 |
NRC NEWS
U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION |
| Office of Public Affairs |
Telephone: 301/415-8200 |
| Washington, DC 20555-001 |
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov |
No. 96-160 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Friday, November 15, 1996)
NRC LAUNCHES SPECIAL INSPECTION AT FRAMATOME COGEMA FACILITY
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent a special three-member inspection
team to the Framatome Cogema nuclear fuel facility in Lynchburg, Va. The team will
attempt to determine how a nuclear power plant fuel assembly recently received in
Lynchburg was inadvertently returned in its original shipping cask to its point of origin in
Greifswald, Germany.
NRC dispatched the team Wednesday (November 13) after Framatome Cogema
reported that it could not account for one of 180 fuel assemblies containing 126 fuel
rods of less than 2-percent enriched uranium it recently received from Germany.
Yesterday, however, the company informed NRC that the fuel assembly had been found in
Germany in the original shipping container which had returned after partial unloading in the
U.S.
Two of the team members are specialists in material control and accounting. The
other is the senior resident inspector from another NRC-licensed facility in Lynchburg, who
will focus on transportation activities. They will conduct a comprehensive examination of
the incident to determine how such an error could have occurred and to ensure that
corrective measures are taken.
The material involved fresh, Russian-produced fuel originally intended for use in
a nuclear power plant in East Germany has never been used in a reactor and thus does
not present a significant public health and safety concern. Framatome Cogema has a
contract to remove the fuel pellets from the 180 fuel assemblies and to deliver the uranium
to another facility for further processing.
####
|
