Employee Gets Splashed With Radioactive Water During Accident At Nuclear Power Plant

An employee from Holtec was splashed with radioactive water in February when a lid came off a storage cask. This resulted in the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to undergo decommissioning as federal regulators cited the power plant for a low-level safety violation.

According to Ashbury Park Press, the New Jersey nuclear power plant employee has now returned to work after getting checked for contamination. Holtec spokesman Joseph Delmar said the employee was wearing the required protective gear including coveralls, when the accident happened.

Neil Sheehan, spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission explained the incident and said that while moving spent fuel out of the plant's cooling pool into concrete and steel casks for storage, a test of a lid seal caused a leak through the cask’s vent. A device used to seal the casks got disengaged after the snap rings failed thereby causing the spill.

The water splashed onto the employee and had also spread to two levels of the reactor building. A radiation exposure level measured at a dose of less than 10mrm or millirem was detected on the worker. “In response to this event, Holtec stopped additional spent fuel loadings for several days as it examined the equipment and procedures,” Delmar said.

“A modification was made to the valve design, loading procedures were revised, and additional training of the cask loading team was conducted. The fuel loading campaign safely resumed and was completed in late May without any further incident.” he added.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the average American is exposed to roughly 620 millirem yearly. Half of this radiation exposure comes from background radiation in an individual’s environment depending on the number of appliances and gadgets and the amount of time a person is exposed to them. To compare, a person who has undergone a chest x-ray renders an exposure of about 10 millirem.

Sheehan said the annual occupational exposure limit for nuclear power plant workers is 5,000 milirems. Holtec is decommissioning the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, as well as Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and Indian Point Energy Center in New York.

"Holtec holds the safety of all associates to be the highest priority," Delmar said in an email to the Press.