Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
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 site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Harwell Chilton Campus Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the UKAEA Harwell licensed site. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate normally attend LSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there by members of the LSG. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-3484/3290.
This report will be put on to the HSE web site at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/index.htm1. The Site Inspector made five planned visits to Harwell during the quarter. His inspections and discussions covered a number of regulatory topics including handover visits to various facilities in the company of the outgoing Site Inspector, participation in the NDA final review of UKAEA’s 2005/6 Long Term Plan, and attendance at the Harwell Regulatory Forum.
2. The Site Inspector also undertook inspections in the Low Active Effluent Treatment Plants (LAETP) and B220. He witnessed the Level 1 Emergency Exercise in the company of colleagues and held discussions with the UKAEA and tenant Safety Representatives. He also attended the LSG meeting held in November.
3. Further information on matters of interest is provided in the following sections of this report.
4. As indicated in paragraphs 1 and 2 above, these covered licence condition compliance matters and other relevant safety related aspects of operations, maintenance and both technical and safety support. For the most part the inspections and discussions revealed nothing of concern and compliance was judged to be adequate. The inspection of LAETP was largely for familiarisation purposes but also to revisit matters that had been raised previously in NII’s assessment of the site Periodic Safety Review. Progress was noted regarding improvements and dealing with a backlog of legacy wastes.
5. The inspection of B220 revealed shortcomings in the availability of up to date work instructions, which UKAEA undertook to remedy forthwith or to suspend operations until the matter had been resolved. The inspection was primarily undertaken for familiarisation purposes in connection with the proposed modification of a plant that would be used for treating legacy wastes requiring additional treatment before their storage in a passively safe form. Possible reasonably practicable improvements to the health physics barrier arrangements and area designations were also identified during the inspection and drawn to the attention of UKAEA. For the future, NII will include a consideration of these in its examination of the forthcoming safety case for the plant.
6. The handover from the outgoing inspector to the incoming one was undertaken in conjunction with a series of meetings and plant visits, which were kindly arranged by UKAEA and its tenants AEAT, Canberra Harwell, REVISS, and Ebis Iotron. Such introductions are highly valued by NII as a means of making initial contact with both site and tenant staff, and for giving the incoming inspector an early understanding of both the variety of facilities that are being operated on the site and the range of matters of regulatory interest.
7. NII and the Environment Agency continued to meet with UKAEA on a monthly basis by videoconference. The meetings help maintain close contact with the site whilst reducing travel time and costs. They are not seen as a substitute for site inspection visits but they allow routine regulatory business to proceed while the Site Inspector is away from the site.
8. The Site Inspector in the company of the outgoing inspector and the Windscale Site Inspector witnessed the annual NII Level 1 Emergency Exercise. The scenario was representative of one of the more likely accidents that could happen now that the site is in the process of facility Post Operation Clean Out (POCO) and decommissioning. While it was judged to be an adequate demonstration of the overall emergency arrangements, UKAEA took overly long to restore control of the situation. The company undertook to remedy matters by introducing contingency plans into its emergency arrangements that would address likely accident scenarios involving out of building contamination. It would then repeat, under the scrutiny of NII observation, that part of the exercise that was associated with the plant response.
9. Nothing to report
10. NII has powers under Nuclear Site Licence Number 47 to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, NII can issue Notifications, Specifications, Acknowledgements and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Licence, or under arrangements made by UKAEA for complying with those conditions.
11. A new numbering system was introduced on 1 October 2004 for site licence actions, and all such actions are now called Licence Instruments. During quarter four, no Licence Instruments were issued.