Palo Verde provides the following response: All safety harnesses used in the RCA are surveyed after each use using a frisker. If a harness exceeding 60k dpm direct frisk they are removed from service and treated as radioactive waste. Safety harnesses used in contaminated areas for outages and non-outages are stored in designated locations and are not allowed for use in clean areas of the RCA. There have been several variants of this question over the past couple of years; the link below will take you to the HPS Powernet List server archive.
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=harness Performing a direct frisk on a harness will give you a good indication of the presence of loose or moderate sub-surface contamination that can easily become a personnel contamination event. Taking smears on items that are extremely porous such as harness webbing would just as likely further embed any contamination that may be present as it would to transfer the contamination to the smear itself. Additionally, placing them in a small article monitor would report total activity regardless of contamination location on the harness, e.g., surface versus deeply embedded. Considering the surface area of a harness, it would not take much activity to reach the 10K dpm alarm in a SAM. Provided that it does not invalidate any manufacturer's instructions, wiping down the harness with an approved solution and cloth, and then frisking it will provide a good indication of actual contamination levels and will help with PCE reduction / prevention. Seth ********************************************************************** Seth J. Kanter, CHP, RRPT Sr. Health Physicist Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station Mail Sta. 7397 5801 S. Wintersburg Rd. Tonopah, AZ 85354 Phone (623) 393-3130 Cell (602) 376-7131 or (602) 402-5764 Fax (623) 393-1853 Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are my own Liviu Librescu ********************************************************************** From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rolph, James Thomas Jr Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:16 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Powernet: Safety harness survey practice inquiry At Sequoyah we have safety harnesses of two different colors available for use in our RCA, one for contaminated areas and the other for use in the clean areas. We survey the safety harness after every use by taking a smear and monitoring in our article monitors, followed by frisking if we receive an alarm. The alarm set points we use for contaminated area safety harnesses is 10K dpm, and clean area is 1K dpm. 1. We would like to know if at your site if you survey your safety harnesses after every use? 2. Is it different if used in clean versus contaminated areas? 3. If you don't survey the harnesses after every use, what frequency or reason would require a survey? 4. What instruments do you use to survey your safety harnesses? 5. For the safety harnesses used in contaminated areas, how often do you smear the harnesses? 6. Are your contaminated safety harnesses staged in contaminated areas for use in outages? Non-outages? Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my questions and for providing answers. Jim Rolph RP Technical Support Superintendent (423) 843-8115 - Work (423) 593-0247 - Cell --- NOTICE --- This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain confidential, privileged or proprietary information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original and any copy or printout. Unintended recipients are prohibited from making any other use of this e-mail. Although we have taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this e-mail, we accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of this e-mail or attachments, or for any delay or errors or omissions in the contents which result from e-mail transmission.
