ASN Report 2018

AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION With regard to emergency situation management and further to ASN’s discovery of functional deficiencies, the site reinforced its organisation in 2018. To test its effectiveness, ASN organised a further unannounced night-time exercise. This exercise showed the situation to be satisfactory. These improvements were confirmed during a significant event involving loss of the site electrical power sources which occurred on 14 December 2018 and was rated level 1 on the INES scale. Lastly, further to deviations in the monitoring of subcontracted activities and the management of waste, observed by ASN during inspections in 2017, the licensee took measures in 2018 to clarify and reinforce the site’s organisation in these areas. Siloette, Siloé, LAMA reactors and effluents and solid waste treatment station – CEA Centre The CEA Grenoble centre (Isère département ) was inaugurated in January  1959. Activities associated with the development of nuclear reactors were carried out there before being gradually transferred to other CEA centres in the 1980’s. The Grenoble centre now carries out research and development in the areas of renewable energies, health and microtechnology. In 2002, the CEA Grenoble centre began a site delicensing process. The site accommodated six nuclear installations which have gradually stopped their activities and are now in the decommissioning phase with a view to delicensing. Delicensing of the Siloette reactor was declared in 2007, that of the Mélusine reactor in 2011, of the Siloé reactor in January  2015 and of the LAMA in August 2017. The last BNIs on the site are those relating to the Effluents and solidWaste Treatment Station and decay storage (STED) (BNIs 36 and 79). All the buildings have been dismantled, in accordance with their decommissioning decree. The technical discussions between ASN and CEA concerning the radiological and chemical remediation of the soil of the STED continued in 2018. All the operations that can be technically achieved at a reasonably acceptable cost have been carried out. In view of the presence of residual chemical and radiological marking, ASN will make delicensing of the STED dependent on the implementation of active institutional controls. SICN plant in Veurey-Voroize The former nuclear fuel fabrication plant in Veurey‑Voroize (Isère département ), operated by Société Industrielle de Combustible Nucléaire (SICN, Orano Group) comprises two nuclear installations, BNIs 65 and 90. The fuel fabrication activities were definitively stopped in the early 2000’s. The decommissioning operations were authorised by Decrees 2006‑191 and 2006‑190 of 15 February 2006, and the decommissioning work has now been completed. The site nevertheless displays residual contamination of the soil and groundwater, the impact of which is compatible with the envisaged future use (industrial). ASN has therefore asked the licensee to submit, as a prerequisite to delicensing, an application for the implementation of active institutional controls designed to restrict the use of the soil and groundwater and to guarantee that the land usage remains compatible with the state of the site. The SICN submitted this file to the Isère Prefect’s office in March  2014, and the delicensing application file for the two BNIs to ASN. It will not be possible to declare this delicensing until these active institutional controls have been effectively put into place by the Prefect of the Isère département , following the examination procedure, which includes a public inquiry, in 2019. The Local Information Committee was also consulted about the institutional controls project and the delicencing file, and gave its opinion on them in December 2018. Labour inspection in the nuclear power plants of the Auvergne‑Rhône‑Alpes region Twenty eight labour inspections were carried out during 2018, along with twenty five days of presence in the region’s nuclear power plants for meetings, discussions with employees and staff representatives, and participation at the meetings of the committees for health, safety and working conditions. The inspections are divided between inspections conducted on the sites of maintenance work carried out during the reactor outages and thematic inspections (electrical risk, explosive atmosphere, asbestos risk). Lastly, inspections were also carried out further to serious workplace accidents. Broadly speaking, what emerges from 2018 is: ཛྷ ཛྷ raised awareness and the implementation of an action plan to improve control of the risk associated with explosive atmospheres in the EDF facilities with the need to keep better track of the compliance of its facilities with the requirements of the labour code (electrical risk, ATEX explosion risk); ཛྷ ཛྷ the need for EDF to be more involved in the oversight of conformity of the collective protective means intended to limit contamination dispersion ; ཛྷ ཛྷ the need, more generally, to continue the radiation protection efforts; ཛྷ ཛྷ the need for real-time updating of the work-related documents during the works so that the collective andindividual protection requirements are consistent with the states of the work site and the associated risks. ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018  37