ASN Report 2017

115 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 03  - Regulations measures concerning this equipment and these installations and oversight thereof. Since 2017, ASN has competence for issuing the environmental license (which replaces the ICPE or IOTA licenses) for this equipment as an ICPE or as an IOTA with risks for the water resources and aquatic ecosystems. However, this equipment shall continue to be the responsibility of the Prefect with regard to other systems mentioned in the texts covering the environmental license (for example a land clearance license) and their licensees do not benefit from the integrated nature of the environmental license. 3.4 Particular requirements for the prevention of pollution and detrimental effects 3.4.1 The OSPAR Convention The international OSPAR Convention (resulting from the merging of the Oslo and Paris conventions) opened for signature on 22nd September 1992, is the mechanismwhereby the European Commission and 15 Member States, including France, cooperate to protect the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic. The strategic orientations for radioactive substances consist in “preventing pollution of the maritime zone by ionising radiation by progressively and substantially reducing discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances. The ultimate aim is to achieve environmental concentrations that are close to the ambient values in the case of naturally occurring radioactive substances, and close to zero in the case of man-made radioactive substances. To achieve these objectives, the following are taken into account: ཛྷ ཛྷ the radiological impacts on humans and biota; ཛྷ ཛྷ the legitimate uses of the sea; ཛྷ ཛྷ technical feasibility. Within the French delegation, ASN takes part in the work of the committee tasked with assessing application of this strategy. 3.4.2 The ESPOO Convention The Convention on the assessment of environmental impacts in a transboundary context, more commonly called the “ESPOO Convention”, which was adopted in 1991 and entered into force in September 1997, requires that the contracting parties conduct an environmental assessment of the impacts of activities liable to have a transboundary environmental impact before licensing this activity and that they notify the neighbouring country concerned of this assessment. Certain nuclear facilities – such as NPPs, nuclear fuel production or enrichment facilities, radioactive waste disposal or reprocessing facilities – fall within the scope of this Convention. 3.4.3 ASN resolution 2013-DC-0360 of 16th July 2013 concerning the control of detrimental effects and the health and environmental impact of BNIs Resolution of 16th July 2013 concerning the control of detrimental effects and the health and environmental impact of BNIs supplements the implementation procedures of Title IV of the BNI Order of 7th February 2012. Its main provisions concern methods for water intake and liquid or gaseous, chemical or radioactive discharges, the monitoring of water intake and discharges, environmental monitoring, prevention of detrimental effects and information of the regulatory authority and the public. With regard to environmental protection, the BNI Order of 7th February 2012 and the resolution of 16th July 2013 more specifically aim to address the following main objectives or issues: ཛྷ ཛྷ implement the integrated approach specified by law, whereby the BNI System governs all the risks, pollution and detrimental effects created by these installations; ཛྷ ཛྷ modify the regulations applicable to basic nuclear installations prior to 1st July 2013; ཛྷ ཛྷ incorporate into the regulations the requirements applicable to the BNI licensees by certain ASN licensing decisions concerning water intake and effluent discharge, in order to create a more general and uniform framework; ཛྷ ཛྷ set binding unified principles and rules applicable to the BNIs; ཛྷ ཛྷ for BNIs, adopt requirements at least equivalent to those applicable to ICPEs and IOTA concerned by the list specified in Article L. 214-2 of the Environment Code, more specifically those of the Order of 2nd February 1998 concerning water intake and consumption and emissions of all types from ICPEs subject to licensing, in accordance with the provisions of the Order of 7th February 2012; ཛྷ ཛྷ adopt provisions, the implementation of which is such as to guarantee the quality of the steps taken by the BNI licensees for monitoring of their facilities (monitoring of effluents and of the environment); ཛྷ ཛྷ improve public information practices, making the corresponding steps taken by the licensees more legible. The resolution of 16th July 2013 was revised by the ASN resolution of 29th September 2016. This modification aims to clarify certain provisions more specifically concerning the content of the environmental monitoring programme to be put into place by the licensees, set out in appendix II to the resolution. It also updates the requirements to take account of regulatory changes in European Environmental Law (regulation 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and Council of 16th December 2008 concerning the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, Directive  2012/18/EU of the European Parliament and Council of 4th July 2012 concerning the management of hazards linked to major accidents involving hazardous substances modifying and then repealing Council Directive 96/82/CE, known as the “Seveso 3 Directive”). 3.4.4 BNI discharges BNI discharges management policy Like all industries, nuclear activities (nuclear industry, nuclear medicine, research installations, etc.) create by-products, which may or may not be radioactive. Steps are being taken to minimise their quantity through reduction at source. The radioactivity discharged in effluents represents a marginal fraction of that which is confined in the waste. The choice of the means of discharge (liquid or gaseous) is part of a more general approach aimed at mitigating the overall impact of the installation.