Appendix CRF - Part 3 - Northamptonshire County Council

The maximum concentration of radioactivity has been limited through
proposed waste acceptance criteria to limit the effects of routine and
accidental exposures from transport and emplacement operations such
that dose constraints are achieved and improved upon.
Additional waste acceptance criteria have been proposed to further limit
exposure. For example, a constraint on the external dose on the transport
package has been proposed which is more constraining than required by
transport regulations.
Operational arrangements have been proposed to further reduce
exposure, including for example, no loose handling of materials, the use
of suitable cover materials, the use of segregation arrangements, the use
of contamination clearance and control arrangements, the use of
personnel, workplace and environmental monitoring and the use of
emergency arrangements.
11.2.11The likely result of these additional measures will be that the risk presented by
the waste disposal will be less than the design risk target over the long term and
that occupational dose to workers will be well within the dose constraints.
11.2.12Can further measures be implemented?
The two principal possible further restrictions are to further limit the
radiological capacity or to further limit the radioactivity concentration.
The long term risks are driven by the total activity disposed. Further
reductions in the capacity are not reasonably practicable because the
capacity has been designed to a basic risk target that meets current
guidance and in practice the further optimisation measures described
above will reduce the risk still further. The capacities that result are of a
size to be useful and economic for the decommissioning industry and
reductions would make the waste route considerably less able to meet
regional demand.
The short term risks are driven by the concentration of activity and
resulting doserate in any one package of waste for any given isotope
type. The concentrations and doserates have been optimised through
application of restrictive waste acceptance criteria and further restrictions
are not required in order to achieve the occupational dose constraints for
workers (based on those workers using the constraints applicable to the
public). In practice the ALARA and BPM arrangements described above
will further reduce exposures. The proposed radioactivity concentrations
and doserate criteria are of practical use for the decommissioning industry
and further reductions would severely limit the applicability of the waste
route to solve the strategic drivers described above.
Application for disposal of LLW including HV-VLLW under RSA 1993,
for the East Northants Resource Management Facility:
Supporting Information
July 2009
99
WS010001/ENRMF/CONSAPPCRF 418