Benchmark Reporter – by Benzamin H
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is thoroughly investigating a recent incident at an eastern Idaho company that manufactures radioactive products.
The Federal nuclear officials want detailed and specific information provided to them about how the organization determined a worker’s level of radiation exposure after a mishap caused the worker to get exposed to an amount which was initially thought above the maximum level allowed in one whole year.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Friday that it had issued a formal letter to International Isotopes Inc. in Idaho Falls confirming the specific steps that the organization will need to take before resuming partial operations after the August 20 incident.
“We’re taking this very, very seriously. We’re going to aggressively go through the whole program from top to bottom to make sure we have the appropriate steps in place,” commented Steve Laflin, president and CEO of the organization.
International Isotopes is known for making radioactive products for cancer treatment, research and industry.
The company had revised the estimate of radioactive exposure to the worker’s hand to a much lower level several days after the original incident.
The estimate of exposure to the worker’s body was also much lower than the annual dose set by federal officials.
CEO and President Laflin explained that the company chose to be extra careful with its initial response by estimating a high amount of radiation received by the worker. However after thorough examination of the video footage and analyzing results from the medical reports, the company was forced to revise the amount. Laflin is confident that the federal agency will confirm those results.
“This is an instance where an individual had a cognitive error – just lost awareness of what they were doing,” the CEO added.
The worker who was involved in the August 20 incident was a senior technician and had more than a decade of experience, according to Laflin. The worker was using an instrument to remove cobalt from a container when it had become stuck and then unstuck.
“It fell to the floor between his legs. He maintained control of it, but it came out of the container, and it shouldn’t have. In those few brief seconds, they estimate he received in excess of an annual dose limit,” said Victor Dricks, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, adding that the item weighed over 40 pounds.
Dricks added that the feds will look to verify the company’s calculations of the exposure the worker received. “We want to look at all of that to make sure they arrived at the correct conclusions.”
“We’re taking this very, very seriously. We’re going to aggressively go through the whole program from top to bottom to make sure we have the appropriate steps in place,”
Fukushima is already spewing out enough radiation to suit their purposes.
Plus there is mammon extraction involved here.