EA-00-076 - Glendive Medical Center

July 6, 2000

EA-00-076

Ms. Sandra McGovern
Director of Human Resources
Glendive Medical Center
202 Prospect Drive
Glendive, Montana 59330-1999

SUBJECT:

CORRECTION – NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND PROPOSED IMPOSITION OF CIVIL PENALTY – $2,750 (NRC Inspection Report No. 030-12470/00-01)

Dear Ms. McGovern:

This provides a correction to our letter dated June 29, 2000. Our letter incorrectly stated that the licensed material was left unsecured in a hallway. The material was left unsecured for several hours in the nuclear medicine imaging room, which was accessible from a hallway. The enclosed page corrects this error by deleting the reference to the hallway. Please use the enclosed page as a replacement to the original. We regret any inconvenience.

In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRC's "Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter and its enclosure will be available electronically for public inspection in the NRC Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at the Public NRC Library.

		Sincerely,
		/RA/
		Dwight D. Chamberlain, Director Division of Nuclear Materials Safety

Docket No. 030-12470
License No. 25-17265-01

Enclosure: As stated

cc (w/encl):
Montana Radiation Control Program Director
Chairman, Board of Trustees
Glendive Medical Center
202 Prospect Drive
Glendive, Montana 59330-1999

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June 29, 2000
EA-00-076		CORRECTED COPY

Ms. Sandra McGovern
Director of Human Resources
Glendive Medical Center
202 Prospect Drive
Glendive, Montana 59330-1999

SUBJECT:

NOTICE OF VIOLATION AND PROPOSED IMPOSITION OF CIVIL PENALTY – $2,750 (NRC Inspection Report No. 030-12470/00-01)

Dear Ms. McGovern:

This refers to your letters dated May 8, 24, and June 6, 2000, regarding a routine inspection conducted at your Glendive, Montana facility. The inspection identified one apparent violation which was considered for escalated enforcement involving an apparent failure to secure from unauthorized removal or access molybdenum-99/technetium-99m generators. The results of the inspection were discussed with you and your staff on April 11, 2000, and were documented in the subject inspection report dated May 1, 2000.

In the letter transmitting the inspection report, we provided you the opportunity to address the apparent violation identified in the report by either attending a predecisional enforcement conference or by providing a written response before we made our final enforcement decision. By letters dated May 8, 24, and June 6, 2000, you provided a written response to the apparent violation.

Based on the information developed during the inspection and the information that you provided in your May 8 and 24 letters, the NRC has determined that a violation of NRC requirements occurred. The violation is cited in the enclosed Notice of Violation (Notice) and the circumstances surrounding it were described in detail in the subject inspection report. During our inspection, we found that on certain weekends molybdenum-99/technetium-99m generators were delivered to the nuclear medicine imaging room and remained unsecured for several hours. We found 19 instances when generators were left unsecured.

Each of these generators contained approximately 24.6 GBq (661 millicuries) of molybdenum-99/technetium-99m. The potential safety significance of the violation is that the loss of a generator containing millicurie quantities of byproduct material could pose a significant potential for exposure to members of the general public. Therefore, this violation has been categorized in accordance with the "General Statement of Policy and Procedure for NRC Enforcement Actions" (Enforcement Policy), NUREG-1600 at Severity Level III.