The tritium facilities recently celebrated a significant
safety milestone – 20 million hours of operating without
a tritium assimilation. The last tritium assimilation occurred
in 1985. Marty Schoenbauer, NA-10 Principal Assistant Deputy
Administrator for Operations, visited SRS to help mark this
achievement, 20 million hours of assimilation-free operations.
Tritium assimilations were once thought to be a reality of
handling tritium. In the early 1980s, the facilities averaged
two to three assimilation events each year. In 1984, Tritium
Facility management committed to the goal of eliminating tritium
assimilations.
The greatest risk of exposure was from tritiated water that
was inadvertently produced in the processes of the older facilities,
which used once-through ventilation systems and radiological
hoods to control tritium releases. To address the problem
of assimilations, workforce teams revised work practices and
tritiated water detection and removal methods to reduce risks
of exposure to workers. These new practices either reduced
the potential for producing tritiated water in the process
or, via enhanced detection methods, removed it from piping
or equipment prior to breaching the process boundary. These
practices were incorporated into the design of the replacement
facilities and projects (i.e., Replacement Tritium Facility,
Tritium Consolidation and Modernization Project, and the Tritium
Extraction Facility). This significantly reduced environmental
emissions.
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