NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION: NRC Issues Construction Permit for Northwest Medical Isotopes Facility

Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the following announcement on May 10.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has issued a construction permit to Northwest Medical Isotopes LLC for a molybdenum-99 production facility in Columbia, Mo.

The permit is for a site at the Discovery Ridge Research Park. The Commissioners authorized the director of the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to issue the permit following a Jan. 23 hearing on the application.

The Commission found the staff’s review of the application sufficient to make the necessary regulatory safety and environmental findings.

NWMI submitted its application for permission to build the facility in two parts, on Feb. 5, 2015, and July 20, 2015. It will produce molybdenum-99, which later generates the technicium-99m used in one of the most common nuclear medicine procedures in the United States.

The NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards independently reviewed aspects of the application that concerned safety, as well as the staff’s safety evaluation report.

The committee provided the results of its review to the Commission in November 2017. The staff completed its environmental review and issued the final environmental impact statement for the proposed facility in May 2017.

Original source can be found here.