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Other Guidance

Documents from UK organisations

WRAP TOOLS

At the CIRIA SAFESPUR event on recycling concrete, Salford, April 2012, John Barritt of WRAP described a number of tools developed by WRAP that are available to the industry.

Please click here for links and brief explanations to these tools.

(Links updated May 22, 2012)

 

Industry guidance: Qualitative risk assessment for land contamination, including radioactive contamination

This nuclear industry guidance was developed on behalf of the Nuclear Industry Group for Land Quality, funded as part of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's Direct Research Portfolio (http://www.nda.gov.uk/research/). Further information on the authorship of and background to this document are provided in its Foreword, which also seeks feedback from users, which will be used to inform a future revision.

The purpose of the guidance is to provide a methodology for qualitative risk assessment (QLRA) of land contamination. It covers both non-radioactive and radioactive contamination and considers the full range of receptors within applicable regulatory regimes (ie people, the environment and property) from land contamination in its current condition.

The guidance is aimed mainly at land quality management practitioners in the nuclear industry but may also be applicable to potentially contaminated sites in other contexts.

Please click here to access the document.

GUIDANCE
June 2012

Nuclear Industry Group for Land Quality

ReCLAIM

ReCLAIM is an electronic spreadsheet tool developed by the National Nuclear Laboratory through funding from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that can undertake simple generic and site-specific assessments of radioactively contaminated land. It is designed principally for Nuclear Licensed Sites but can be applied more widely.

The tool can:

  • calculate doses for pre-defined exposure pathways and scenarios
  • calculate soil/water screening levels for individual radionuclides for a specified dose target and for defined scenarios and pathways
  • take into consideration radionuclide additivity and background radioactivity
  • be very flexible: users can modify pathway parameter values, develop custom pathways and scenarios or combine pathways to define site-specific scenarios.

ReCLAIM v3.0 offers greater flexibility and wider choice than previous versions. This includes:

  • the number of radionuclides considered in the tool has been increased to 54
  • users can specify the thickness of clean cover and contaminated soil in addition to the predefined values
  • users can quickly export information into applications such as MSWordTM and PowerPointTM, export the run into a text file for QA purposes and export the run into a small xml file that can be imported to re-run the tool.

The tool may be downloaded from http://www.nnl.co.uk/reclaim/

INFORMATION / TOOL

March 2011

ReCLAIM is an electronic spreadsheet tool developed by the National Nuclear Laboratory through funding from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Three debate papers setting out the views from the following three organisations:

Low Level Radiation Campaign LLRC

Health Protection Agency HPA
http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1274090258191

University of Warwick

For further background information click here

January 2010

Debate papers

Individual authoris' views

Best Available Techniques (BAT) for the management of the generation and disposal of radioactive wastes

Permits to dispose of radioactive wastes require the operator to keep all exposures to the public As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA), having regard to relevant factors such as protection of the environment and other social or economic impacts the optimisation requirement.

In England and Wales the application of Best Available Techniques (BAT) is the means to demonstrate compliance with the optimisation requirement. This has replaced the previous requirement to employ Best Practicable Means (BPM).

This Code of Practice presents the principles, processes and practices that should be used when identifying and implementing BAT for the management of radioactive waste. The use of BPM continues to be required by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

The Environment Agency and SEPA consider that the requirements to use BPM are equivalent to the requirements to use BAT and that the obligations on waste producers are the same. Consequently, much of the guidance will be applicable within Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Please click here to access the document.

GUIDANCE
2010
This nuclear industry code of practice was developed on behalf of the Nuclear Industry Safety Directors Forum.

Look-up tables for radiological assessment of contaminated land on Nuclear Licensed Sites (RADCONTAB) v1.0

(Note that the functionality of RADCONTAB is now almost all available in an improved format within ReCLAIM, see above)

BNFL have developed this freely-available spreadsheet-based tool to enable suitably qualified but relatively non-specialised assessors to make relatively rapid assessments of the radiological implications of data for concentrations of radionuclides in contaminated land and water on Nuclear Licensed Sites.

The tool calculates doses via individual exposure pathways, with respect to unit and user-input values of specific activity for surface soil, buried soil and potable water. For user-input values of specific activity, these doses can be combined to derive a total dose for a particular contaminated land scenario. The tool allows the user to specify the exposure scenarios to be assessed, in terms of input parameters such as occupancy, ingestion rates or inhalation rates. The accompanying report provides guidance on suitable values for parameter values, but the onus is on the user to choose these values and justify their choice.

The tool was developed consultatively, using the SAFEGROUNDS website. A consultation in the summer of 2003 led to the final form of the specification. BNFL's responses to this consultation were presented as an annexe to the final specification (December 2003).

A consultation in the summer of 2004 allowed comments to be made on a draft version of the spreadsheet tool and user guide report. BNFL’s responses to this consultation were collated and are presented alongside the final product.

The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) acted as BNFL's peer reviewer throughout the development process. NRPB's peer review summary report is presented here alongside the final product.

The following links provide access to the tool and the documents mentioned above.

RADCONTAB 1.0 look-up tables spreadsheet tool (Excel format)

User guide report

Final specification (with responses to 2003 consultation)

Responses to 2004 consultation

NRPB peer review summary report (pdf)

INFORMATION / TOOL

Developed by BNFL
March 2005
See document for development history


Documents from international organisations






 

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