-
Wood River Junction
-Located in Rhode Island / known for 2 historical events, both terrible accidents
-Tragi railroad accident in 1873 - killed 15 passengers / many injured
- Critical radiation accident in 1964 - killed one -
Nuclear Safety Audits
-Nuclear Safety facility design reviewed by Louis J. Swallow, Operations Control Manager of Chemical Operations
-Design phase, Swallow reviewed/approved equipment/locations. Construction started, Swallow visited plant ONLY twice (Jan/Feb in 64)
-Plant opened no formal safety committee/audit team appointed. Fell upon Plant superintendent (Holthaus), shift supervisors (Smith, Chapman, Pearson), Technician (Barton) to correct issues. No written reports/observations required or recorded -
United Nuclear Corporation
-Designed to recover Uranium 235 from spent fuel rods/other waste products to reprocess new fuel
-Used Criticality Safe Vessels to provide storage for Uranium 235 and racks for proper storage and safe handling
-Safety was said to be strict, even in the 60's mainly from deaths linked to the demon core (atomic bomb). Found many issues as investigations started. -
UNC re-processing U-235 equipment
-Scrap recovery facility that reused equipment and agitated mixed solutions to clean and separate U-235
- One gallon polyethylene jars had varying concentrations of U-235, Sodium Carbonate, Trichloroethane, Ok/Concentrated Liquor, and Misc. Solutions
- 11 Liter polyethylene bottles had same types of mixture as jars
- Stainless steel trays used to avoid spilling U-235 solutions on the floor that were placed under the jars and bottles -
Pre-Cursor Omen
-Shift Supervisor casually wrote notes which turned into logged information for the relieving supervisor of any plan/problems needed addressing for the following shift
-Shift Sup Bill Pearson wrote criticality alarm was accidentally set off by Mr. Peabody when he was washing down the first floor of the tower room
-Recommendations were made for Emergency evacuation procedures, based on building evacuation -
Mr. Peabody
-First applied to the UNC as a mechanic and was told position was already filled. Peabody agreed to work as an operator and hoping to transition to mechanic when position opened.
-It was noted Peabody worked auto repair as a side job to keep up with his skills
-Little did Robert Peabody realize the night he went into work on July 24th, 1964 would be his last few days on the planet -
The Critical Accident
-Production Operator Robert Peabody went into work July 24th, 1964 where a critical accident happened1806
-Peabody poured contents of a 5" geometric safe 11-liter bottle into an 18" diameter by 24" deep tank gallon jar; half full of sodium carbonate solution. Peabody did not realize the bottle contained concentrated U-235 solution (200 gram/liter or more. U-235 concentration should not exceed 5g/L for a gallon jar).
-Approx.10 liters of solution was poured into tank = criticality -
Incident Statistics
-The concentrated U-235 container reached critical mass, knocking Peabody down to the floor and splashing him with a total dose of 15,000 Rad of Neutrons, Thermal Neutrons, and Gamma
-The fatal dose was compared to getting more than 700,000 chest x-rays instantaneously
-Peabody was bombarded and exposed to more radiation than anyone outside of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Japan (2 decades earlier) -
Biological Reactions
-When criticality alarms sounded, 5 people were in the building (including Peabody) and the evacuation rendezvous was held 450 ft SE of the plant where an ambulance was called/authorities notified
-At the rendezvous, Peabody showed radiation sickness symptoms: immediate nausea / stomach cramps
-Upon admission at a RI hospital, he was decontaminated/placed in isolation/received special med treatment
- Approx. 49 hours after the accident, Robert Peabody passed at 1902 on July 26th, 1964 -
Post Processing
-United Nuclear Corp. were charged with 14 violations of nuclear-safety regulations
-Peabody is remembered by his wife and nine children who received a small cash settlement
-After 16 years of Robert Peabody's death, the facility closed in 1980
-The company and federal government began a multimillion dollar decades long decontamination of the 1,114-acre site -
Environmental Rebirth
-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the site safe in October of 1995
0In 2011, the state and federal officials determined no further clean up was required
-In 2016, the Nature Conservancy removed the 3,000 feet of chained linked fence that formerly surrounded the Nuclear plant
