Worker falls in "radioactive waste pool" at San Onofre

The North County Times reports that yet another incident has occurred at the problem-plagued San Onofre nuclear power plant. A worker lost his balance and fell into the radioactive waste pool. However, the exact type of pool he fell into is not entirely clear. Was it the high-level radioactive waste storage pool? Was it the reactor cavity, after irradiated nuclear fuel (now high-level radioactive waste) had been removed from the core and transferred into the high-level radioactive waste storage pool? Also, exactly what tests were performed on the worker? Were appropriate tests done to confirm the presence of internal radioactive contamination, or not?

A similar incident occurred many years ago at the high-level radioactive waste storage pool at the University of Michigan's research reactor in Ann Arbor. And, as documented in Dave Lochbaum's book Fission Stories, a scuba diver sent into the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant's high-level radioactive waste storage pool to make repairs accidentally swam too close to irradiated fuel, exposing his hand to a very high dose of hazardous gamma radiation.