SRS Watch has inquired of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the death of an employee at the BWXT highly enriched uranium (HEU) facility in Lynchburg, VA. See “event report” of June 29:
Current Event Notification Report for June 29, 2020
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Operations Center
Event Reports For
6/26/2020 – 6/29/2020
Fuel Cycle Facility Event Number: 54751 Facility: Bwx Technologies, Inc.
RX Type: Uranium Fuel Fabrication
Comments: Heu Fabrication & Scrap
Region: 2
City: Lynchburg State: VA
County: Campbell
License #: SNM-42
Docket: 070-27
NRC Notified By: Chris Terry
HQ OPS Officer: Brian P. Smith
Notification Date: 06/19/2020
Notification Time: 13:02 [ET]
Event Date: 06/19/2020
Event Time: 10:30 [EDT]
Last Update Date: 06/19/2020 Emergency Class: Non Emergency
10 CFR Section:
PART 70 APP A (c) – Offsite Notification/News Rel Person (Organization):
MARK MILLER (R2DO)
SILAS KENNEDY (IRD)
GRETCHEN RIVERA-CAPELLA (NMSS DAY)
NMSS_EVENTS_NOTIFICATION (EMAIL)
– FUELS GROUP (EMAIL)
Event Text
ONSITE FATALITY
The following was received via email:
“At approximately 1030 EDT on Friday, June 19, 2020, a BWXT NOG-L employee lost his life due to a fire incident. There were no eye witnesses, but workers in the area reported hearing a pop and then found the victim on the floor in the Supercompactor Room (an intermediate controlled work area). At this time the investigation has not determined what caused the event. The fire did not continue and was out before the Emergency Team could respond to the incident. There was no release of radioactive material above 1 DAC [Derived-Air-Concentration]. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics on the Emergency Team. The Campbell County Sheriff’s Department and the VA OSHA [Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Administration] were contacted at 1140. A message was left with the Federal OSHA. At approximately 1415, NOG-L was contacted by John Ratcliffe from Federal OSHA. The local Fire Marshall and Campbell County Sheriff’s department are completing their investigation and the body has been removed from the scene of the incident.”
Event report: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/en.html
Here’s the NRC Region 2 response to SRS Watch on June 30, 2020: “The NRC senior resident inspector at BWXT was immediately notified of the event(s) and responded to the plant’s emergency response facilities. We continue to evaluate the circumstances of the accident for any NRC-licensed implications, but there were no radiological materials involved and no NRC reactive inspection was required. OSHA and/or state officials have initiated an investigation and if you have questions about those efforts, I suggest you contact OSHA (or the Commonwealth of Virginia as noted below), although I’m not sure how much they can provide until the investigation is completed.
Virginia is what is known as a “State Plan State” which is roughly analogous to an NRC Agreement State, and Virginia operates an OSHA-approved State Plan covering most private sector workers and all state and local government workers. The Virginia Occupational Safety and Health (VOSH) Headquarters is located at the Main Street Centre, 600 East Main Street, Suite 207, Richmond, VA 23219, telephone: (804) 371-2327.”