Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
The report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Capenhurst District Liaison Committee and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Capenhurst. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend DLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the DLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 951 4103.
The site was visited by NII inspectors on 16 and 17 January, 11 and 28 February and 12 and 27 March.
Dr Turton ceased to be the nominated site inspector on 31 March 2002 and the nomination of his successor is awaited.
During this period particular attention has been paid to compliance by the licensee with conditions 10, Training; 22, Modification or Experiment on Existing Plant; 31, Shutdown of Specified Operations and 35, Decommissioning. An adequate level of compliance with these conditions was noted.
Each year the NII conducts an annual review of safety with senior management on the site. This year the review took the form of a seminar at which various aspects of the safe management of decommissioning and legacy operations were considered. The system for managing decommissioning and legacy operations at Capenhurst is consistent with good practice elsewhere in the nuclear industry. This "Spring Seminar Methodology" is dependant upon management control and supervision which will be audited before large scale operations commence (see 2.3 below).
Good progress has been made with the demolition of Building C7 and the resolution of legacy issues in Building 300 W Bay. Work on C7 has been suspended pending the commissioning of the engineered waste store in I Bay. Once this store is operational Building C7 will be finally decommissioned.
Large scale decommissioning and legacy work at Capenhurst is planned to begin later this year but this will be subject to successful completion of an audit of management of safety issues.
The two licensees at Capenhurst wish to modify the boundary between the sites. This exercise will require new nuclear site licenses to be granted and preliminary work has been undertaken. No significant issues of principle have been identified at this stage and it is expected that the new licences will be granted towards the end of this year providing that an adequate Management Prospectus is submitted to NII.
These regulations came into force in September 2001 and require, amongst other things, that operators make an assessment of the risk of a radiation emergency. The report of this assessment has been sent to the NII and found to be adequate. No major changes are proposed to the existing emergency arrangements for Capenhurst but minor modifications will be made to the on-site plan which is formally approved by NII using the powers under licence condition 11.
Following work carried out by the licensee disposals of low level wastes from Capenhurst have recommenced at Drigg. This will enable the large scale decommissioning programme to proceed at Capenhurst.
At Capenhurst there is a single on site emergency plan with a unified response from both the licensed sites but hitherto there have been two site emergency exercises per year. Following the provision of a fully manned site fire service, improvements to the site fire station and successful demonstrations in recent emergency exercises it may be appropriate to reduce the frequency of on site emergency exercises to one per year. The licensees are preparing proposals to this effect and these will be assessed by NII in due course.
One of the radiation monitoring instruments in Building 300 indicated a high level of airborne contamination near the site of work on legacy materials. The event resulted in no spread of contamination within the building and no doses were incurred by employees but it reinforced the need for careful control of decommissioning and legacy work.
No consents, approvals or licence instruments have been issued in this period.
Published on the HSE web site 7th May 2002