Other guidance

Best Available Techniques (BAT) for the Management of the Generation and Disposal of Radioactive Wastes

This nuclear industry code of practice was developed on behalf of the Nuclear Industry Safety Directors Forum.

Permits to dispose of radioactive wastes require the operator to keep all exposures to the public As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), having regard to relevant factors such as protection of the environment and other social or economic impacts – the ‘optimisation requirement’. In England and Wales the application of Best Available Techniques (BAT) is the means to demonstrate compliance with the optimisation requirement. This has replaced the previous requirement to employ Best Practicable Means (BPM). This Code of Practice presents the principles, processes and practices that should be used when identifying and implementing BAT for the management of radioactive waste. The use of BPM continues to be required by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The Environment Agency and SEPA consider that the requirements to use BPM are equivalent to the requirements to use BAT and that the obligations on waste producers are the same. Consequently, much of the guidance will be applicable within Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Please click here to access the document.

ReCLAIM

ReCLAIM is an electronic spreadsheet tool developed by the National Nuclear Laboratory through funding from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that can undertake simple generic and site-specific assessments of radioactively contaminated land. It is designed principally for Nuclear Licensed Sites but can be applied more widely.

The tool can:

• calculate doses for pre-defined exposure pathways and scenarios;
• calculate soil/water screening levels for individual radionuclides for a specified dose target and for defined scenarios and pathways;
• take into consideration radionuclide additivity and background radioactivity; and
• be very flexible: users can modify pathway parameter values, develop custom pathways and scenarios or combine pathways to define site-specific scenarios.

ReCLAIM v3.0 offers greater flexibility and wider choice to previous versions. This includes:

• the number of radionuclides considered in the tool has been increased to 54;
• users can specify the thickness of clean cover and contaminated soil in addition to the predefined values; and
• users can quickly export information into applications such as MSWordTM and PowerPointTM, export the run into a text file for QA purposes and export the run into a small xml file that can be imported to re-run the tool.

The tool may be downloaded from http://environment.nnl.co.uk/reclaim.html

Management of Radioactive Materials and Radioactive Waste on Nuclear Licensed Sites (pdf)
Health and Safety Executive March 2001
This is HSE’s formal guidance on the management of contaminated land on nuclear-licensed sites. It is part of their guidance on the management of radioactive materials and radioactive waste because HSE regard radioactively contaminated soil (and other material in the ground) as an ‘accumulation’ of radioactive waste and require it to be dealt with as such. It is produced as guidance to HSE’s own nuclear inspectors but is intended to be useful to others, especially site operators.

Guidance on the Characterisation and Remediation of Radioactively Contaminated Land
Environment Agency May 2002
This formal Environment Agency guidance is for their own officers and for organisations involved in the characterisation and remediation of radioactively contaminated land, where the Agency will regulate the disposal of the radioactive wastes arising from remediation. The document does not address radioactively contaminated land on nuclear-licensed sites (to which the HSE guidance applies, see above).
(Adobe Acrobat format)

Publication of HSE criterion for delicensing Nuclear Sites 
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has now published its criterion for delicensing parts of, or entire sites licensed under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. For further information, follow the above link.
(Adobe Acrobat format)

Assessment of Risks to Human Health From Land Contamination
In 2002 Defra and the Environment Agency published a series of reports on guideline values for non-radioactive contaminants in soils and the bases for these values. Report CLR7 contains the guideline values. Reports CLR8, 9 and 10 describe the data, assumptions and model used in the derivations of these values.This suite of information was added to in 2004 by the publication of CLR11.

An overview of the development of soil guideline values and related research (CLR 7) (pdf)

Potential contaminants for the assessment of land (CLR 8) (pdf)

Contaminants in Soil: Collation of toxicological data and intake values for humans (CLR9) (pdf)

The Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) Model: Technical basis and algorithms
(CLR10) (pdf)

Model procedures for the management of land contamination (CLR11) (pdf)

Look-up tables for radiological assessment of contaminated land on Nuclear Licensed Sites (RADCONTAB) v1.0

(Note that the functionality of RADCONTAB is now almost all available in an improved format within ReCLAIM, see above)

BNFL have developed this freely-available spreadsheet-based tool to enable suitably qualified but relatively non-specialised assessors to make relatively rapid assessments of the radiological implications of data for concentrations of radionuclides in contaminated land and water on Nuclear Licensed sites .

The tool calculates doses via individual exposure pathways, with respect to unit and user-input values of specific activity (Bq g -1, Bq cm -2 or Bq L -1) for surface soil, buried soil and potable water. For user-input values of specific activity, these doses can be combined to derive a total dose for a particular contaminated land scenario. The tool allows the user to specify the exposure scenarios to be assessed, in terms of input parameters such as occupancy, ingestion rates or inhalation rates. The accompanying report provides guidance on suitable values for parameter values, but the onus is on the user to choose these values and justify their choice.

The tool was developed consultatively, using the SAFEGROUNDS website. A consultation in the summer of 2003 led to the final form of the specification. BNFL’s responses to this consultation were presented as an annexe to the final specification (December 2003).

A consultation in the summer of 2004 allowed comments to be made on a draft version of the spreadsheet tool and user guide report. BNFL’s responses to this consultation were collated and are presented alongside the final product.

The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) acted as BNFL’s peer reviewer throughout the development process. NRPB’s peer review summary report is presented here alongside the final product.

The following links provide access to the tool and the documents mentioned above.

RADCONTAB 1.0 look-up tables spreadsheet tool (Excel format)
User guide report
Final specification (with responses to 2003 consultation)
Responses to 2004 consultation
NRPB peer review summary report (pdf)

Selection of remedial treatment for contaminated land. A guide to good practice. (pdf)
CIRIA
This CIRIA guide presents best practice methodology for the selection of remedial treatments. The user is taken through the various stages by which remedial techniques for treating contaminated land are identified, screened and selected, highlighting the key stages and providing pointers towards best practice. The treatment technologies screening matrix is a useful decision-making tool and guidance is provided on UK legislative regimes and sources of further information on technical and scientific aspects of remediation.

Appendix 2 (pdf)
CIRIA

Establishing sustainable practices in managing very low level waste and free-release construction materials in nuclear industry decommissioning - scoping study report (pdf)
CIRIA, March 2003
The scoping study on establishing sustainable practices for managing very low level radioactive wastes was carried out by CIRIA in association with UKAEA, Professor Peter Guthrie and the Environment Council. The report contains recommendations about how the project should be taken forward. This is now being done, with sponsorship from the DTI’s Safety Issues Task Force.

Appendices (pdf)

Planning, managing and organising the decommissioning of nuclear facilities: lessons learned
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), May 2004
The document summarises the reported experience in the planning and management of decommissioning. It is particularly aimed at decision-makers, plant operators, contractors, and regulators involved in the planning and management of decommissioning activities. This is particularly applicable to nuclear installations, which are approaching the end of their operating lives.
(Adobe Acrobat PDF format)

An Assessment of the Records and Documents Required for Efficient Liabilities Management (pdf)
John Taylor, Safety Issues Task Force/ BNFL October 2002
This short report for the Safety Issues Task Force of the UK Department of Trade and Industry’s Liabilities Management Group is about the records and documentation needed for management of liabilities on nuclear-licensed sites, including contaminated land. The report proposes a ‘minimum records/documentation set’ and identifies possible weaknesses in current records.

US Department of Energy Long-Term Stewardship Work
The Office of Environmental Management of the USDOE is carrying out work to determine and implement the most appropriate long-term stewardship arrangements for DOE nuclear sites. Further information can be seen via the links below:

Information centre for long-term stewardship
Description of the long-term stewardship study
Study report