Sellafield Ltd’s Post

The last time a human entered our Pile Fuel Storage Pond was in 1958, when records show a maintenance operator and health physics monitor carried out a dive into the newly constructed pond to repair a broken winch. At least that was true until December 2022 when Josh Everett, a diver from the specialist U.S nuclear diving team Underwater Construction Corporation Ltd, became the first person in over 60 years to carry out work in the pond. Sending human divers into a contaminated pond may seem to run counter to modern nuclear clean-up and decommissioning techniques that commonly use robots and other tools for this type of work, but these are no ordinary divers. Josh and his team have years of experience in safely diving in radioactive environments around the world, including at Dungeness A and Sizewell A in the UK but the Pile Fuel Storage Pond project is a first for us at Sellafield. Carl Carruthers, our head of programme delivery for legacy ponds, said: "The Pile Fuel Storage Pond diver project has been 5 years in the planning and has been a huge success. The team are used to diving in toxic and hazardous environments all over the world, including inside nuclear reactor vessels, but this is a first for us." "Safety has been our priority throughout, and the divers are monitored and communicating with the dive supervisor at all times. "Their work has helped us make real progress in cleaning up the pond and our site mission to deal with the nuclear legacy and create a clean and safe environment for future generations." Click on the link to watch the video - 👀 https://lnkd.in/dsCHcAVJ Underwater Construction Corporation #future #construction #project #environment #decommissioning #Sellafieldpartners #nuclearindustry #nuclear #success #team #safety #video #maintenance #robots