larger source was loaded into a container, and the maximum dose rate observed was 25 area /hr. Only the transfers of the two saml1 sources into one cask and one larger source into another cask were observed by the inspectors. After loading, each cask was cov red with polyethylene film and the container was placed en clean p:mer. Other Observations 15. Vacuuss blasting was continued in the shop area and was nearly com-plated by February 21. An independent survey was made by the in-spectors after vacuum blasting most of the shop floor area, and it was noted that there were not more than 12 spots of fixed con-tamination in the sand-blasted area, the maximum of which was 2 500,000 d/m per 100 cm. Most spots were on the order of 500-2 5,000 d/m per 100 cm. A three-inch wide strip around the floor molding and the areas under the lathes had not been cleaned at
l J. R. Roeder MAR 111968 l this time. The licensee had indicated that the desired contami-nation levels on the floors would meet the State de minianas levels, which were much less than the AEC levels. The state levels are: ng removable contamination and not more than 100 d/m per 100 co' of fixed contamination. When the inspectors left on February 21 after the radiographic operation, it was noted that the licensee was vacuum blasting in the corridor be-tween the shop and main office area. In addition, it was noted that the licenses was working decontanimation crews for three shifts per day or 24 hours per day. It was observed that in each case, the decontamination crews were dressed in adequate protective clothing for vacuum blasting, mainly coveralli;, Comfo respirators, caps, gloves, and aboe coverings. It was also ob-served that at the end of each shift, the decontamination crews (consisting of laborers from various union halls) were surveyed adequately by the crew chief (an employee of U. S. Nuclear) prior to leaving the area for lunch or to go home. It was also observed that air samples were being taken frequently, counted and recorded. 16. W. Fallis was observed making surveys of the raiters in the roof area on the high ceiling and surveys on the lower roofs or attic over the offices. The results of his surveys are indi-cated in the report dated February 22, 1968, to Dr. S. Kinsman, Director, Bureau of Radiological Health for the State of Cali-fornia, and shows the levels that had been reached in the de-contamination efforts of U. S. Nuclear. A copy of this report l l is attached as Annex G. Several smears, taken in the presence l of the inspectors, of the rafters inussotately over the Lake Street roll-up loading dock door indicated a maximum of 75 c/m of removable contamination, with the remaining smears averaging t 7 or 8 c/m per 100 cu. The licensee took 30 enears of these raf ters in the resence of the inspectors.
- 17. On the morning of February 21, it was observed that the custodian was painting one of the forklifts located in the corridor between the Outer Facility and the Realth Physics office. An independent survey by the inspectors revealed an unpainted spot showed 7,000 c/m. The licensee (k. Fallis) was asked why the forklifts were being painted unless they had been decontaminated, se inusedi-ately had the painting stopped. He said that the forklifts had I
been decontaminated by W. Eoesle on the previous day and that one forklift had been painted cosyletely, the other one presently being painted. He siso said that surveys showed the contamina-tion levels on these forklif ts to be less than ABC de minissas requirements. At approniwetely 5:00 p.m., W. Koesie arrived on the swing shift and was contacted regarding the location of i I
i MAR 11158 J. R. Roeder -7 the survey records. He produced two survey records, which are attached to this report as Annex H and which show the contamination levels. It was assumed at that time that the one higher contamination level found by the inspectors may have been missed by W. Koesle,
- k. Koesle said that one area had not been surveyed and therefore should not have been painted, namely the fork drive assembly located on the front of the forklift. He said that his method was decontamination, wiping clean, surveying and pointing as he went along.
Mr. Fallis was advised that the paint on the unsurveyed portion of the forklift should be removed. He agreed. 18. During this inspection, it was learned that the remaining plu-tonium matrix left over from the fabrication of the seven smaller sources (six of which were radiographer) was located in lab 5 inside of a five-foot deep well and housed in a 2 r container. This material is contained in seven small stainless steel capsules and is the remains of slug number 2 (see U. S. i Nuclear inventory dated February 7, 1968). 19. It was also observed that there was no alpha survey meter lo-cated at the exit from the centro 11ed area for personnel to I survey themselves upon leaving the area. The inspectors per-formed surveys on several personnel walking through and dis-covered contamination on the feet of one egloyee. At this time, Mr. Fallis was approached and asked if a survey instru-ment could be provided for personnel surveys and that this had been mentioned earlier on other visits to U. S. Nuclear. W. Fallis thereupon ordered another alpha meter from sherline In-strument Company, which he said was to be delivered by plane as soon as possible. He also assured the inspectors that an instrument would be available for survey from now on. 20. Prior to the inspectors' leaving for the airport on February 21 at 3:30 p.m., Mr. Bradley (Sales Manager, U. 5. Nuclear) stated that none of the radiography shots of the sources were acceptable because of improper radiography technique. Prior to this, CO:HQ advised the inspectors that if any more radiography was to be performed, it could be performed without the presence of the AgC inspectors provided that all of the safety procedures, which had been followed on the first radiography job, were continued. Messrs. Bradley and Fallis were told this and that they could continue performing additional radiography if they so desired without the presence of the inspectors.}}