Hot Pants

In November, 2009, TRO Jung|Brannen and YRM announced the formation of Nuclear Design Partnership {NDP} – a professional collaboration which combines the skills, strengths, and experience of our two international design firms. NDP offers a broad range of design services to address the entire lifecycle of the development of nuclear energy facilities, from master planning to decommissioning.

Just the other day I had the opportunity, with eight other NDP professionals, to tour one of New England’s most prominent nuclear energy stations; and, I ran into a bit of a problem. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has very strict protocols governing security and safety. The primary goal of regulators and owners alike is to operate the plant with minimal risk to the public, visitors, and staff, and they do a very thorough job of it. As a result, the safety briefings and scanning procedures are both rigorous and time-consuming, both when you enter the facility and when you leave.

In our case, we encountered no difficulties with our initial screening process or during the tour itself; the problem occurred as we were leaving the radiation control area and I was subjected to a final full body screening to detect radon particles. It seems that I had worn the kind of cheap synthetic pants that tend to create static electricity, and the static had attracted an unacceptably high amount of radon to my pant legs. In short, I had “hot pants.” To make matters worse, the control officer said that I couldn’t leave the facility until the radon readings diminished. “How long will that take?” I asked. “Oh, not long,” he replied. After standing in front of a fan for twenty minutes, we took a second reading, then a third…..then a fourth. All “hot.” After more than an hour, and a total of twelve failed tests later, I had visions of spending the rest of the night there until my pants “cooled off,” so I offered to throw my pants in the trash and exit in my underwear. But, apparently the NRC frowns on that sort of thing.

Obviously, since I am now writing this blog post, I am happily back in my office thanks to the kindly intervention of a safety supervisor who put me through an alternative screening process and gave me my “get out of jail free” card.

But, for some reason, no one in the office will come near me!