External scratching of spent fuel canisters is “not unusual” and does not pose a threat to the safety of those containers, Holtec International officials told NRC staff during an April 10 public meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was held in the wake of an August 3 incident involving the lowering of a canister into a storage system at Southern California Edison’s permanently shut San Onofre plant. “Scratches on plates and shells … are not unusual. In fact, they are a common occurrence,” Charles Bullard II, Holtec’s director of engineering mechanics, said during the meeting. Bullard said canister shell scratching occurs in manufacturing, transport and operations. “The localized scratches are not a safety concern,” do not affect functionality, and do not violate any design or licensing requirements of the final safety analysis report of Holtec’s Hi-Storm Umax canister storage system, he said. NRC imposed a $116,000 civil penalty on SCE in connection with an August 3 incident in which a canister, while being moved into a vertical dry storage system, got hung up on an inner ring without drop protection. NRC determined that two violations of regulations occurred in the incident (INRC, 1 Apr, 4).
展开▼
