ASN Report 2017

452 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 16  - Radioactive waste and contaminated sites and soils The CEA informed ASN in 2015 of its project to extend the facility’s activities to the packaging of waste within a time frame of 7 to 10 years. ASN considers that the CEA must ensure that the facility is appropriately dimensioned to be able to operate with the envisaged extensions. As part of the facility’s research and development activities, the CEA in mid-2017 submitted a license application to ASN for the development of packages for disused ILW-LL sealed sources and to produce a limited number of them. This application is currently being examined. The CEA has undertaken to apply to ASN at the end of 2018 for the creation authorisation decree to be modified to take into account the improved performance of the measuring equipment quantifying the radioactivity in the gaseous effluents from the Cadarache centre. The periodic safety review report of the facility was submitted by the CEA in March 2017 and is currently being examined by ASN. The analysis of the consequences of an earthquake on the facility and the methods of reinforcing the resistance of the FA building represent major issues in this examination. Moreover, two inspections were carried out, one on waste management and one general inspection, and their overall conclusions were positive. ASN considers that the Chicade facility was operated satisfactorily in 2017. On the Saclay site ཛྷ ཛྷ Stella facility (BNI 35) BNI 35, declared by CEA by letter on 27th May 1964, is dedicated to the treatment of radioactive liquid effluents. By Decree 2004-25 of 8th January 2004, CEA was authorised to create an extension in the BNI, called Stella, for the purpose of treating and packaging low-level aqueous effluents from the Saclay centre. These effluents are concentrated by evaporation then immobilised in a cementitious matrix in order to produce packages acceptable by Andra’s surface waste disposal centres. The concentration process was put into service in 2010, but the appearance of cracks in the first packages produced led ASN to limit the packaging operations. CEA has thus only packaged certain effluents coming from one of the installation’s tanks that contains 40 m 3 of concentrates. The CEA has since progressed in defining its packaging solution for all the effluents of the installation (package 12H); Andra is now examining the validity of this solution. The CEA however had not obtained approval of the 12H package by the initial deadline of mid-2017. The CEA has asked for this deadline to be pushed back to 2018. ASN is currently examining the elements provided to justify this request. The complementary investigations concerning the stability of the walls of the LL liquid effluents storage room (room 97) structure, which have led the CEA to suspend the acceptance of effluents from other BNIs, have not yet been completed. ASN remains attentive to the development of this situation and more specifically to any impacts it might have on the safety of the facility, on the legacy effluent retrieval programmes and the on management of the Saclay centre’s liquid waste. Given this context, the CEA must monitor the safety of this facility with particular attention and take the necessary measures to resolve the operating difficulties encountered (see page 454) and to compensate for the unavailability of this room and ensure a regular management solution for the liquid waste from the Saclay centre. ASN moreover carried out two inspections of the facility in 2017, one on commitment monitoring, and the other on the periodic tests. ASN considers that significant progress has been made in the routine management of waste, but major issues subsist in the management of the legacy effluents stored in pit 99, which must be cleaned out. The licensee must also finalise the updating of the safety analysis report within the times to which it has committed itself. Renovation or shutdown of old facilities On the Cadarache site ཛྷ ཛྷ Solid Waste Treatment Station (STD) - BNI 37-A and Effluent Treatment Station (STE) - BNI 37-B BNI 37 of CEA Cadarache historically comprised the Effluent Treatment Station (STE) and the Waste Treatment Station (STD). The STE definitively stopped functioning on 1st January 2014 and must be decommissioned. Continued operation of the STD over the long term necessitates renovation work which was prescribed on completion of its second periodic safety review. The STD and the STE were registered respectively as BNI 37-A and 37-B on 5th July 2015, in order to distinguish the part of the facility to be sustained from the part to be decommissioned. The registrations were made after defining the perimeters of these two BNIs by Orders of 9th June 2015. The registration resolutions for these two BNIs act as a Creation Authorisation Decree. ཛྷ ཛྷ Solid Waste Treatment Station (STD) - BNI 37-A At present, the STD is CEA’s only civil BNI licensed to package ILW-LL radioactive waste before it is stored in the Cedra facility (BNI 164) pending transfer to a deep geological repository ( Cigéo project). The last safety review of the STD showed that for its activity to continue over the long term, substantial renovation work was necessary and that pending performance of this work, whose completion is planned for 2021, protective measures would have to be implemented in the short term. To govern operation of the facility until the renovation work is completed, ASN instructed the licensee – through its resolution of 18th April 2016 – to update the baseline requirements of the facility before the end of 2016 and to put in place protective measures covering the period from April 2016 until the end of 2017, concerning in particular the restriction of the quantities of radioactive substances in the facility and fire protection. The ASN instructions also govern the renovation work, particularly increasing the earthquake resistance of the waste treatment zones and the protective measures against fire and flooding and their completion deadline in 2021.