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 Capenhurst Local Stakeholder Group (LSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at the Capenhurst Works. 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 or subsequently 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 pt onto the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/2006/index.htm under ‘Local Liaison Committee Reports’.
The NII site inspector visited the site on the following dates:
Each NII Site Inspector has an inspection programme, to inspect the licensee’s compliance against the 36 Nuclear Site Licence Conditions. NII attention is directed particularly towards inspection of the major “cornerstone” licence conditions.
During this quarter, an inspection was undertaken of the licensee’s implementation of licence condition 22 arrangements, (relating to modifications or experiments on existing plant). The implementation of the licensee’s arrangements was found to be adequate across the range of plant modification projects sampled during the inspection.
A satisfactory inspection of the licensee’s licence condition 7 arrangements, (addressing incidents on the site) was made, observing that the licensee was improving the speed of closure of actions, following the licensee’s investigations into some minor events on the site.
A compliance inspection was also made of the licensee’s arrangements for complying with the radiation dose control aspects of the Ionising Radiations Outside Workers Regulations, with a satisfactory outcome.
Licence Condition 33 (disposal of radioactive waste) was also inspected, during two plant inspections of the enriched uranium processing and disposal facilities. The licensee was seen to be making acceptable progress in processing these waste materials and reducing the criticality hazard on the licensed site. The licensee continues to segregate waste arisings from this project, thereby usefully minimising the volume of solid waste sent for disposal to the national low level waste repository at Drigg.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) initially required all of the sites, which came under their ownership in April 2005, to compile the long term and short term work plans for the site into two standard documents i.e. Life Cycle Baseline (LCBL) and Near Term Work Plan (NTWP) respectively. From April 2006, these two plans have been integrated into a single ‘Life Time Plan’, (LTP). The site inspector participated in the licensee’s development of this ‘Life Time Plan’, (which is proposing some acceleration of decommissioning projects and hence hazard reduction on the site), as well as participating in the quarterly Regulatory Review meeting, involving NII, the Environment Agency, OCNS, the licensee and NDA, in order to secure improvements to safety.
Most notably, NII continues to actively press the licensee to develop options to bring forward the date for the commencement of processing the legacy “Hex Tails” uranic materials currently stored on site. The licensee has agreed to present the outcome of the current review of acceleration options to NII and EA before the end of 2006. NII is encouraged that the licensee is now actively engaged in reviewing options to address the “Hex Tails” legacy, with a view to reducing the potential hazard from this legacy material earlier than currently planned. NII will continue to press for progress to be made in reducing this medium term site hazard.
There are effective working relationships between the regulators, the licensee and the NDA at Capenhurst, which serve the interests of each party.
Three NII inspectors, together with three Environment Agency inspectors, participated in the “Annual Review of Safety & Environment” meeting on 21st June, at which the licensee reviewed all aspects of safety and environmental performance in the past twelve months, with a positive outcome. It was agreed that there would be significant regulatory interaction in the coming year, in order to regulate the licensee’s developing proposals for reducing staff numbers, as the major decommissioning projects are completed on the site. The licensee’s compliance with licence condition 36 arrangements (for the control of organisational change) will inform the NII regulation of these proposed changes.
The site inspector participated in the Local Stakeholder Group meetings held on 16th May and 28th June.
The site inspector continues to consult with the active site safety representatives during most visits to site. Safety representatives accompanied the site inspector during plant inspections. The site inspector also participated in the safety representatives’ forum meeting in April.
None
No regulatory enforcement action was necessary in this quarter.
The Inspectorate has powers under the site licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition, the Inspectorate may use Licence Instruments to issue Specifications, Acknowledgements and Agreements, under either the conditions attached to the Licence, or arrangements made by British Nuclear Group Sellafield Limited, Capenhurst Works, for complying with those conditions. No Licence Instruments were issued in this period.
BNGSL Capenhurst NII Site Inspector.
HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate.
July 2006