Here is the inspection report.
First crud burst: REPORT 05000293/2013002
This is going to be so costly...they are tremendously wasting maintenance funding and company resources. I can remember at VY doing rounds...I'd pop into the cleanup room without any protective clothes on. Then we had fuel failures and crud bursts. It would then take me a hour just to get dressed up and undress to do the same job. The radiation protection department would require it because the contamination was so high. Cycle that thought with the thousands of small and big jobs for a month, especially during future outages.
You get it, this seriously dilutes their resources from maintenance and operation of the plant into controlling contamination and radiation. It is a serious dilution of organizational resources!
Massive Radiation Accident Occurred At Pilgrim Nuke
During the period January 1 through October 14, the plant has experienced several reactor scrams and forced outages. As a result of these scrams, crud bursts occurred that resulted in radioactive contamination being dislodged from reactor system piping and components and re-located elsewhere in these plant systems. This relocation has resulted in increased dose rates in the affected components and surrounding areas. The crud was transported to the CRD hydraulic control units, scram discharge instrument volume headers/ piping, reactor water cleanup system, reactor water sample sink, mitigation monitoring system, and the RHR system.
Additionally, some of the scrams resulted from the loss of off-site power. With the loss of off-site power, sump pumps for plant areas became inoperable, resulting in the sumps overflowing and spreading contamination to floor areas.I would just ask…these guys have been having excess shutdowns for many years. Why no report of crud burst in the past? They changed something else in the recent past, it created excessive crud…the recent hard plant trip just exposed this.
The crud can be extraordinarily radioactive...many 100's of gallons spilled onto the floor? That is how it got outside. You notice how they didn't explain the crud burst in their explanation of the 60 picocuries per liters out in the yard.
Why wasn't the little sump pumps on the vital bus? One wonders how crapped up the torus has become? Was their other particles beside gamma?
High tritium level seen at Pilgrim
January 18, 2014
PLYMOUTH — Concentrations of a radioactive isotope called tritium found in late December during groundwater monitoring at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station were the highest detected since testing began at the plant in 2007.
Tritium levels at the 24 groundwater wells on the plant property generally range from undetectable to about 5,000 picocuries per liter, according to Joyce McMahon, spokeswoman for Entergy Corp., which owns and manages the plant. The drinking water maximum standard is 20,000 picocuries, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Tritium — a byproduct of the nuclear fission process — was found at 69,000 picocuries per liter in a sample taken from a well adjacent to a catch basin that collects and releases waste from the reactor into Cape Cod Bay.
Tritium levels at the 24 groundwater wells on the plant property generally range from undetectable to about 5,000 picocuries per liter, according to Joyce McMahon, spokeswoman for Entergy Corp., which owns and manages the plant. The drinking water maximum standard is 20,000 picocuries, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Last April, Entergy identified a separation of it neutralizing sump discharge line. The company theorized, at that time, that this line was the source of tritium groundwater contamination first identified years earlier at the site.
The new monitoring well is adjacent to the catch basin where the outfall from the sump discharge line was rerouted, which supports that theory.
After this latest spike in tritium, plant operators stopped using a line that runs from a holding tank for the radioactive waste to a catch basin adjacent to the reactor.
These guys below exactly mean what they say. Now if they said the crud resulted in increase in contamination (radiation) levels...this would be a rather small level of radiation. Talking about crud getting deposited outside the containment causing increased dose rates...that is talking about a tremendous increase in crud contamination levels. Dose and contamination rates are two different things!
This relocation has resulted in increased dose rates in the affected components and surrounding areas. The crud was transported to the CRD hydraulic control units, scram discharge instrument volume headers/ piping, reactor water cleanup system, reactor water sample sink, mitigation monitoring system, and the RHR system.
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