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ACCESSION #: 9505180293 Syncor Syncor International Corporation The Service Difference March 23, 1995 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Document Control Desk 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852-2738 RE: NRC Event #28561 - Written Report pursuant to 10 CFR 30.50(c)(2) Dear NRC Representative: Enclosed is a written follow-up to NRC Event #28561 which was reported to Mr. McGinty at the NRC Operations Center on March 20, 1995. The reported event was a fume hood failure at Syncor's Swartz Creek, MI, radiopharmacy, NRC License #21-21141-01MD. Following is a summary of events surrounding the failure of Swartz Creek's main fume hood on March 20, 1995. All times are Pacific Time unless otherwise specified: 2300 Swartz Creek's pharmacy manager, Bill Thompson, noticed that 3/19/95 the fume hood was not running at 2 AM (Eastern Time). 0530 Bill Thompson located an available electrician to repair the 3/20/95 fume hood. The electrician determined that a new motor was needed and the appropriate equipment was ordered. 0830 Tara Domiter (Health Physicist, Chatsworth, CA) returned Bill Thompson's phone mail message. Mr. Thompson informed Tara that his fume hood was down. He explained that it was not functioning when he arrived for work at approximately 2 AM (Eastern Time) on March 20, 1995. There were approximately 52 mCi of xenon-133 and 300 mCi of iodine-131 on hand in the pharmacy at the time. Tara Domiter advised Mr. Thompson to shift to a daily air sampling frequency pending resolution. Based on air sampling results, the average restricted area air concentration of iodine-131 over the sampling period (less than 7 days) was less than 1% of the Derived Air Concentration. Syncor is confident that the restricted area air concentration did not exceed this amount, since any iodine picked up by the sample filter and back decayed over half the sampling time would have exaggerated the effects of a recent release. The maximum unrestricted area iodine-131 air concentration was approximately 436% of the effluent release limit over the sampling period from 3/16/95 to 3/21/95. Syncor is confident that the unrestricted area air concentration did not exceed this amount, since any iodine picked up by the sample filter and back decayed over half the sampling time would have exaggerated the effects of a recent release. When averaged over one year, this value would be well below the annual Effluent Limit. The maximum iodine-131 air concentration decreased to approximately 25% of the effluent release limit on 3/22/95. 20001 Prairie Street o Chatsworth, CA o 91311 o (818) 886-7400 Based on the xenon-133 inventory and assuming that the fume hood was down for about 37 hours: Equations omitted. However, this room has a supply vent rated at 100 CFM. Revising the calculations based on this flow rate: Equations omitted. Since the supply vent is rated at 100 CFM of air flow in the room, the air concentration of xenon-133 in both the restricted and unrestricted areas is negligible. 1346 Tara Domiter phoned the NRC Operations Center to report the incident, and made a report to Mr. McGinty (Event #28561). 1215 A new motor was installed and the fume hood has been operating 3/21/95 properly since 3:15 PM (Eastern Time) on March 21, 1995. We estimate that the fume hood was down for 37 hours. If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact Tara Domiter at 800/999-9098, X-4615. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, SYNCOR INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION Katherine Seifert, R.Ph., BCNP Corporate Radiation Safety Officer cc: Bill Thompson, R.Ph., Manager, Swartz Creek, MI Materials Inspection Section Chief, USNRC Region III, Lisle, IL Page 2 of 2 *** END OF DOCUMENT ***