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Monday, June 27, 2011

[ALERT] Emergency Declared at Kansas Research Reactor- Possible Meltdown

Did anyone in Kansas know about this possible meltdown on 6/24/11? But apparently not to worry because, 
even though there was an Airborne detection of Radioactive  Iodine 131  at a concentration of 104300 becquerels per cubic meter, and "some" Cesium 137 in the air,
 
"The Reactor Manager and Radiation Safety Officer agreed that fuel damage was unlikely, but the results of testing were inconclusive". 

Reading through the report, it appears as if the Reactor Manager casually "noticed" a very high reading indicating Iodine-131; I guess they must not be funded for alarms for that sort of thing. And even though they had TWO SEPARATE very high detections, one for radioactive Iodine 131  and the other "elevated levels of activity"; (each from TWO DIFFERENT instruments) the first was "most likely mis-calibrated" and the second "probably due to the proximity of the radioactive sample handling table to the sampling location".
Anyone care to wager if the people at the handling table still have functioning thyroids?

But again, not to worry it only took these people 2 hours and 31 minutes to come up with a rationale why there was probably no nuclear meltdown in their reactor; compare that to TEPCO taking 3 MONTHS to figure out they had three complete meltdowns , and its obvious these Kansas State University people ought to be up for some kind of award.

Well hopefully the Kansas State University's K-State Alerts system sent out warning to the student body. After all  if its good enough for a possible active shooter on campus,  it ought to be good enough for a possible NUCLEAR MELTDOWN.

Update: edited for clarity, and to add a link to K-State's news release on the subject.
It is interesting to note the differences in wording from the press release and the Emergency notification to the NRC
Notice particularly how the News Release states

"The nuclear reactor used for research at Kansas State University was found to have no fuel damage after a monitoring instrument falsely reported an alarm"

compared to the NRC report statement

"..fuel damage was unlikely, but the results of testing were inconclusive..."

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