| Following a chemical release (uranium
hexafluoride) early Monday (December 22) morning at the Honeywell International
nuclear fuel processing plant near Metropolis, Illinois, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission began dispatching inspectors to the facility. Those inspectors are
now part of a formal group designated as an Augmented Inspection Team or AIT.
An AIT is formed to review the circumstances surrounding more significant
events at NRC-licensed facilities. The Honeywell AIT is being led by Jay Henson
from the NRC’s Region II office in Atlanta and the rest of the team
is made up of three additional Region II inspectors and one inspector from
NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.
The AIT will review the event and assess the plant operators’ performance
as well as the plant equipment involved. The inspection team will also review
Honeywell’s procedures, the company’s response to the events and
any investigations or reviews by the company. The AIT will conduct an exit
meeting to announce the preliminary results of the inspection at a time to
be announced later and a final publicly-available report will be issued within
30 days of the inspection.
In addition to the AIT inspection, the NRC has issued a Confirmatory Action
Letter to Honeywell to confirm that the company has shut down uranium hexafluoride
operations, initiated its own investigation and will discuss with the NRC
both the results of that investigation and proposed corrective actions prior
to restarting the processes involved in the incident.
The issuance of the Confirmatory Action Letter does not preclude the NRC
from taking additional steps, including enforcement actions, for any violations
of NRC requirements that may be identified during the AIT inspection or any
subsequent inspections.
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