The Nuclear Ship Savannah, the world’s first commercial nuclear powered ship, remains at dock in Baltimore Maryland and awaits being fully decommissioned and possibly turned into a museum. The ship, spotted by a friend of SRS Watch on December 8, was anchored for many years with the “ghost fleet” in the mouth of the James River near Norfolk, Virginia.
The NS Savannah, which operated from 1961 to 1970, has been defueled since 1971 and remains under a U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
Though she failed in her mission of being a cargo and tourist vessel and still has radioactive material on her, the ship is beautiful and known by SRS Watch as “The Mother Ship.” The annual NRC inspection report is linked below.
NRC INSPECTION REPORT NO. 05000238/2020001, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, N.S. SAVANNAH, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND DATED December 2, 2020.
“The N.S. Savannah is the property of the U. S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Maritime Administration (MARAD). The N.S. Savannah was designed, constructed, and operated as a joint research and development project of MARAD and the Atomic Energy Commission. The ship operated from 1961 until it was removed from service in 1970. In 1971, the ship was defueled and various dismantling activities were conducted through 1976 to remove much of the radioactive material from the ship and to isolate radiologically contaminated systems. These activities included removal of ion exchange systems and resins and most of the water from the primary, secondary, and auxiliary systems. A “Possession Only” license was issued in May 1976. The N.S. Savannah is a registered National Historic Landmark. In May 2008, the ship was towed from Norfolk, Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland. The program for overseeing the decommissioning of research and test reactors is described in IMC 2545.”
“Based on the areas of the ship accessed, there have been no issues identified with the material condition of any of the ship’s boundaries that contain radioactive materials. All radioactive material is currently being stored on the ship so there has been no release of radioactive material as effluents or as radioactive material. The inspectors confirmed that the waste generated from recent dismantlement activities is currently being stored on the ship and the area is posted appropriately. The inspectors noted that several low-level radioactive shipments occurred in the spring of 2020. The inspectors reviewed the shipping paperwork and found it to be satisfactory.”
Inspection report posted in the US NRC’s ADAMS digital library on December 9, 2020:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML20337A027