NRC: News Release - Region IV - 2003-026 - NRC Proposes $6,000 Fine for Nondestructive & Visual Inspection, Inc. of Harvey, LA.

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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Office of Public Affairs, Region IV
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No. IV-03-026		June 17, 2003
CONTACT:	Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128	E-mail: OPA4.Resource@nrc.gov
NRC PROPOSES $6,000 FINE FOR NONDESTRUCTIVE & VISUAL INSPECTION, INC. OF HARVEY, LA. Printable Version
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a fine of $6,000 against Nondestructive and Visual Inspection, Inc. of Harvey, Louisiana for violating NRC administrative and radioactive material handling requirements. In a letter to the company, Thomas P. Gwynn, Acting Administrator of the NRC’s Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, said that as a result of an NRC inspection that ended on March 6, the agency determined that the company violated NRC requirements associated with the control of radioactive materials. During an inspection conducted in offshore federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, an NRC inspector found the company failed to “control and maintain constant surveillance over an industrial radiographic exposure device in an unrestricted area.” “Our review found that the radiographer and his assistant were eating lunch and neither were in direct visual sight of the device when the inspector arrived on the platform,” Gwynn said. The radiographer and his assistant “stated that, on the day of the inspection, they got distracted and forgot to put the device into the dark room when they went to lunch.” Radiography is a nondestructive method which uses a sealed radiation source to make x-ray images of heavy metal objects like pumps, valves and pipes. The company has taken corrective actions by discussing the incident with other radiographers to stress the importance of securing industrial radiographic devices and of following radiation safety requirements, disciplining the radiographer, making sure all dark rooms have a storage area for the device, discussing with its clients the importance of having the darkroom on the same platform where work is being performed or of having a storage box available for securing the device, and increasing onsite surveillance of the safety practices of its radiographers. The NRC has classified the one violation as a Severity Level III violation, which carries a $6,000 fine. The agency uses a four-level severity scale in which Severity Level I is the most serious. The company has 30 days from receipt of the letter to either pay the civil penalty or to challenge the proposed fine The NRC’s letter, its enclosures, and the company’s response will be made available to interested members of the public through the agency’s public electronic reading room at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in accessing these documents is available from the NRC Public Document Room at (301) 415-4737 or at 1-800-397-4209.
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