CONTENTS

• Inspections
• Routine Matters
• Non Routine Matters
• Regulatory Activity

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FOREWORD

This 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 sites available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the AWE Local Liaison Committee (LLC) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Aldermaston and Burghfield. These reports are distributed quarterly and are available also from the Internet at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there by members. Any other person wishing to enquire about matters covered by this report may contact HSE’s Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151-951-4103.

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Introduction

A total of 23 NII inspectors visited the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites during the quarter. In addition there were visits from other HSE inspectors in relation to conventional safety, and explosives. NII inspections were made on the following dates:

Aldermaston	Burghfield
11-14/04/2005	11-13/04/2005
18-22/04/2005	18-22/04/2005
27/04/2005	27/04/2005
09-13/05/2005	16-20/05/2005
16-20/05/2005	7-9/06/2005
23/05/2005	15-16/06/2005
31/05/2005	21-23/06/2005
06-10/06/2005
13/06/2005
14-16/06/2005
20-24/06/2005

 

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ROUTINE MATTERS

Inspections are undertaken for the purpose of monitoring compliance with (i) the conditions attached by HSE to the nuclear site licences, and (ii) other relevant provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, including the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999. In this period routine inspections included:

• Provision and assessment of safety cases and compliance with arrangements made under licence conditions.
• Management of facility operations and maintenance.
• Proposals for new plants.
• Emergency arrangements.
• Decommissioning of redundant facilities.
• Waste management.
• Operating rules, operating instructions, and operational records.
• Arrangements for the control of modifications to existing plants.
• Arrangements for the notification, recording, investigation, and reporting of incidents on the sites.
• Managing of contractors.

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NON-ROUTINE MATTERS

Corporate

• Managing Agents/Design Houses:
  A meeting has been held to explore AWE’s intentions with respect to interaction with Design Houses. These will be used to support AWE in its ongoing programme. The objective of these ongoing discussions is to establish that the arrangements in place ensure that AWE will maintain its controlling mind function as required by duties imposed by the Nuclear Sites licences

• AWE Integrated Company Management System:
  AWE has been working towards establishing a computer based system to carry out this function and made a short presentation to NII staff on its progress. The system is well into the development phase and it is intended that all of their company documentation will exist within this system. NII welcomes this integrated approach and will comment further on the proposals in due course.

• NII led Radwaste Team Inspection:
  A team inspection of AWE’s arrangements for managing radioactive waste took place in late April. The Environment Agency also participated in the inspection. The inspection found that most of the elements of a sound radwaste management system are in place. In particular, AWE is taking positive steps to minimise the generation of waste and is developing approaches to dealing with issues such as contaminated oils. A number of areas for improvement were identified. The report is now complete and has been passed to AWE to respond.

• Tritium Release event:
  NII has carried out an investigation into an incident that occured on site. As a consequence of its findings, NII has issued an improvement notice on AWE. A legacy item , now known to contain a very small quantity of adsorbed tritium , was found in a building not normally expected to contain radioactive material. At the time it was located there was no information to indicate what was in the container but it was suspected that it could contain tritium targets. It was decided to open the container to establish whether this was so. For this operation the container was moved to an old laboratory which is no longer in use and is considered not to meet the modern standard for this type of operation. In addition, the facility no longer had a discharge authorisation for such an operation.
  
  The subsequent release was very low and well within discharge authorisations for the site. Biological monitoring indicates that no one was harmed or put at risk by the subsequent release. Nonetheless, the circumstances leading to the release revealed a loss of management control and supervision. Some shortfalls in training and instruction were also evident. An Improvement Notice was therefore prepared and issued to AWE. As part of lessons learned from this event the licensee has stated that they are undertaking a review of management control, supervision and mandatory training requirements across the site. NII will be closely monitoring this exercise. EA has also served a notice on this issue.

Aldermaston

• Main Production Facility : sub area Consent to Operate:
  A file review (for another reason) identified the fact that NII had not closed out the formal process to allow sub areas of the main production facility to move into full operational mode i.e. Consent had not been given. Formally these areas have been operating in extended commissioning mode since licensing of the site although the licensee completed the commissioning work early in the licensing period. The licensee was requested to submit a justification for the transfer to full operation. Unfortunately when it submitted its recent application for Consent clearance was again delayed due to lack of NII resource to complete the assessment of AWE’s justification for this change. This assessment has now been completed, the justification found to be acceptable, and the Consent has now been issued.

• Pulsed Reactor PRS:
  NII has begun its assessment of the Periodic Review of Safety (PRS) of the pulsed reactor on site . AWE is going through the process of providing PRS’s for all its nuclear facilities as required by Condition 15 of its Nuclear Sites Licences. The pulsed facility safety case is expected to be among the first of the PRS’s to be submitted in the agreed new safety case format and so will receive greater scrutiny to assess the process for generating PRS’s as well as to assess the outcome of the review. Initial assessment has suggested that there may be improvements that will need to be made to bring the facility up to modern standards which have developed since the reactor was designed and constructed.

Burghfield

• Assembly Area Periodic Report on Safety:
  The licensee has also commenced work on the periodic safety review for the nuclear site operations. In this quarter NII assessment inspectors have become involved in assessing the documentation being generated to provide early indication of areas of regulatory interest. NII has been told that the safety case work will be presented in two tranches, one at the end of Dec 2005 covering the majority of the high risk facilities and the remainder in September 2006. The full case will therefore be submitted before the 10th anniversary of licensing.

• Integrated Regulatory Approach:
  A number of Regulatory bodies have responsibility for regulating different aspects of safety on a nuclear licensed site.It is important that regulation is delivered and received in a joined up manner. To ensure that this happens, Regulatory strategies are being developed for a range of areas and projects. In this period a Regulatory Strategy for Burghfield has been agreed with NII, the licensee, NWR (Nuclear Weapon Regulator), and HID (HSE Hazardous Industries Directorate). In essence this states that on the licensed site prime responsibility is with NII, off the licensed site it is with HID. NWR responsibilities address those areas from which the other regulators are debarred by statute.

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REGULATORY ACTIVITY

• As part of its regulation under the nuclear site licences NII issues formal regulatory documents, which include Consents, Approvals, Directions, and Licence Instruments.
  
• Licence Instrument 05/504 was issued giving agreement for the installation of new experimental equipment in the main production facility.
• An Improvement Notice described in para 6 above was also issued.

Licence Instruments are issued to acknowledge receipt of specified documents, eg proposals for a new or modified plant; to stipulate whether the Inspectorate intends to examine these documents, or to agree to the start of a particular phase of construction, commissioning, modification, or decommissioning.

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