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Monday, September 29, 1997

Pantex changes how it shifts radioactive gas at plant

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) -- Pantex Plant officials have changed how workers handle containers of a radioactive gas after finding that the containers can become too hot to handle.

The gas is tritium, the radioactive hydrogen isotope that gives hydrogen bombs their thermonuclear punch.

Risk-management officials at the nuclear weapons plant have found that the containers can heat up enough to burn workers' hands, increasing the chance that a worker could drop one and accidentally release the gas.

The containers often feel warm because the tritium inside radioactively decays over time. But the reservoirs can become hot if they are stored too close together, said Kerry Campbell, a spokeswoman for Pantex contractor Mason & Hanger Corp.

The carriers used to move the gas containers have been changed and workers now are limited to moving one container at a time, plant officials said.

The issue arose earlier this year when a worker removed a tritium reservoir from a suitcase-like storage container and found the foam insulation inside compacted and melted, according to a government report.

"Conservative calculations performed by risk management division personnel indicated that it was possible for reservoirs to reach high enough temperatures to burn the hand of someone picking them up," an Energy Department report said. "This was expected to increase the possibility of dropping a reservoir onto the floor."

The problem came as a surprise. A U.S. Department of Energy report noted that temperature tests of tritium reservoirs over the past three years found no evidence that any heated up.

The Pantex Plant is responsible for disassembling nuclear weapons. Technicians remove the gas reservoirs from weapons and ship them back to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for recycling.

In May 1989, a tritium gas reservoir discharged during a disassembly accident, contaminating five workers.

One worker received a radiation dose of 1.2 REM, but other workers in the assembly cell received minute doses, Campbell said. At the time, the Energy Department annual limit was 5 REM and the company's annual exposure limit was 2 REM, Energy Department spokesman Tom Walton said.

Radiation exposure is measured in REM, which stands for roentgen equivalent man.