The incident has been reported to the French nuclear regulator ASN – the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire – and has been classed as a ‘Significant Environmental Event’.
Employees were said to have been in the process of clearing 8,700 tons of non-nuclear waste as part of a larger project to build a car park, when they came across nearly 100 suits used by technicians working in zones exposed to nuclear activities.
A spokesman for the plant said that the construction had been stopped following the incident and that some of the waste had been in the ground since 1989.
He said: ‘The first checks showed that there were no traces of radioactivity. However, further checks were made using a spectrometre, which showed that small traces of Cobalt 60 were present. These traces were at the limit of detection for the measuring equipment.’
Details from France indicate that the incident was reported to the nuclear regulator as a ‘Significant Environmental Event’, as the suits should have undergone special processing before their disposal.
The car park is due to be built near to the site of the facility’s troubled third reactor, Flamanville 3, which has seen its commissioning date pushed back from 2012 to 2018 and its budget spiral from 3.3 billion euros to 10.5 billion euros.
In 2015, the ASN raised concerns over ‘excessive levels’ of carbon within the plant’s reactor vessel and said that it could lead to weaknesses within the structure. It has since been deemed fit for purpose.
However, the regulator has also said that the utility firm will have to replace the reactor’s cover by 2024 at the latest.
