NRC cites TMI for radiation leak

From the Press and Journal:

Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor operated safely last year, despite a low-level radiation release in November caused by a vacuum cleaner that exposed 145 workers to insignificant doses, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.

The workers were exposed because the vacuum, used to clean coolant system pipes inside the reactor, was not equipped with a HEPA filter, sending radioactive particles airborne inside the reactor’s containment building, the NRC said.
Radioactivity was released through an opening cut into the building to replace the reactor’s steam generators from Nov. 12 to 21, when “appropriate controls’’  were made to stop the release, the NRC said.

Radiation, albeit in almost immeasurable levels, was detected more than a mile away in Conoy Twp., Lancaster County, but the incident did not pose a threat to public health or the workers’ safety, the NRC said.

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