Nuclear Fuel Services has been manufacturing fuel in Erwin, Tenn., for more than 50 years. Photo credit: Mark Fickett/Wikimedia Commons
Residents of northeast Tennessee are speaking out against what they say is a questionable safety record of Nuclear Fuel Services, located in Erwin.
The manufacturing facility makes materials for the U.S. Navy and for private companies. Recently the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it was reducing the number of regular safety inspections NFS will undergo, and that concerns Barbara O’Neal.
“I was born and raised there,” she said. “It’s really my hometown, and I feel that the people have been told by the NRC for years that everything was OK.”
O’Neal recently moved away from Erwin because of safety concerns, citing public documents that detail incidents at the facility where the environment was exposed to toxic materials.
The National Research Council is conducting a study of cancer risks in Erwin and at five other nuclear facilities around the nation. A spokeswoman from the NRC said the government is reducing the number of inspectors present at the facility to one because of an improved safety and compliance record.
NFS did not return requests for comment for this story.
O’Neal said she has analyzed thousands of pages of public documents that detail incidents of spills and releases of pollutants that exceed the legal limits. She said much of the information wasn’t available until 2004, and even what she can obtain lacks some details.
“There is not that much available,” she said. “The NRC has kept information like inspection reports, effluent releases – they’ve kept all of that stuff away from the public for years.”
In April, NFS had an unplanned chemical reaction in a storage area. No one was hurt and the incident is under investigation.
A government investigation in 2006 discovered there was a uranium solution leak into an elevator shaft that could have caused a nuclear reaction.
More information on the cancer study is online at dels.nas.edu. More information on the NRC is at nrc.gov.
