Yesterday 29 November many media spread the news according to which in the ENEA Casaccia Research Centre, in the far north of Rome, an employee who works at the Plutonio plant was found to be contaminated with values exceeding the limits permitted by law.
The plant is managed by Sogina state company in charge of decommissioning of nuclear plants and the safety of radioactive waste and which operates in the same Casaccia centre. The contamination would have occurred during normal work duties.
Many press outlets (and not only) speak of a “nuclear accident” but, at the moment, there is no indication that this was the case. After the 1987 referendum, following which our country said no to the production of energy from nuclear sources, “nuclear energy production” is not carried out in Casaccia and Sogin categorically excludes that there have been external emissions.
Contrary to what is reported by some press outlets and any information circulating in this sense is unfounded
the company writes in a statement
This does not mean that what happened deserves further investigation, to protect the contaminated worker and all the others who work in the plant and throughout the centre.
What happened at the Enea Casaccia center is alarming and worrying – writes the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies Sergio Costa in a note – The plutonium contamination, which also involved a worker, takes us back to past years that we do not want to relive. The substance appears to have been detected in quantity up to a thousand times higher than the limits
In reality it is not even certain that the contamination is really from plutonium: measurements are still in progress and an internal investigation has been started close monitoring.
Sources: Sogin / Agenparl
