ASN Report 2018

PROVENCE-ALPES-CÔTE D’AZUR REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION Cedra storage facility – CEA Centre Since 2006 the Cedra facility (BNI 164) processes ILW-LL waste and stores «low and medium dose» waste packages pending the creation of appropriate disposal routes. The CEA submitted the facility’s periodic safety review report to ASN in November 2017. ASN is currently examining this file, with particular attention to its exhaustiveness and the defining of the acceptance criteria applicable to the stored packages. ASN considers that, after several years marked by failures to comply with the package acceptance and storage specifications, the management of the packages and the safety of the package reception, handling, storage and monitoring operations have improved and now reached a standard that is on the whole satisfactory. The CEA must nevertheless ensure the reliability of its suction-cup pick-up systems, which have caused significant events in this facility and others in recent years. Assessment of the CEA Cadarache centre ASN considers that the level of nuclear safety of the CEA Cadarache centre in 2018 is relatively satisfactory. ASN does however still note persistent disparities between the facilities of the centre, and had to use its enforcement powers further to the fall of a package in BNI 37-A, an event rated level 1 on the INES scale. With regard to operation of the BNIs, ASN maintains its overall positive assessment of 2017 regarding the management of skills and training, compliance with the operating baseline requirements and, more broadly, the radiation protection measures taken by the centre’s senior management. The management of nuclear safety is on the whole satisfactory, but the sharing of experience feedback and lessons learned between facilities must be improved. The results concerning the monitoring of service providers and subcontractors are mixed. The interfaces between the nuclear licensee and its service providers must be improved, particularly for the support facilities. In this respect, it would be beneficial to extend the good practices observed in some of the facilities of the centre to all them. ASN considers moreover that the CEA must continue its efforts concerning protection against the fire risk, particularly in its control of the fire loads present in the facilities, the management of the periodic checks and tests, and compliance with the waste storage rules. Lastly, it was noted that only three facilities had a suitable lightning protection system. A compliance programme has been started. ASN will be attentive to the correct performance of the work identified in the periodic safety reviews. For the CEA, ASN observes that several projects concerning the renovation of facilities or the construction of new facilities were subsequently redefined or abandoned for budgetary reasons. In some cases, ASN may have to restrict the operating conditions, or even ask for the shutdown of certain old facilities. The ASN resolutions of 11 July 2017 regulating discharges , transfers of effluents and monitoring of the environment of the civil installations of the Cadarache centre, referenced 2017-DC-0596 and 2017-DC-0597, are currently being deployed by the CEA which must finalise its assessment which aims at proving the conformity of the installations with these resolutions. The management of storm water before discharge must be improved in some of the older facilities. With regard to the on-site transport of radioactive substances at the Cadarache centre, the licensee on the whole complies with its baseline requirements. The traceability of the checks carried out during these operations and the monitoring of service providers when this activity is subcontracted must nevertheless be improved. The CEA must also revise is emergency situation management provisions to meet the requirements of ASN resolution 2017-DC-0592 of 13 June 2017. The main improvements expected concern the emergency management agreements made with the outside organisations, the emergency exercises, the teaching and training of the personnel involved in emergency management and turning lessons learned to good account. With regard to the lessons learned from the Fukushima NPP accident, the CEA has entirely reviewed its draft project for an emergency centre that is resistance to extreme hazards due to project management difficulties, and has submitted a request to ASN for its entry into service to be pushed back. ASN thus modified the date initially prescribed for the commissioning of an operational emergency management centre that is robust to extreme hazards by resolution 2019-DC-0661 of 31 January 2019. ASN underlines that the compensatory measures proposed by the CEA pending the availability of an emergency centre that can withstand extreme hazards must be rapidly operational. Major milestones were crossed in 2018 in the activities of decommissioning and retrieval and packaging of legacy radioactive waste and nuclear materials, notably with the completion of emptying of pools P1 and P2 of the storage area (BNI 56), and the completion of removal of the sodium-containing objects still present in the Rapsodie facility (BNI 25). ASN notes moreover that the waste and fuel removal milestones are correctly followed. ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018  85