The Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility is a factory in Columbia, South Carolina where nuclear fuel rods are manufactured for commercial nuclear power plants. The forty seven year old plant is owned and operated by Westinghouse. The facility occupies over half a million square feet and employs one thousand workers.
If uranium deposits build up in the wrong places in a nuclear fuel plant, it can pose a serious hazard. The uranium used in nuclear fuel rods can spontaneously combust if exposed to air and start a serious fire. If a buildup of uranium passes a threshold, there is the danger of a "critical event" which could release a burst of radiation that could pose a serious or even lethal threat to the health of workers nearby.
In 2004, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fined Westinghouse twenty four thousand dollars because Westinghouse had allowed uranium to build up for eight years in an incinerator at the plant. The NRC concluded that Westinghouse did not properly assess the risk of a uranium buildup and did not set proper standards for monitoring the incinerator. As a result of the fine, Westinghouse invested three million dollars in improving the equipment at the plant including replacing the incinerator.
Westinghouse notified the NRC five weeks ago that they had discovered that one hundred and ninety one pounds of uranium had accumulated in one part of an air pollution scrubber system. This amount of uranium is more than three times the federal safety limit of eighty pounds. Westinghouse knew about the accumulation at the beginning of June but did not report it to the NRC until July. Questions have been raised about why it took Westinghouse a month to notify the NRC when such incidents are supposed to be reported within twenty four hours of discovery.
On August 7th, the NRC reported that "residual material" was discovered in an old air pollution scrubber component at the Columbia plant that had not been in use since 2002.
This week, Westinghouse notified the NRC that a safety inspection at the Columbia plant found another buildup of uranium in the air pollution scrubber system that may be beyond the safety limit.
The danger of a critical event caused by one of these three incidences of uranium accumulation was minimal facility because other conditions for a critical event were not met. It is unknown at that this time why these uranium accumulations occured. The incidents are being studied and a report will be issued this fall.
Until the reason for the uranium accumulation is discovered and dealt with, Westinghouse has shut down the chemical processing area where the contaminated air pollution scrubber system is located. One hundred and seventy workers will be laid off temporarily while the investigation proceeds and solutions are implemented.
NRC records show that the Westinghouse fuel plant has been the subject of twelve major NRC enforcement records since the late 1990s. A member of the Sierra Club who specializes in nuclear issues accused the company of being lax in the handling of nuclear materials. He said, "It sounds like sloppy house-keeping and poor maintenance."
Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility:
