NRC NEWS U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

 Office of Public Affairs Region IV 

 611 Ryan Plaza Drive - Suite 400

 Arlington, TX 76011-4005

No. IV-04-018 April 15, 2004

Contact: Victor Dricks E-Mail: opa4@nrc.gov

Phone: 817-860-8128

NRC PROPOSES $6,000 FINE FOR 21ST CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a fine of $6,000 for 21st

Century Technologies, Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada, for unauthorized distribution of products

containing radioactive materials.

In a letter to the company, Bruce S. Mallett, Administrator of the NRC’s Region IV

Office in Arlington, Texas, said that during an NRC inspection completed in October 2003, the

agency identified apparent willful violations involving the distribution of radioactive tritiumbearing gun sights (that glow in the dark) and other radioactive products not authorized by its

NRC license. 

Company officials met with the NRC staff in January to discuss four apparent violations

of NRC requirements. “At the conference, 21st Century representatives denied having willfully

committed any violations of NRC requirements,” Mr. Mallett said. “While acknowledging that

the company may have violated NRC requirements by distributing products that were not

authorized by the license, 21st Century attributed this to error, and to misinterpretations or

misunderstandings of the license, and committed to developing processes and procedures to

assure compliance in the future.”

During the conference, 21st Century representatives said its license could be interpreted to

authorize distribution of some of the tritium-bearing gun sights that were found in violation. But,

Mr. Mallett noted this is not the case, since the company’s NRC license authorizes it to distribute

only nine different series of gun sights. Attaching a description of other gunsights to its NRC

license application, as the company did, “does not make it part of the license,” Mr. Mallett said.
“21st Century’s distribution of unapproved products... circumvented the regulatory

processes that are designed to assure the acceptability of products distributed to members of the

public,” Mr. Mallett said. “The NRC can have confidence in the acceptability of such products

only if they are designed, manufactured and distributed in accordance with NRC requirements.”

The NRC has proposed a $6,000 fine against 21st Century for two violations of NRC

requirements. The violations assessed a civil penalty are classified collectively as a Severity

Level III problem. The NRC uses a four-level severity scale on which Severity level I is the most

serious. Because the company has been the subject of escalated enforcement actions during two

prior inspections, the base penalty of $3,000 has been doubled.

The NRC letter, its enclosures, and the company’s response will be made available to

interested members of the public through the agency’s electronic reading room at:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html . Help in accessing these documents is available

from the NRC Public Document Room at (301) 415-4737 or at 1-800-397-4209.

The company has 30 days from receipt of the letter to either pay the civil penalty or to

protest its imposition.

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