ML20211E077
| ML20211E077 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07000903 |
| Issue date: | 06/11/1986 |
| From: | Martin T NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | PAWLING, NY |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20211E081 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8606130219 | |
| Download: ML20211E077 (2) | |
Text
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. k JUN 111986 Ms. Sibyll M. Gilbert Conservation Advisory Board - Town of Pawling 160 Charles Colman Road Pawling, New York 12564
Dear Ms. Gilbert:
I am pleased to respord to your letter of September 30, 1985 in which you indicated that radiation levels up to 5 mrem per hour were found in-the Waste Storage Building located on the fonner Gulf-United Nuclear Corporation site in Pawling, New York.
An NRC inspection was conducted at the site on October 15, 1985, as a result of your letter. I understand that you accompanied our inspector, Mr. C. F.
Stearns, during part of that inspection. Radiation surveys made during that inspection confirmed the presence of radiation levels up to five mrem per hour.
For your information, I am enclosing a copy of the inspection report that documents the results of those radiation surveys.
Subsequent to our inspection, an NRC contractor, Oak Ridge Associated Univer-sities (0RAU), was directed to perfonn additional decontamination of the Waste Storage Building. On February 28, 1986, ORAU personnel perfonned cleanup operations on the hot spot identified by you and other areas identified by our inspector during the October 1985 inspection. Following their decontamination efforts, the ORAU personnel conducted a radiation survey of the entire build-ing, looking for areas reading in excess of natural background levels (0.01 -
0.016 mrem /hr or 10 to 16 uRem/hr). Two such areas were identified, both involvin One of these areas read 0.12 mrem /hr (120 uRem/hr)g on fixed contamination.
contact. As noted in the enclosed ORAU letter to Mr. Roth, that area was not accessible for decontamination because it was located under a building support structure. The other area, on the western edge of the hole in the concrete floor described in the enclosed reports, read 0.045 mrem /hr (45 uRem/hr) on contact.
ORAU personnel did not reduce the remaining areas to background levels because of the inaccessibility of one of the areas and because of a breakdown of their equipment while cleaning the other area. Because the equipment could not be repaired at the site, and because the residual radiation in that area was in-significant, it was decided that further cicanup work was not warranted.
While those remaining spots do exhibit slightly elevated radiation levels, they are well within the NRC criteria for release for unrestricted use by the public (maximum of 1,000 uRem/hr). Accordingly, it is our view that any radioactivity 0FFICIAL RECORD COPY
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Ms. Sibyll M. Gilbert 2 JUN 111986 that remains in the Waste Storage Building will not pose a safety hazard to individuals who visit the site. For your information, it is our understanding that the National Park Service has contracted ORAU to perform additional ra-diation surveys at the Pawling site in the near future.
Thank you for your interest in this matter. Please contact me if I can be of further assistance.
Sincerely, Original Signed By:
Thomas T. Martin Thomas T. Martin, Director Division of Radiation Safety and Safeguards
Enclosures:
- 1. NRC Region I Inspection Report No. 70-903/85-02
- 2. Letter, Oak Ridge Associated Universities to J. Roth, NRC Region I, dated March 11, 1986.
cc w/encis: National Park Service, Appalachian Trail Project Office PublicDocumentRoom(PDR)
Local Public Nuclear Safety Information Document CenterRoom (LPDR) (NSIC)
State of New York bec w/encis:
Region I Docket Room - Docket 70-903 W. T. Crow, NHSS J. Kinneman, Region I J. Berger, ORAU J. Roth, Region I I
R DRSS RI RSS . SS R .DA6S th/ca K mig oyner M rtin l 4/[,/86 6/ /86 6/ 1/86 d//8/86 OFFICIAL RECORD COPY LTR S GILBERT - 0002.0.0 06/04/86 i
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Region I Report No. 70-903/85-02 Docket No.70-903 License No. SNM-871 (Terminated)
Licensee: Gulf United Nuclear Corporation Pawling, New York Present Owner: National Park Service Facility Name: Former Waste Storage Building Inspection At: Same Inspection Conducted: October 15, 1985 Inspector: AdC.,I_Cr$,w atl:Blaf C. F. Stearns, Ridiation Specialist date
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. D. Kinneman, Chief, Nuclear Materials ~
'date etion A Inspection Summary: Inspection on October 15, 1985 (Inspection No. 70-903/85-02)
Areas Inspected: The inspection was limited to a survey of the former Waste Storage Building.
Results: Radiation levels exceeding 2 mrem /hr were found at several locations, primarily in the vicinity of a hole made in the concrete floor to remove activity found in recent surveys.
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DETAILS
- 1. Persons Contacted Ms. Sibyll M. Gilbert, Member, Conservation Advisory Board, Town of Pawling Mr. Kenneth Lutters, Office of Parks and Recreation, Taconic Region
- 2. Background This facility had been released for unrestricted use more than ten years ago. The current inspection was conducted to review a radiation level of 5 millirem per hour in the Waste Storage Building reported by a member of the Conservation Advisory Board, Town of Pawling in a letter dated September 30, 1985.
- 3. Instrumentation Used in Survey Radiation level measurements were made at all locations using a Ludlum Model 14C, Serial #17304, with a thin end window GM probe sensitive to beta and gamma radiation, calibrated July 9, 1985. Confirmatory measure-ments were also made using a Keithley Model 361000, Serial #9882 ionization chamber instrument at all points where levels exceeding 2 millirem per hour were found with the Ludlum GM.
- 4. Survey Technique The floor of the former Waste Storage Building was surveyed for beta gamma radiation levels using the thin end window of the Ludlum GM probe. At locations where levels exceeding 2 millirem per hour were found, a reading was also taken at 3 feet above the floor, and gamma readings were taken at the surface using the cylindrical wall of the GM probe as a shield. As noted above, confirmatory readings, using the Keithley ionization chamber instrument, were also made at these locations.
- 5. Results Almost all surface readings exceeding 2 millirem per- hour were found within a few inches of the hole resulting from the removal of a portion of the concrete floor where radioactivity had been detected by recent surveys.
See Exhibit B for photographs of this hole. In photograph #1, for example, the brown area, farthest from the wall in the background, is the portion of hole where all the concrete was removed down to loose dirt, whereas the rear portion of the hole is more shallow, since some concrete remains.
The photographs in Exhibit B also show that the hole is within a light colored square area. This approximately 4 foot by 4 foot section had been painted to delineate where contamination was found in an earlier survey.
All readings beyond this painted area were found to be less than 0.05 mrem per hour in the current survey, except for three spots shown in Exhibit A.
J
3 The maximum level found on the surface of the floor, measured by the Ludlum Model 14C GM, was 5.6 mrem / hour (0.4 mrem / hour when shielded by cylindrical wall of GM probe). The reading at 3 feet above the floor was 0.1 mrem / hour.
The beta-gamma reading at the surface using the Keithley ion chamber instru-ment was 4.4 mrem / hour.
A reading of 14 mrem / hour was obtained near the north wall of the building, approximately three feet from the hole, but this was apparently a tiny spot of activity in the loose debris on the floor, rather than on the floor itself. This assumption that the spot is small is based on the precision found to be required in positioning the GM probe in order to reproduce the reading. The inspector demonstrated that the activity was in loose debris, rather than on the surface of the floor itself, by pushing the debris slightly towards the wall, and noting that the position where the 14 mrem / hour reading was thence obtained shifted accordingly. The gamma reading at the surface was 0.2 mrem / hour and the reading at three feet was 0.06 mrem / hour.
Readings of 1 mrem / hour or more were found at several other locations.
(See Exhibit A for the locations of these readings relative to the hole in the concrete floor). In general, at all points where levels exceeding 2 mrem / hour were found, readings were taken with shield as well as open window on the surface of the floor, and also at 3 feet above the floor.
Readings at these points with the Keithley ionization chamber instrument were always appreciably lower than the GM readings, possibly due to the .
poor geometry of reading rather small spots of activity with an instrument having a relatively large ion chamber. However,.the Keithley readings were generally comparable to the GM readings with the exception of the 1.4 mrem / hour reading which was only 10 percent of the 14 mrem / hour GM reading at that spot.
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T Oak Rldge Manconer Education, y Associated Post Office Box 117 Univercmes Oak R;dge, Tennessee 37831-0117 Research. and Tra'ning Dwisicn March li,1986 Mr. Jerry Roth Region 1 Nuclear Regn1 story Commission 631 Park Avenue King of Prussia, PA 19406
Subject:
ADDITIONAL SOPLING AT THE IMkMER GULF-UNITED NUCLEAR c0RPORATION SITE, PAWLING, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Roth On February 28, 1986, personnel of Oak Ridge Associated Universities Radiological Site Assessment (initiated on February 26, 1985)Progran (OlfAU/RSAP) of a small general areacontinued (16 ft cleap)ap of Cs-137ef forts contamination located in the northeast portion of tie Waste Disposs! Building at the former Culf-United Nuclear Corporation site near Pawling, New York (Figure 1). )'
Camma scanning, using Nat(TI) scintillation detectors, indicated surface contact levels, prior to cleanup, rsuging from 45 to 240 pk/h. Elevated beta-ganna readingu were also obtaited. Exposure raten of 16 pR/h wete recorded at I e above the surface.
3 3 Coring operations reuuved an aldicional 3 ft of concrece and 6 ft of soil. Contact exposure rates were significantly reduced; bowever, elevated activity still remains, especially on a small concrete strip lacated under a metal support (contact icvels of 120 ER/h were tecutded'). This area exwid not be accessed for cleanup purposen. Exposure rates at 1 in above the surface were i reduced to 13 pk/h. Elevated contact exposure rateu (45 uY/h) were also noted on the western portion of the contaisinated concrete slab. This area covera approximately 0.5 ft x 2 ft. Exposure rates in this area may to due. however, to the isolated locatic:t of elevated activity noted above.
One additional location of elevated radiation invels (230 pB/h) was identified in the extremi northeast corne.r of the buildiog. Concrute chip fragments were removed, reducing contact exposure rates to 16 pk/h.
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Mr. Jerry Roth March 11, 1986 All concrete debris and removed soil was returned to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for analysis.
It should be noted that because of limited site information and lack of proper equipment and time to finish the sutvey, ORAU was unable to complete cleanup to background levels, Comments concerning these findings may be addressed to me or Mr. James Berger at FTS 626-3305.
Sincerely, 0 05 -
Alex J. Boerner Team Leadet Radiological Site Assessment Program AJB: cit a
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