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No. 97-048 Monday, March 24, 1997
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is releasing a Texas Instruments, Inc. facility in Attleboro, Massachusetts, for unrestricted use following cleanup of radioactive contamination to levels that meet NRC release criteria.
The facility still conducts metallurgical production activities, but no longer uses radioactive material in its operations.
Metals and Controls, Inc., began operations using radioactive materials at the site in 1952. In 1959, the company merged with Texas Instruments. From 1952 through 1965 it fabricated uranium fuel elements for the U.S. Naval Reactors Program, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. government-funded research, and a few commercial customers. Later, from 1965 through 1981, it made fuel for the high flux isotope reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other government-owned research reactors. It also used depleted uranium and processed natural uranium at the facility for research and development. Some materials contaminated with low levels of radioactivity had been disposed of in an on-site burial.
The company began cleaning up uranium contamination in 1981, after operational activities ceased. NRC conducted periodic inspections of the remediation activities. Based on radiological surveys conducted by the licensee, NRC review of those surveys and a confirmatory survey conducted in February 1997 by NRC staff (accompanied and assisted by a representative from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), NRC concluded that decommissioning has now been satisfactorily completed at the Attleboro site.
The NRC is terminating Texas Instruments' license and is removing the site from its Site Decommissioning Management Plan, which identifies about 50 sites throughout the United States that are contaminated with radioactive materials and warrant special attention.
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