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 covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Dounreay. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend the Dounreay Stakeholder Group meetings and will be happy to respond to any questions raised there. Any person wishing to inquire about matters covered in this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
This report will be put onto the HSE Website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/index.htm Under ‘Local Liaison Committee Reports’.
1. Site Inspectors and Specialist Inspectors visited Dounreay on the following dates:
Dounreay Site Restoration Plan, Life Cycle Base Line and Near Term Work Plan
2. NII continues to engage with UKAEA to satisfy itself that the Dounreay Site Restoration Plan remains within the bounds acceptable to the regulators.
3. NII has received requests from UKAEA to move back the planned dates for starting encapsulation of PFR raffinates and commencing waste retrievals from the Shaft and Silo, but has not agreed to any changes affecting the timing of these projects.
HSE –SEPA 1998 Audit Recommendations
4. Resource constraints within NII continued to limit the effort available for the review of the submissions made by UKAEA as evidence to support close out of the medium term audit recommendations.
Organisational Change
5. NII received a proposal from UKAEA to carry out a major restructuring of its Dounreay Division. NII assessed this proposal and on 12th January 2006 granted permission for UKAEA to implement the restructuring.
Low Level Waste Storage
6. In response to NII’s comments on the arrangements for storage of Low Level radioactive waste, UKAEA agreed to: reduce the backlog of waste drums awaiting compaction; to carry out additional monitoring of the condition of ISO containers during storage; to reduce the stack height for ISO containers that show signs of deterioration and to perform early processing and repacking of those ISO containers.
Low Level Waste Disposal
7. After a request from UKAEA, NII has provided information on the regulatory issues that will need to be addressed in relation to the planning application for the proposed Low Level Waste facility. This advice included identifying the relevant regulatory requirements and the need for UKAEA to minimise the impact of construction and operation of the facility on the Dounreay and Vulcan sites.
Incidents on Site
8. No events have occurred during the quarter that met the Ministerial reporting criteria.
9. NII gives updates to the Dounreay Stakeholder Group on progress of any significant recommendations from either their own or UKAEA’s investigations. In addition, UKAEA has a database of incidents and their progress with close out of recommendations is inspected regularly by NII.
Dounreay Cementation Plant
10. In response to the incident at the Dounreay Cementation Plant(DCP) that took place on the 26th September 2005, HSE conducted an investigation and, in line with HSE enforcement policy, decided that regulatory enforcement action was necessary.
11. On the 7th of November 2005, HSE served two Improvement Notices on UKAEA.
12. The first Notice relates to the need for UKAEA to remedy deficiencies in its arrangements for training of personnel on the Dounreay site. The UKAEA must comply with the terms of this notice by the end of March 2006.
13. The second Notice relates to the need for UKAEA to remedy deficiencies in its operating instructions and arrangements for control of plant modifications. The UKAEA must comply with the terms of this Notice by the end of June 2006.
14. HSE has been monitoring the development of UKAEA's recovery plan for DCP and will continue to monitor its implementation to ensure that any radiation exposure to workers will be as low as reasonably practicable.
15. HSE will need to be satisfied that UKAEA has implemented the necessary safety improvements before the plant can resume normal operations. In addition, HSE will ensure that the lessons learned from this event will be promulgated by UKAEA across the Dounreay site and acted upon where necessary.
The Wet Silo
16. NII has received UKAEA’s final report on the investigations to identify the source of low levels of radioactive contamination and changes in water level in an inspection manhole adjacent to the Silo.
17. The investigation findings are likely to influence decisions on the future operation and upgrading of the silo. UKAEA believe that there is no evidence of any continuing leakage from the silo and the contamination in the manhole is considered to have originated from historical operations.
The D2580 Store
18. On the 17th October 2005 UKAEA informed NII that, during a routine inspection, a small hole was discovered on the lid of a mild steel can used to store radioactive material in D2580.
19. The mild steel can forms the outer component of a multiple layer storage arrangement that inlcudes two plastic bags and an inner Aluminium can. The plastic bags and the Aluminium can were examined and were found to be intact.
20. UKAEA conducted an investigation and confirmed that there had not been any release of radioactive material from the can or any exposure of workers to radioactive material as a consequence of this event. UKAEA have enhanced their inspection programme for this type of storage can.
Pulsed Column Lab
21. UKAEA have informed NII of an event that occurred at the Pulsed Column Laboratory(PCL) when eight workers provided positive nose blow samples upon completion of their work in the PCL.
22. Biological monitoring of the workers involved in this event revealed that six persons had no detectable intakes of radioactive material. Two workers had received an intake of radioactive material but the dose assessment results were well below the legal dose limit.
Regulatory Activity
23. The Inspectorate has powers under the licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications, Acknowledgements, and Agreements under either the conditions attached to the Licence, or arrangements made by UKAEA for complying with those conditions.
24. The following Licence Instrument was issued during the period of this report:
Acknowledgement of Preliminary Safety Report for Shaft Isolation Project and Notification of intent to examine the PCSR.