ISOE Expert Group on Occupational Radiation Protection in Severe Accident Management and Post-accident Recovery (EGSAM)

Ongoing

Background

Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) provides a forum for radiation protection professionals from nuclear electricity utilities and national regulatory authorities worldwide to share dose reduction information and operational experience to improve the optimisation of worker radiological protection at nuclear power plants. In addition, ISOE with its participating utilities and regulatory authorities is a core group in developing safe, sustainable and societally acceptable strategies for emerging issues in the field of occupational radiation protection.

At its meeting in May 2011, the ISOE Bureau was presented a new proposal dealing with the current situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to provide a view on management of high radiation area worker doses. The proposal on occupational radiation protection in severe accident management and post-accident recovery was introduced and discussed in detail by indicating that similar other effective ISOE expert group reports on Radiological Work Management at Nuclear Power Plants, ISOE, with a new ad-hoc expert group, could address the experience of various ISOE utilities with various RP management approaches for highly contaminated areas, selection of proper RP protective tools and clothes including remotely operated instruments, means to fix and eliminate contamination, access procedures to the site, shielding, emergency/accident individual dosimetry and its assessment, psychological aspects, etc. Members of the ISOE Bureau also noted that severe accident management should not be viewed only with respect to technical issues, but also from the worker perspective. Consequently, psychological aspects need to be assessed and addressed.

The ISOE Bureau welcomed the proposal and also decided that close collaboration with the CRPPH Working Party on Nuclear Emergency Management (WPNEM) is necessary for this work. It is also indicated that the WGDA may take a leading role in assigning the experts and also work of the group with the active participation of the ISOE Technical Centers. It was noted that this activity would benefit from broad ISOE participation to ensure that the final product would be cohesive and valuable, and it was requested that a call for nominations be sent by the Secretariat to the full Management Board. Following this direction, a call for nominations to the newly established ad-hoc Expert Group on Occupational Radiation Protection in Severe Accident Management and Post-accident Recovery (EGSAM) was sent to the ISOE membership in December 2011.

Objective of the group

The objective of the ad-hoc EGSAM was to develop a report on best radiation protection management procedures for proper radiation protection job coverage during severe accident initial response and recovery efforts to identify good radiation protection practices and to organise and communicate radiation protection lessons learnt from previous reactor accidents.

The outcome of the work was an ISOE publication on occupational radiation protection in severe accident management to find broad use within the NPP radiation protection community.

Related topics

Radiological protection

Radiological protection for occupational exposure at nuclear Installations

Publications and reports

result

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        NEA Document
      
	        Most recent

Occupational Radiation Protection in Severe Accident Management

10 November 2014

CRPPH English

Planned work of the expert group

The EGSAM undertook its work by:

collecting information on dose management of high radiation area workers and practical experience available in the nuclear industry on addressing operational aspects, dosimetry, etc with special emphasis on procedures to the control of occupational exposures. Some first elements had been identified for collecting information, such as:
- RP Management on an highly contaminated / irradiated area;
- RP equipment needed on site (for monitoring individuals, site and other affected areas);
- emergency procedures dosimetry prevision (the post accident situation "normal" procedures);
- remote tooling available;
- sites stress tests dosimetric impact;
- crew stress management;
- identification of all significant non-controlled release sources;
- means to fix and eliminate contamination;
- access procedures to the site;
- monitoring of high dose rate areas, pinpoint hot spots;
- shielding and blocking of high dose rate areas;
- declaration of new controlled areas and zoning;
- selection of persons to act in emergency organisations and be exposed above normal annual dose limit;
- Fukushima data collection [dose data, plant data, TEPCO data, government data, Accident Survey Committee (Hatamura Reports), JNES reports or others] and analysis
  (occupational exposure analysis);
identifying factors and aspects which play key roles in achieving good practices on occupational radiation protection in severe accident management and post-accident recovery (knowledge, experience, technology, regulatory requirements and guidance, worker involvement, information exchange, training aspects, etc) and analysing and quantifying their impact on worker doses;
submitting a report, including possible recommendations for further work, to the ISOE Management Board for approval, and to the CRPPH.

Final report of the Group

Occupational Radiation Protection in Severe Accident Management, NEA, 2015

Activities

result

Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE)

The ISOE was launched in 1992 by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) to improve the management of occupational exposures at nuclear power plants through the collection and analysis of occupational exposure data and trends, and through the exchange of lessons learnt among utility and national regulatory authority experts. Since 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has co-sponsored the ISOE programme, thus allowing the participation of utilities and authorities from non-NEA member countries.

See