NRC CAL – NOV (White)

On July 6, 2017, the NRC issued a Notice of Violation to Energy Northwest, for a violation associated with a White Significance Determination Process finding identified during an inspection at Columbia Generating Station. The White finding, an issue of low to moderate safety significance, involved Energy Northwest's failure to ship Type B quantity of radioactive material in a container that was approved or tested for that purpose. The significance of this event was based on the increased risk to the public and accident hazard posed when a Type B quantity of radioactive material was shipped in a container that was not approved or tested for that purpose. The violation involves the failure to transport low specific activity material in accordance with the condition that the external dose rate may not exceed an external radiation level of 10 mSv/hour (1 rem/hour) at 3 meters (10 feet) from the unshielded material. Specifically, the licensee transported a package as low specific activity material with an external radiation level of 2.1 rem/hour at a distance of 3 meters from the unshielded material.