Truck Carrying Radioactive Rockwell Gear Hits Underpass

A truck carrying radioactively contaminated equipment from Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory struck an underpass in Pennsylvania on Tuesday en route to a plant where the equipment is to be decontaminated, according to spokesmen for the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania company.

Officials said late Tuesday that none of the metal boxes of equipment ruptured and that no radioactive material escaped. But preliminary measurements showed that both the boxes and the truck were emitting more radiation than federal regulations allow, according to the NRC.

NRC spokesman Greg Cook said agency officials in Pennsylvania and California will investigate to determine if violations occurred.

Officials of Rockwell’s Rocketdyne Division in Canoga Park, which operates the Santa Susana lab west of Chatsworth, issued a brief statement. “We are aware of the accident and are conducting an investigation,” said Rocketdyne spokesman Pat Coulter. “We will not comment further until we have completed the investigation.”

The truck was bound for Alaron Corp.’s Wampum, Pa., plant when the driver apparently got lost on a back road a few miles away and tried to drive through an underpass that was too low for the trailer, according to Peter Davin, an Alaron vice president.

Davin said about eight to 10 feet of the roof was sheared off, but the truck was allowed to continue under escort to the Alaron plant after state police and emergency response officials came to the scene. It was not a Rockwell or Alaron truck, but a common carrier, Davin said.

He said he thought that the shipment involved five metal boxes but was uncertain what type of equipment they contained.

Following the truck’s arrival at Alaron, preliminary measurements showed that one of the metal containers was emitting up to 2,500 millirem of radioactivity per hour--well above the applicable limit of 1,000 millirem per hour, according to the NRC’s Cook. He said a reading of 250 millirem per hour was recorded beneath the truck; the limit is 200. Cook said the levels registered are well above natural background radiation but pose no danger to neighborhoods through which the truck passed.

He said NRC officials are still trying to determine if the shipment involved equipment covered by Santa Susana’s NRC license, or if it originated in a part of the complex under the U. S. Department of Energy’s control.

Rockwell critics have cited the risk of transportation accidents in arguing that nuclear work has no place in a densely populated area.

Bowing to public pressure and economic factors, Rockwell on Friday stunned its critics by announcing that it will close the “hot lab” at Santa Susana--the main workshop for processing nuclear materials. Rockwell had been trying to fend off a challenge by local activists of its request for a 10-year extension of the hot lab’s NRC license. Yet the hot lab had had little business since its last contract to dismantle nuclear fuel rods for the DOE lapsed in 1986.