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 telephone number 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, site inspections have been undertaken across a range of the nuclear site licence conditions, including licence condition 11, (agreeing the outline scope of a forthcoming unannounced emergency exercise, (discussed at two meetings held on site, with the assistance of an NII specialist health physics inspector), designed to test the licensee’s arrangements for the timely processing of special accident dosimetry, (worn by some of the Capenhurst workforce) at laboratories at Sellafield and Westlakes in Cumbria, as well as agreeing the scope of the forthcoming Level One Emergency Exercise, at which the licensee demonstrates the site emergency arrangements to NII. An unplanned evacuation by personnel from some decommissioning project work was also observed, when some local (false) alarms were actuated during an NII site inspection. The licensee’s personnel were observed to correctly evacuate the affected plant.
The site inspector advised the licensee on licence condition 6 regulatory requirements, (relating to documents, records, authorities and certificates) for the planned rationalisation of historic site records.
The implementation of the licence condition 36 arrangements (for the control of organisational change) was sampled in relation to the release of the training manager, with an acceptable outcome. Also with regard to licence condition 36, regulatory advice regarding the need for the licensee to retain adequate “core competence” and “intelligent customer” capabilities was discussed during two meetings with the licensee, to consider the emerging proposals for the significant reduction in the site workforce, which the licensee is proposing, on completion of the short term decommissioning projects. A specialist NII inspector also provided regulatory advice to the licensee, supporting the site inspector during one of these inspection meetings.
The implementation of the licence condition 35 arrangements, (relating to the control of decommissioning) for the plant cleanup, in preparation for demolition of clean and lightly contaminated parts of the former Diffusion Plant, was inspected during a plant inspection. The licensee demonstrated effective control of this work.
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.
In particular, NII continues to actively press the licensee to develop the options to bring forward the date for the commencement of processing the legacy “Hex Tails” uranic materials currently stored on site, taking account of wider developments. 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 was encouraged that the licensee was 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 programmed. NII will continue to press for progress to be made in the timely reduction of this medium term site hazard.
There continue to be effective working relationships between the regulators, the licensee and the NDA at Capenhurst, which serve the interests of each party.
The site inspector continues to consult with the active site safety representatives during most visits to site. Safety representatives generally accompanied the site inspector during plant inspections.
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.
October 2006