Post by west-texan on Mar 24, 2009 7:04:47 GMT -5
Just so everyone can stay on top of what is going on in our area.
www.amarillo.com/stories/032409/new_12965221.shtml
Home > News > Local News
Web-posted Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pantex shipment radioactive
No contaminations reported, but procedures are in revision
By Jim McBride
jim.mcbride@amarillo.com
Pantex is stepping up monitoring procedures for nuclear shipments after plant officials learned this month that 12 items Pantex shipped to New Mexico were contaminated with high levels of tritium, a radioactive gas used in atomic warheads.
Pantex, about 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, assembles, dismantles and retrofits nuclear weapons.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a government watchdog agency charged with monitoring safety at U.S. weapons plants, said in a March 6 report that no workers were contaminated as a result of the incident, but contractor B&W Pantex is revising inventory procedures for some nuclear materials.
B&W Pantex General Manager Greg Meyer said Pantex is investigating the shipment of 12 "legacy" items that were found to be contaminated when they were removed from protective packaging at Sandia National Laboratories near Albuquerque, N.M. The items were trucked about 280 miles from Amarillo to Sandia.
Legacy items are components or tools from dismantled weapons that are not part of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and cannot be re-used in modern warheads. Pantex officials did not say what the items were or when they arrived at Sandia.
No employees were exposed to tritium during the shipping process at Pantex or Sandia, Meyer said.
He said 36 items were sent to Sandia for eventual disposal. Sandia employees conducted surveys on all the items and discovered 12 that were contaminated with tritium.
B&W Pantex conducted pre-shipment radiation and contamination sample surveys on the shipping containers before the items left Amarillo.
The survey results were well within acceptable levels, Meyer said, and a random sample of the 36 items showed no contamination. Workers surveyed the shipping containers, but did not survey each of the items inside.
Meyer said the items were properly packaged for interstate shipment and that there was no risk of exposure to the public.
B&W Pantex is conducting an in-depth inventory of all legacy material to ensure items with possible contamination are properly handled, Meyer said.
Tritium is used to enhance the nuclear yield or explosive power of modern atomic weapons.
Tritium is also produced commercially in reactors. It is used in various self-luminescent devices, such as exit signs in buildings, aircraft dials, gauges, luminous paints and watches.
www.amarillo.com/stories/032409/new_12965221.shtml
Home > News > Local News
Web-posted Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pantex shipment radioactive
No contaminations reported, but procedures are in revision
By Jim McBride
jim.mcbride@amarillo.com
Pantex is stepping up monitoring procedures for nuclear shipments after plant officials learned this month that 12 items Pantex shipped to New Mexico were contaminated with high levels of tritium, a radioactive gas used in atomic warheads.
Pantex, about 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, assembles, dismantles and retrofits nuclear weapons.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a government watchdog agency charged with monitoring safety at U.S. weapons plants, said in a March 6 report that no workers were contaminated as a result of the incident, but contractor B&W Pantex is revising inventory procedures for some nuclear materials.
B&W Pantex General Manager Greg Meyer said Pantex is investigating the shipment of 12 "legacy" items that were found to be contaminated when they were removed from protective packaging at Sandia National Laboratories near Albuquerque, N.M. The items were trucked about 280 miles from Amarillo to Sandia.
Legacy items are components or tools from dismantled weapons that are not part of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and cannot be re-used in modern warheads. Pantex officials did not say what the items were or when they arrived at Sandia.
No employees were exposed to tritium during the shipping process at Pantex or Sandia, Meyer said.
He said 36 items were sent to Sandia for eventual disposal. Sandia employees conducted surveys on all the items and discovered 12 that were contaminated with tritium.
B&W Pantex conducted pre-shipment radiation and contamination sample surveys on the shipping containers before the items left Amarillo.
The survey results were well within acceptable levels, Meyer said, and a random sample of the 36 items showed no contamination. Workers surveyed the shipping containers, but did not survey each of the items inside.
Meyer said the items were properly packaged for interstate shipment and that there was no risk of exposure to the public.
B&W Pantex is conducting an in-depth inventory of all legacy material to ensure items with possible contamination are properly handled, Meyer said.
Tritium is used to enhance the nuclear yield or explosive power of modern atomic weapons.
Tritium is also produced commercially in reactors. It is used in various self-luminescent devices, such as exit signs in buildings, aircraft dials, gauges, luminous paints and watches.