The Nuclear Safety Regulator (ASN) has just reclassified level 2 on the INES* scale, graduated up to 7, an incident which occurred on the FBFC site of Romans-sur-Isère and was initially classified level 1 **.
Last September 24th, during the opening of a container of uranium pellet process scrap, a wrong labeling deviation was detected. According to the label affixed to the container, it was supposed to contain a product in dry state whereas it was in fact in wet state.
In order to maintain all the barriers against the criticality risk, wet material containers have to follow stricter interim storage and transfer rules than for dry materials.
As soon as the deviation was found, transfers between workshops were interrupted so that a thorough check could be made on the status of all the concerned containers.
These further checks revealed the existence of deviations concerning 6 other containers.
As a result of the latter deviations, the Safety Regulator upgraded this event to level 2 on the INES scale.
In line with the requirements transmitted by the Safety Regulator, steps were immediately taken by the Romans Facility to strengthen the operating and inspection arrangements, in order to prevent the recurrence of this type of deviation,
This incident had no impact on the site employees or on the environment.* International nuclear event scale graduated from 0 to 7
** see the September 26th press statement and the September 27th ASN incident notice
Press Department
Jean-Louis Dufresne
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