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 Dounreay Site Stakeholder Group (DSSG) and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Dounreay. 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 normally attend the Dounreay SSG meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there or subsequently by members of the Dounreay SSG. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE’s Nuclear Directorate on 0151-951-4382.
Nuclear Safety Directorate
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
NII Site Inspectors and Specialist Inspectors visited Dounreay on the following dates:-
Compliance inspections were undertaken against a number of the Licence Conditions. No major issues were raised.
NII reviewed the Dounreay arrangements for Decommissioning under Licence Condition 35, particularly the arrangements for controlling changes to the Dounreay Site Restoration Plan(DSRP) milestones. These arrangements require UKAEA to seek NII agreement before making significant changes to DSRP milestones. As the decommissioning milestones in DSRP are now reflected in the Lifetime Plan, it is considered to be appropriate to refer to the relevant parts of the Lifetime Plan for regulatory purposes. This change was agreed at the 2006 Annual Review of Safety and has also been communicated to the Dounreay Stakeholder Group.
Dounreay Cementation Plant (DCP)
Following an anonymous complaint to NII regarding a leak of water inside DCP, an investigation confirmed that 400 litres of clean water had leaked into the highly contaminated DCP Main Handling Cell, during diamond wire cutting operations. This event had not been promptly reported to NII as required by UKAEA’s procedures. No-one was put at risk as there was a large safety margin before overflow of the liquor from the cell could occur. However, this was a significant incident and will result in two additional drums of encapsulated Intermediate Level Waste. NII views reporting of events as important and has asked UKAEA to ensure that events are reported as required by their arrangements.
During decontamination work at DCP, an operator received a radiation dose of 2mSv which was 20 times greater than planned for the activities he was performing. The electronic dosemeter used for day-to-day control of exposure to radiation for each entry into DCP had been worn incorrectly and did not respond appropriately. The radiation dose was correctly measured using other dosemeters required by law. UKAEA has produced advice to the workforce stressing the importance of wearing electronic dosemeters correctly.
D2670 Plutonium Intake
The case against UKAEA for the alleged breaches of Section 2 of the HASAW Act 1974 following the events in D2670 was heard at Wick Sheriff’s Court on 12 July. UKAEA entered a guilty plea and was fined £15,000.
D1208 Pu Intake
NII monitored the UKAEA investigation into the plutonium intake by an employee at D1208. Whilst the dose estimate for this employee (less than 1mSv) was well below the dose limit, a thorough examination of the individuals work history over the last 12 months could not reveal the source of the intake. NII asked UKAEA to review all other instances of plutonium intakes at Dounreay where there were uncertainties associated with the source of intake. In addition NII asked UKAEA to ensure that all events with the potential for exposure to plutonium are followed up by biological monitoring.
1998 HSE/SEPA safety audit of Dounreay
NII and UKAEA continue to make progress in dealing with the 1998 HSE/SEPA Audit recommendations with 118 of the 143 recommendations having been closed out. Eight are awaiting close-out requests from UKAEA and 17 are being considered for close-out by the regulators.
Contaminated land and drains on the site
UKAEA recovered about half a ton of silt from a land drain, where a contamination find was reported previously. The slit has been solidified with cement for storage as Low Level Waste. UKAEA plans to divert the water flow to effluent treatment later this year. Dounreay’s low level waste strategy could be affected by the need to remediate contaminated land near this drain and to enable construction of new waste encapsulation plants.
UKAEA Restructuring and Relicensing Submissions
UKAEA submitted a request for a Licence Instrument to allow them to proceed with implementing the Shadow Working organisational structure at Dounreay. NII requires a successful period of shadow working of about six months as a prerequisite for the relicensing of Dounreay. In September, NII inspected the readiness of UKAEA for shadow working on the site and a decision to grant a Licence Instrument is expected to be made in October 2007.
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. NII issued the following Licence Instruments during the 3rd quarter of 2007 (except for LI 532 which was issued in April 2007):
| LI No. 532 | Specification issued under Condition 25(4) – submission of records of radioactive material subject to the High-Activity Sealed Radioactive Sources and Orphan Sources Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/2686) |
|---|---|
| LI No. 534 | Agreement to proceed with active commissioning of the Dounreay Cementation Plant Import Export Facility |
| LI No. 535 | Agreement to proceed with limited operation of D1203 and adoption of the D1203 Modern Standards Safety Case |