IRRS follow-up mission to France - October 2017

43 10. EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE – REGULATORY ASPECTS 10.1. GENERAL EPR REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS 2014 MISSION RECOMMENDATIONS, SUGGESTIONS R12 Recommendation: ASN should encourage a revision of emergency plans to ensure that severe accidents with uncontrolled releases are taken into account in the emergency preparedness and response (EPR) threat/hazard assessment for emergency planning and for the development of a protection strategy. Exercises should also address such scenarios. Changes since the initial IRRS mission Recommendation 12: The finding in 2014 was that the onsite threat/hazard assessment or onsite emergency planning basis, was not required to take into account severe accidents with uncontrolled releases, and accordingly only design basis type accidents were generally considered in emergency plans. At the time of the 2014 mission, the requirements for emergency preparedness and response (EPR) were stated in the Decree n°2007-1557 for BNI of 20 November 2007 and in more detail in chapter VII of the ministerial Order about BNIs of 7 February 2012. Since the 2014 mission, ASN has issued resolution 2015-DC-0532 about Safety Reports, which includes a specific chapter (VIII) related to the onsite emergency planning basis. Article 4.8.1 explicitly requires that accidents beyond the design basis be included in the planning basis. Furthermore, article 4.8.2 requires operators to identify all possible accidents that offsite authorities need to be aware of, and to provide them with the consequences of these accidents to be considered in development of offsite plans. In addition to the enhanced requirements for onsite emergency planning basis in the safety report, ASN has issued resolution 2017-DC-0592 about emergency preparedness and response. This resolution lays out comprehensive requirements for onsite emergency plans. Although the new resolution makes no direct reference to the magnitude of accidents to be considered (as this is addressed in the revised safety report requirements), it does establish requirements that are in fact required for managing severe accidents. Title VII addresses the need for emergency response facilities and article 7.2 addresses the habitability of the emergency response facilities and, in particular, prolonged releases with requirements for power supply, filtering, air conditioning and supplies of food or water. These are clearly means that would not likely be required for design basis accidents only. These requirements will come into effect on 1 January 2018. Finally, in addition to the changes in the regulatory framework for licensees and onsite plans, key changes have been made to offsite planning arrangements for severe accidents. As a follow-up to the 2014 update of the national nuclear emergency plan, a ministerial letter was issued with 6 specific actions areas. In particular, prefects are required to enhance offsite plans by: extending the preparedness zone from 10km to 20km, including potassium iodide pre-distribution; introducing a new 5km immediate evacuation zone; and finally introducing default immediate actions on food restrictions. A guidebook on implementing these changes has been developed to assist the prefect in undertaking these changes to offsite plans.