Uranium Incident at B&W in Lynchburg Leads to Alert | ABC 13
Lynchburg, VA - An incident at Babcock and Wilcox Wednesday night caused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have safety experts in Atlanta and Maryland to monitor the situation at the Lynchburg plant.The NRC says the alert- classified as the lowest level of emergency- started around 7:45 p.m.A news release states B & W staff noticed that a saw used to cut fuel components leaked oil that contained an unknown amount of highly enriched uranium into a receptacle.
Investigators figured out only a small amount of uranium was in the oil. They cleaned it up, then declared the alert over at 12:35 this morning. The NRC is reviewing the incident.
The Three Mile Island accident of 1979 was a partial core meltdown in Unit 2 (a pressurized water reactor manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg. William Zewe, shift supervisor for TMI-1 and TMI-2; Fred Scheimann, shift foreman for TMI-2; and two control room operators, Edward Frederick and Craig Faust were called to handle the situation. Each man had been trained by Metropolitan Edison and Babcock & Wilcox and licensed by the NRC. However, nothing in their training had prepared those men for this problem.
On March 25, 1980, after blaming plant designer Babcock & Wilcox, GPU/Met Ed sued Babcock & Wilcox for $500 million. GPU/Met Ed also tried to sue, unsuccessfully, the NRC for $4 billion for negligence that contributed to the accident. On July 23, 1980, the first human entered the TMI-2 containment building since the accident.
Links:
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/udall/udallfindingaid/chairman%27s%20...
http://books.google.com/books?id=bruJwt7wfWYC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=babcock+and...
