ASN Report 2018

ÎLE-DE-FRANCE REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION The inspections of the facility confirmed improvements in the management of the waste storage areas. ASN nevertheless notes deficiencies in themonitoring of operations performed by outside contractors, and in themanagement of deviations and tracking of the performance of inspections and periodic tests. ASN shall be attentive to the performance of corrective actions in these areas.. Artificial Radionuclide Production Plant UPRA (Artificial Radionuclide Production Plant) – BNI 29 – was commissioned in 1964 on the Saclay site by the CEA, which in 1990 created the CIS bio international subsidiary, the current licensee. In the early 2000s, this subsidiary was bought up by several companies specialising in nuclear medicine. In 2017, the parent company of CIS bio international acquired Mallinckrodt Nuclear Medecine LCC, now forming the Curiumgroup, which owns three production sites (in the United States, France, and the Netherlands). The Curiumgroup is an important player on the French and international market for the production and development of radiopharmaceutical products. The products are mainly used for the purposes of medical diagnoses, but also for therapeutic uses. Another role of BNI 29 until the end of 2019 is also to retrieve disused sealed radioactive sources which were used for radiotherapy and industrial irradiation. ASN considers that the safety performance of CIS bio international must still be significantly improved. It is true that ASN noted the licensee’s efforts in 2018 to make its organisation and its operating processes more efficient, but the results are still insufficient. As in the preceding years, the large number of significant events, the causes of which always include organisational and human deficiencies, reflects a poor culture of operating safety and reveals a lack of commitment of management to take organisational and human factors properly into account. Compliance with the requirements of the operating rules and the monitoring of activities must be improved, particularly Assessment of the CEA Saclay centre The CEA centres of Saclay and Fontenay‑aux‑Roses were grouped together in a single centre (CEA Paris‑Saclay) in 2017. A new organisation was also implemented in 2017 in order to improve the management of the decommissioning projects, with the creation of the Department of facilities undergoing clean-out and decommissioning. During the period of consolidation of these new organisations, ASN has been vigilant with regard to the maintained control of safety and radiation protection in the Saclay BNIs. ASN considers that safety of operation of the CEA Saclay centre’s BNIs is satisfactory. The organisation of transport movements, which represent large quantities of highly diverse types of packages and contents, is also efficient. The CEA nevertheless still has difficulties in fulfilling technical requirements within the deadlines set by ASN. The decommissioning and legacy waste recovery and packaging operations are falling behind schedule. ASN considers that the progress of the decommissioning projects is one of the major safety challenges for the shut down installations and that the management of the waste from the decommissioning operations is crucial for the smooth running of the decommissioning programmes. The inspections conducted by ASN in 2018 have shown the CEA’s need for increased vigilance in the management of the fire risk within the BNIs. This concerns equally well the demonstration of control of the risks as the performance of periodic checks that guarantee correct operation of the equipment involved in fire protection. The revising of the On-site Emergency Plan (PUI) was still not finished in 2018. Its updating will provide a renewed estimate of the risk that the Saclay nuclear installations represent given the risk reduction resulting from the shutdown of the Osiris reactor. On completion of the examination and approval of the On-site Emergency Plan, ASN will be able to assess the possibility of setting up buildings open to the public in large numbers near the CEA site. Further to the Fukushima NPP accident, ASN had initiated stress tests on the nuclear installations. More particularly, the CEA’s emergency management means were examined for the Saclay centre. In 2015 ASN prescribed the creation of new emergency management means, notably the construction or reinforcement of «hardened safety core» emergency centres capable of withstanding extreme conditions. Faced with the confirmed lateness in the deployment of the new emergency management buildings, the compensatory measures proposed by the CEA  will have to be operational rapidly. A national emergency exercise was organised in December 2018. Its purpose was to test the emergency response mechanisms planned by the public authorities and the licensee should an accident occur in a BNI. This exercise was held over two days. The first day focusing primarily on «nuclear safety» was organised around an accident scenario which was unknown to the participants and concerned BNI 101 (Orphée reactor) and led to the mobilisation of the emergency organisation (departmental operations centre of the Essone département Prefect’s Office, the IRSN emergency technical centre, strategic management and command post of the CEA Saclay centre and the CEA emergency coordination centre). ASN considers that this exercise identified several weaknesses in the CEA’s emergency organisation which will have to be corrected. The second day, in which «civil protection» was the prime focus, enabled the Essonne Prefect’s office, with the support of the regional players, to prepare the implementation of population protection measures. 60  ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018