Event Notification Report for January 31, 2012

AGREEMENT STATE REPORT - POSSIBLE EXCEEDANCE OF ANNUAL DOSE LIMIT

The following information was received from the State of Louisiana via facsimile:

"[An individual's] badge received 2709 mRem for December 2011, which gave him a yearly exposure of 5609 mRem for 2011. [The individual had] performed radiography for the first fifteen days of December. [During] the second half of December he worked on paperwork before leaving the company. He had left his personal radiation monitoring equipment in the front compartment of the x-ray rig truck during the second half of December."

The State of Louisiana will investigate.

PATIENT BURIED WITH PLUTONIUM-238 PACEMAKER

A former patient at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital expired on 1/31/12 and the body was released to the family for burial. The patient had a Medtronic pacemaker with a radionuclide of Plutonium-238. The RSO at Sinai-Grace Hospital notified the NRC of this event.

There is no planned action to recover the pacemaker from the buried patient.


THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "CATEGORY 3" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL

Category 3 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them, or were otherwise in contact with them, for some hours. It could possibly - although it is unlikely - be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of days to weeks. These sources are typically used in practices such as fixed industrial gauges involving high activity sources (for example: level gauges, dredger gauges, conveyor gauges and spinning pipe gauges) and well logging. For additional information go to http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf

AGREEMENT STATE REPORT - STOLEN TROXLER GAUGE

This information was provided by the State of California by e-mail:

"The Alternate RSO for Construction Testing & Engineering reported a Troxler 3440, serial number 22426, containing 9 mCi of Cs-137 and 44 mCi of Am-241, was stolen out of the cab of his pickup, which was parked in his driveway. . . sometime last night.

"The Licensee notified the Manteca Police Department and is working on posting a reward for the safe return of the gauge."

CA Report Number: 013112


THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "LESS THAN CAT 3" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL

Sources that are "Less than IAEA Category 3 sources," are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as moisture density gauges or thickness gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks. For additional information go to http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf

MANUAL TRIP DUE TO A PRIMARY TO SECONDARY LEAK GREATER THAN 30 GAL/HR

"At 1505 PST, Unit 3 entered Abnormal Operation Instruction S023-13-14 'Reactor Coolant Leak' for a steam generator leak exceeding 5 gallons per day.

"At 1549 PST, the leak rate was determined to be 82 gallons per day. At 1610 PST, a leak rate greater than 75 gallons per day with an increasing rate of leakage exceeding 30 gallons per hour was established and entry into S023-13-28 'Rapid Power Reduction' was performed.

"At 1630 PST, commenced rapid power reduction per S023-13-28 'Rapid Power Reduction'. At 1731 PST, with reactor power at 35% the Unit was manually tripped. At 1738 PST, Unit 3 entered Emergency Operation Instruction S023-12-4 'Steam Generator Tube Rupture'.

"At 1800 PST the affected steam generator was isolated."

All control rods fully inserted on the trip. Decay heat is being removed thru the main steam bypass valves into the main condenser. Main feedwater is maintaining steam generator level. No relief valves lifted during the manual trip. The plant is in normal shutdown electrical lineup.

Unit 2 is presently in a refueling outage and was not affected by this event.

The licensee has notified the NRC Resident Inspector. The licensee has issued a press release.

AGREEMENT STATE REPORT - MISSING TRITIUM EXIT SIGN

The following was received from the State of Oklahoma via email:

"On January 31, 2012, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) received email notification from America Multi-Cinema, Inc. (AMC) that they had lost one (1) tritium (H-3) radioluminescent exit sign. The amount of H-3 is unknown. AMC has filed a report for the Oklahoma City Police Department. The case number is 12-001181. According to AMC, the missing exit sign was discovered before a site survey had been performed, so AMC could not provide the manufacturer or serial number of the stolen unit. At this time, no further information is available."

AGREEMENT STATE REPORT - CONTAMINATION LEVELS EXCEED ACTION LEVELS

The following was received from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts via facsimile:

"On Tuesday, 1/31/12, routine contamination surveys discovered approximately 0.5 nCi of Ir-192 outside of the restricted area on the first floor. The calculated dose for an 8-hour exposure to this RAM is 0.7 mrem. The contamination survey results prompted QSA to perform additional surveys to determine the source of contamination. Survey wipes yielded 10,000 to 30,000 dpm over large areas (approximately 2 feet x 2 feet) at different locations.

"Upon investigation, QSA discovered that the exhaust fan on the Ir-192 source production hot cell had been turned 'off.' The exhaust fan was immediately turned back 'on.' About one week earlier, Ir-192 from a supplier was transferred into the hot cell. This operation requires the hot cell exhaust fan to be turned 'off' temporarily. QSA realized that the exhaust fan had not been turned back 'on.'

"Radiation workers who performed hot cell production operations during the time the exhaust fan was 'off' were subjected to whole body counts performed at MIT. The whole body counts indicated workers ingested 12 to 20 nCi of Ir-192 and based on the MIT results, the RSO calculated the committed dose to be less than 2 mrem.

"Since the contamination discovery, QSA has performed cleaning operations on the first and second floors, daily survey monitoring of the first and second floors, and radiation workers performing production operations using the Ir-192 hot cell have worn full protective clothing suits. QSA reports daily surveys results indicate contamination levels have steadily decreased."

Docket No: 14-0067