ASN Report 2017

363 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 12  - EDF Nuclear Power Plants ཛྷ ཛྷ the worksites with asbestos risks. The labour inspectors are particularly vigilant with regard to preventing the risk of inhalation of these fibres during their inspections and had to remind personnel of the regulations on several occasions; ཛྷ ཛྷ the use of carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic chemical products. Occupational accident inquiries are systematically held in the event of serious accidents or near-accidents. Unfortunately, four fatal accidents occurred in 2017: three caused by a heart attack and one by electrocution. International subcontracting and provision of services Steps were taken in 2017 with regard to inspections carried out on notifications and the conditions for secondment of staff from foreign contractors. Criminal proceedings With regard to illegal work, ASN closely monitors the criminal proceedings instigated in previous years, more specifically through regular contacts with the Public Prosecutor’s offices. Concerning health and safety, the actions of the ASN labour inspectorate led in 2017 to the opening of eight criminal proceedings against EDF or its contractors in the following areas: asbestos risk, electrical risk, ventilation of premises, risk of falling from height, compliance of lifting gear, worker secondment, non-notification of occupational accidents. As for working hours (non-compliance with maximum daily and weekly working hours and non-compliance with minimum daily and weekly rest periods), the 11 criminal proceedings instigated in recent years by the labour inspectors have led to guilty pleas before the Public Prosecutor’s office of Paris. The proposed penalty was approved by the judge on 21st April 2017. EDF was sentenced to a fine of €1,500 per employee (or a total of €195,000 € for the 130 staff) and to €5,000 for the misdemeanour of obstructing the labour inspectors. This sentence is the result of considerable work done by the ASN labour inspectorate and illustrates the benefits of collective, coordinated monitoring. 2.8.2 Health and safety assessment, professional relations and quality of employment in the NPPs Certain occupational risk situations are still worrying and absolutely must be improved: the risks linked to work equipment, lifting gear in particular, the explosion risk and electrical risks. The labour inspectorate still observes situations in which the risk linked to the presence of asbestos is not systematically considered prior to the work, in order to avoid accidental exposure. Progress is still required in the management of multiple contractors working simultaneously (quality of prevention plans in particular) and the use of subcontracting and the secondment of foreign employees. With regard to working hours, the daily and weekly rest periods are on the whole better observed, but continued vigilance is required regarding the maximum daily and weekly working hours. 2.9 Lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, ASN issued a set of resolutions dated 5th May 2011 asking the licensees of major nuclear facilities to perform stress tests. ASN issued a position statement on the results of these stress tests on 3rd January 2012, which was itself reviewed under the European stress tests, in April 2012. On the basis of the opinions of the Advisory Committee and the conclusions of the European stress tests, ASN issued a series of resolutions dated 26th June 2012 requiring that EDF implement: ཛྷ ཛྷ a “hardened safety core” of material and organisational measures which, in the event of an extreme external hazard, are designed to: -- prevent an accident with fuel melt, or limit its progression, -- limit large-scale radioactive releases, -- enable the licensee to carry out its emergency management duties; ཛྷ ཛྷ a local emergency centre allowing emergency management of the nuclear site as a whole in the event of an extreme external hazard; ཛྷ ཛྷ a Nuclear Rapid Intervention Force (FARN) which, using mobile means external to the site, can intervene on a nuclear site in a pre-accident or accident situation; ཛྷ ཛྷ a range of corrective measures or improvements, notably the acquisition of additional communication and radiological protection means, the implementation of additional instrumentation, extensive consideration of internal and external hazard risks, improvement of the way in which emergency situations are taken into account. In addition to its requests, ASN issued a range of resolutions dated 21st January 2014 aiming to clarify certain design provisions for the “hardened safety core”, in particular the definition and justification of the extreme external natural hazard levels to be considered for the “hardened safety core”. Generally speaking, ASN’s requests are part of a continuing process to improve safety with regard to the targets set for the 3rd generation reactors and aim in addition to be able to cope with situations far beyond those normally considered for this type of installation. These requests are issued in application of the defence-in- depth approach and as such concern measures to prevent and mitigate the consequences of an accident, based on both additional fixed means and external mobile means planned for all the installations on a site beyond their initial design basis. Given the nature of the required work, the licensee must carry out studies for the design, construction and installation of new equipment, which first require lead times and then require a schedule to optimise their implementation on each NPP. Insofar as these major works are carried out on nuclear sites which are in service, it is also necessary to ensure that their