A REVIEW OF UK LEGISLATION AND POLICY RELATING TO NORM ... · 3.4 Main requirements of the Revised...
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A REVIEW OF UK LEGISLATION AND POLICY RELATING TO NORM WASTE MANAGEMENT In support of the development of a UK Strategy for NORM Waste Management. December 2013 George Hunter Independent Environmental Consultant
Transcript of A REVIEW OF UK LEGISLATION AND POLICY RELATING TO NORM ... · 3.4 Main requirements of the Revised...
A REVIEW OF UK LEGISLATION AND POLICY RELATING TO NORM WASTE MANAGEMENT
In support of the development of a UK Strategy for NORM Waste Management. December 2013 George Hunter Independent Environmental Consultant
1
A REVIEW OF UK LEGISLATION AND POLICY RELATING TO NORM
WASTE MANAGEMENT
CONTENTS PAGE
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................... 5
2 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Scope and Aims of Report ................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Recommendations for Further Work ................................................................................ 9
2.3 Overview of NORM Regulation ......................................................................................... 9
3 INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND ................................................................................................... 11
3.1 Recommendations of the ICRP........................................................................................ 12
3.1.1 ICRP Publication 103 -The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission
on Radiological Protection. ....................................................................................................... 13
3.1.2 ICRP Publication 104 – Scope of Radiological Protection Control measures ............. 13
3.1.3 ICRP Publication 108 – Environmental Protection: the Concept and Use of Reference
Animals and Plants .................................................................................................................... 15
3.2 The Euratom Treaty and Associated Documentation. .................................................... 15
3.3 EURATOM and International BSS .................................................................................... 16
3.3.1 Euratom BSS ................................................................................................................ 17
3.3.1.1 Current BSS......................................................................................................... 17
3.3.1.2 Exemption from Reporting ................................................................................. 18
3.3.1.3 Revision of BSS and Requirements Regarding NORM ........................................ 19
3.3.1.4 Revised BSS - Brussels 29.9.2011 COM(2011) 593 final 2011/0254 (NLE
Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE laying down basic safety standards for protection
against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation. ........................................ 22
3.4 Main requirements of the Revised BSS ........................................................................... 22
3.4.1 In scope : “Exclusion from scope". .............................................................................. 23
3.4.1.1 Draft Article 24 on Identification of practices involving naturally occurring
radioactive material .............................................................................................................. 23
2
3.4.1.2 Draft Article 25 on Notification. ......................................................................... 24
3.4.1.Draft Article 27 on Authorisation ................................................................................. 24
3.4.1.4 Draft Article 29 on Release from Regulatory Control ........................................ 25
3.4.1.5 Draft Article 33 on Arrangements in workplaces ................................................ 25
3.4.1.6 Draft Article 75 deals with Building materials .................................................... 25
3.4.1.7 Draft Article 100 on Programmes on existing exposure situations ................... 25
3.4.1.8 Draft ANNEX VI on Exemption and clearance criteria ........................................ 25
3.4.1.9 TABLE A: .............................................................................................................. 26
3.5 Outlook for the Final Revised EURATOM BSS - Expected 2013. ..................................... 26
3.6 Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources: International Basic Safety
Standards INTERIM EDITION GSR Part 3 (Interim) INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY
VIENNA, 2011 ................................................................................................................................ 27
3.7 Other EURATOM Issues ................................................................................................... 28
3.7.1 Article 37 of the EURATOM Treaty ............................................................................. 28
3.7.2 Commission Opinion of 15 July 2011 in accordance with Art 37 Euratom (Stoneyhill) .
.................................................................................................................................... 30
3.8 Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive waste ................................................................ 30
3.9 ....... COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2006/117/EURATOM of 20 November 2006 on the supervision and
control of shipments of radioactive waste and spent fuel ........................................................... 31
3.10 IAEA, 2004, RS – G – 1.7, SAFETY GUIDE, Application of the Concepts of Exclusion,
Exemption and Clearance ............................................................................................................. 31
3.11 The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of
Radioactive Waste Management (the Joint Convention). ............................................................ 32
3.12 Other IAEA Publications of relevance. ............................................................................ 33
3.12.1 IAEA, 2003, Safety Reports Series No.34, Radiation Protection and the
Management of Radioactive Waste in the Oil and Gas Industry .............................................. 33
3.12.2 IAEA, 2006, Safety Reports Series No. 49 Assessing the Need for Radiation
Protection Measures in Work Involving Minerals and Raw Materials ..................................... 33
3.12.3 IAEA, 2008, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM V), Proceedings of
an international symposium, Seville, Spain, 19–22 March 2007 .............................................. 34
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3.12.4 IAEA, 2013, Safety Reports Series No. 78, Radiation Protection and Management
of NORM Residues in the Phosphate Industry .......................................................................... 34
3.12.5 Some further IAEA Publications related to NORM. 34
3.13 COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 establishing a Community
framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. ..... 35
3.14 OSPAR ............................................................................................................................. 36
3.14 UK Discharge Strategy - July 2009. ................................................................................. 38
3.15 MARINA II STUDY & UPDATES ........................................................................................ 39
3.16 THE PARIS & BRUSSELS CONVENTION ........................................................................... 41
3.17 Radioactivity in Drinking Water 42
4 UK POLICY...................................................................................................................................... 44
4.1 OVERVIEW OF RW POLICY AND STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT IN THE UK LEADING TO THE
NORM STRATEGY. ......................................................................................................................... 44
4.1.1 Review of Radioactive waste Management Policy - Final conclusions – Cm2919 July
1995. .................................................................................................................................... 44
4.1.2 Policy for the Long Term Management of Solid Low Level radioactive Waste in the
United Kingdom – 26 March 2007. ........................................................................................... 45
4.1.3 UK Strategy for the Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste from the
Nuclear Industry – NDA - August 2010. .................................................................................... 47
4.1.4 Strategy for the Management of solid low level radioactive waste from the non-
nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. Part 1 – anthropogenic radionuclides. March 2012. ...
.................................................................................................................................... 48
4.1.5 NORM Waste Strategy ................................................................................................ 51
4.2 Higher Activity Waste Policy. .......................................................................................... 51
4.3 UK Policy on Dilution of Radioactive Waste. ................................................................... 52
5 REGULATORS’ GUIDANCE. ................................................................................................................. 54
5.1 Near-surface Disposal Facilities on Land for Solid Radioactive Wastes Guidance on
Requirements for Authorisation - February 2009 EA, SEPA, NIEA ................................................ 54
5.2 Exemption Guidance – Guidance for NORM industrial activities on how to comply with
the radioactive substances exemption regime, February 2013, Version 1 .................................. 55
5.3 Regulatory Guidance:Coal Bed Methane and Shale Gas ................................................ 55
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6 RADIOACTIVE WASTE LEGISLATION IN THE UK .................................................................................. 56
6.1 Radioactive Substances Act 1993 .................................................................................... 56
6.1.1 General ........................................................................................................................ 56
6.1.2 The Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards)(Scotland) Direction 2000. ...... 56
6.2 The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. ........................ 56
6.2.1 General ........................................................................................................................ 56
6.2.2 The Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards) (England and Wales) Direction
2000 .................................................................................................................................... 57
6.3 Guidance on the scope of and exemptions from the radioactive substances legislation
in the UK produced by the UK Government and devolved Administrations ............................... 57
6.4 UK Justification Regulations ............................................................................................ 59
6.5 Scotoil Appeal under The Radioactive Substances Act 1993, Aberdeen, 2007. ............. 60
7 DOCUMENTS IN WHICH ‘OUT OF SCOPE VALUES’ WERE DERIVED. ............................................. 61
8. OTHER UK REGULATIONS RELATING TO RADIATION AND RADIOACTIVITY. ............................. 62
8.1 Regulations Related to radioactive contaminated land .................................................. 62
8.2 The Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 ...................................................................... 62
8.3 Transport Regulations ............................................................................................................ 64
9 ISSUES RELATING TO CHEMOTOXIC PROPERTIES OF NORM. ....................................................... 65
10 NON-RS FOCUSED ISSUES WITH IMPACT ON RWM - “SOME INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER
REGIMES” ..................................................................................................................................................
.................................................................................................................................................. 66
10.1 ‘Conventional’ Waste Regulations ........................................................................................ 66
10.2 Habitats Assessment for Radioactive Substances ........................................................... 66
10.3 Water Framework Directive and Groundwater Directive 67
11 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 68
12 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................... 71
13 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................................. 74
14 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 76
5
While the report makes commentary on many documents, some of which are legal in
nature, it does not represent legal advice and, though attention is drawn to some
areas where it is recommended legal advice should be sought, this is not intended to
indicate that these are the only matters on which legal opinion may be needed. While
input has been taken from government departments and environment agencies in
producing the report the opinions expressed and responsibility for accuracy rests
with the author.
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A review of the UK and international policies, strategies and legislation that govern NORM
waste management was carried out to the terms of reference indicated in Section 2 of this
report. The review was carried out in a structured fashion taking account of the terms of
reference and of the manner in which radiological protection principles and radioactive
substances legislation and policy are formulated as described in section 3 of this report.
The review led to the following conclusions.
The regulatory framework for NORM waste in the UK is robust, is based on radiation
protection principles (where there is a now high level of international consensus) and
provides a high level of protection to people and the environment. Notwithstanding this
overall conclusion, there are a number of legislative and policy areas that are confusing or
unclear, as listed below:
1. NORM Policy
In general, published UK radioactive waste policy does not specifically address NORM
wastes. Therefore, it is unclear whether policy requirements were intended to apply to
NORM waste or if they apply because NORM has not been explicitly considered. The recent
changes to the radioactive waste exclusions and exemptions regime [1], where NORM was
explicitly considered, highlight this gap in policy. Specifically,
(a) current Government policy requires that radioactive waste disposals should not give
rise to public exposures to ionising radiation exceeding a dose constraint of 300
µSv/y and be optimised in accordance with the “as low as reasonably achievable”
ALARA, principle. However, this dose constraint (implying a maximum) would
appear to be inconsistent with the criteria used in Government policy to exclude
NORM wastes from regulatory consideration (300 µSv/y) i.e. this is a radiation dose
where regulation of NORM waste disposals is not deemed necessary.
(b) the term “threshold for optimisation” (10 or 20 µSv/y) is referred to in Government
policy as a dose threshold to control practices involving radioactive waste
management. However, this dose threshold is less than the criteria used to exclude
NORM wastes from regulatory consideration (300 µSv/y).
(c) it is unclear whether the 1 mSv/y dose limit to the public in the new Euratom Basic
Safety Standards Directive (BSS) is appropriate for NORM wastes
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(d) the criteria proposed for exclusion of NORM wastes from regulation for worker and
public doses in the new BSS is 1 mSv/y; there is confusion whether the UK should
adopt this or a different criteria
(e) import and export policies for NORM waste may not be appropriate - see point 2
below
(f) it is unclear whether the Euratom and International BSS are consistent in terms of
NORM exclusion criteria.
(g) consideration needs to be given to whether the Scottish Government higher activity
waste policy/strategy needs to address NORM wastes.
2. Import/Export of NORM Waste
The policy on import and export of radioactive waste is clear and it is based on the principle
of self-sufficiency. However, due to the ubiquitous nature of NORM and the fact that other
States may not consider some wastes to be radioactive waste, it may be appropriate to
review the import export policy to ensure it is appropriate and to provide clarity with respect
to NORM wastes.
3. Transfrontier Shipments (Import/Export) of NORM Waste
NORM wastes, other than those from ’practices, fall outside the scope of the Transfrontier
Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations 2008. However, it is not clear
whether they then fall within the scope of the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations
2007 (the conventional TFS Regulations). It is likely that the intention of international
treaties is that some TFS provisions should apply to all wastes and therefore if the
radioactive TFS regime does not apply, then the conventional ones should. The issue may
be further complicated by the proposed changes to the Euratom BSS which, due to changes
in terminology, may bring NORM wastes back into the radioactive TFS regime.
4. UK Justification Regulations
The new BSS makes NORM a practice rather than a work activity and this change may
mean that NORM practices may need to be specifically considered and taken account of
under the UK Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004
5. Spent Fuel & Radioactive Waste Directive
The scope of Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 is unclear. It can be
interpreted that the only type of NORM waste it applies to is that from the offshore industry,
but, this is unclear and further clarification is needed. However, considering that the UK has
a robust regulatory framework for controlling all NORM wastes, this would not appear to be a
problem.
6. Euratom Article 37 Requirements
The dose criteria associated with the components of the Article 37 recommendations related
to management and disposal of NORM waste are inconsistent with international
recommendations and the UK and EC regulatory framework.
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7. Link between International Recommendations and Requirements and UK
Legislation
International recommendations and requirements state that Competent Authorities in
Member States should consider whether NORM activities are of concern from a radiation
protection point of view when determining whether or not such activities should be subject to
regulation. A clear statement of how this is applied in the UK radioactive waste legislation
would be helpful. As the UK legislation requires that specified NORM activities are subject to
regulation, the UK environment agencies would have to apply proportionate regulation
which, if no control is reasonable, may only be to issue a permit without conditions.
8. Clarity of Terms: Criteria, Constraint and Limit
These terms are not always used consistently and can lead to confusion when interpreting
guidance, policy and legislation.
9. Waste Dilution and Averaging
The permissibility of dilution, mixing and averaging of NORM wastes was an issue apparent
from the literature review and raised in other work on the NORM strategy by those NORM
industries who produce, treat and dispose NORM waste. This is because it is mentioned in
the draft BSS and also several industry sectors (particularly steel) have raised the issue of
when is mixing appropriate to facilitate re-use or residues produced during steel
manufacture. The UK LLW policy expresses a preference to concentrate and contain
radioactive wastes instead of dilute and disperse and doesn’t really address mixing and
dilution of NORM residues at all. There was a consensus that clear guidance on dilution,
mixing and averaging of NORM waste is needed from the environment agencies
10 Habitats Assessments.
As discussed in section 10.2, if carrying out assessments under the UK Habitats Regulations
1994, the contribution to biota dose from NORM should be estimated and the impact of
changes in NORM regulation on this should be considered.
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2 INTRODUCTION
2.1 Scope and Aims of Report.
This independent report has been compiled to inform work being undertaken by the UK
Government and Devolved Administrations to develop a Strategy for managing Naturally
Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) wastes.
This report reviews the UK and international policies, strategies and legislation that govern
NORM waste management. The report aims to:
a. Set out any applicable radiological protection frameworks and recommendations that
apply to NORM waste management
b. Identify how these recommendations have been incorporated into international
treaties, policies and legislation, highlighting any resulting obligation placed on the
UK
c. Detail how the UK has implemented its international obligations
d. Identify any inconsistencies between the UK legislation and policy framework and the
concomitant international framework and radiation protection recommendations
e. Identify any parts of the legislative and policy framework which are purely domestic
requirements
The current phase focuses on the radiological and radioactive aspects of the above.
In carrying out this review, note has been taken of the radiological criteria used in the various
approaches to risk assessment and radioactive waste management considered, but no
attempt has been made to scrutinise the rigour of modelling done using these criteria; this
was beyond the scope of the study.
The work involved the following three stages:
1 carrying out a detailed literature review, and drafting and refining a report
2 holding on-going discussions with representatives from the Scottish Environment
Protection Agency (SEPA), the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales,
Northern Ireland Environment Agency, the Department for Energy & Climate
Change (DECC) and Scottish Government (SG),
3 where practicable, holding discussions with other parties identified by SEPA or the
SG.
In practice much of stages 2 and 3 were delivered through SEPA acting as an intermediary.
In carrying out this work, reference has been made to ‘UK-wide’ documents when possible
and no comprehensive attempt has been made to examine the impact of detailed policy or
legislation that applies only to one area of the UK. Also, the issues, concern or matters for
further consideration examined in the review are relevant to all parts of the UK.
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2.2 Recommendations for Further Work
This work does not review how other Governments have implemented NORM radiation
protection framework, nor does it compare or contrast these other national frameworks with
the UK framework. It is recommended that this work be extended to -
a. identify how other NORM-producing countries have implemented or are
implementing NORM waste management strategies noting any common areas, such
as shared practices or regulatory frameworks, or any differences in approach
expressed by these countries. or
b. provide a commentary and analysis on or requirements, recommendations and
opportunities to rationalise and harmonise UK approach with best practice overseas.
It is recommended also that this report is updated to take full account of the final text in the
Euratom Basic Safety Standards Directive (the BSS).
NORM waste management has to take due account of other legislation and policies relevant
to the non-radioactive properties of the NORM waste. This includes, but is not limited to, the
controlled and hazardous properties of NORM waste. On completion of this further work, it
is recommended that the aspects relating to the non-radioactive properties of NORM waste
are incorporated within this report.
2.3 Overview of NORM Regulation
The consideration of regulation of NORM has, historically, developed patchily and the need
for this issue to be addressed in the radiological protection framework has often been
disputed. Section 2.6 of paragraph 39 of ICRP 104 [2] (reproduced in section 3.1.2 of this
report) provides further commentary on this issue. Metevier (2007) [3] has also noted that in
the radiological protection community the CRPPH committee of OECD NEA showed interest
in NORM (in general) in 1977 but that it was some years later before ICRP published an
opinion on this subject. Despite its sporadic consideration, NORM regulation has been
incorporated into radiological protection documentation as time has progressed. For
example, the Euratom 1996 BSS Directive [4] included NORM but only as an additional
separate section to the main radiation protection framework for new and existing practices
and interventions. With the review of the BSS undertaken over the last few years by the
European Commission, protection against natural radiation sources, rather than being
addressed separately in a specific title, has been fully integrated within the overall
requirements of the current draft BSS. Indeed, the preamble to the revised draft BSS [5]
indicates that “in particular, industries processing materials containing naturally occurring
radionuclides should be managed within the same regulatory framework as other practices”.
That NORM will only now be fully integrated into the radiological protetction system may
provide explanation of why many documents reviewed in this report address NORM to
differing extents and sometimes ambiguously depending on their date of production.
Notwithstanding that there are a number of legislative and policy areas that are confusing or
unclear, the regulatory framework for NORM waste in the UK is robust, based on radiation
protection principles and provides a high level of protection to the public and environment
and has progressively improved over time. Indeed, it should be noted that NORM has been
subject to regulation under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 and its predecessor Act,
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the Radioactive Substances Act 1960, provided that its concentrations exceeded certain
values in schedules to those Acts.
A literature survey of documents relevant to NORM waste management policies and
regulations was carried out. In this report, commentary has been made on each document
using italics for clarity. These comments were then collated in the Discussion section of this
report and led to the conclusions set out in the Conclusions section and summarised in the
Executive Summary of this report. This approach should help readers of the report
understand how the main conclusions were derived and be able to scrutinise the evidence
base for these conclusions easily.
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3 INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND
Almost all UK Policy documents reviewed in this report set out a description of how
international organisations such as ICRP and IAEA interact with the European Community
and with UK Policy. Before considering any international advice or requirements specifically
in respect of NORM wastes, this section quotes a short summary of how the organisations
producing this advice or those requirements relate to UK Policy in general terms. This
section draws heavily on these other UK Policy Documents to ensure consistency.
In the UK, radiation exposure that is imposed upon the public over and above natural
background is subject to regulation, based upon European standards and international
recommendations on radiological protection. The systems of radiation protection used in
many countries of the world, including the UK, are based on the recommendations of the
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). ICRP is a non-governmental
scientific organisation which publishes recommendations for protection against ionising
radiation. ICRP’s recommendations are not legally binding on the UK, but have been
incorporated into European Law through Council Directive 96/29/Euratom[4], laying down
basic safety standards for the protection of the health of workers and the general public
against the dangers from ionising radiation. ICRP’s most recent recommendations [6] have
yet to be incorporated into EU law, but the three basic principles of radiological protection as
they relate to ‘practices’ remain unchanged, and are:
(i) Justification: in relation to a practice, any decision that alters the radiation
exposure situation should do more good than harm;
(ii) Optimisation of protection: the likelihood of incurring exposure, the number of
people exposed, and the magnitude of their individual doses should all be kept as
low as reasonably achievable, taking into account economic and societal factors;
(iii) Dose limitation: the total dose to any individual from regulated sources in planned
exposure situations other than medical exposure of patients should not exceed
the appropriate limits recommended by the Commission.
It should be noted that the justification principle relates to the practice giving rise to the
waste, and not to subsequent waste management. However, both of the other two principles,
optimisation of protection and dose limitation, do apply directly to waste management.
Further discussion on ICRP Recommendations and associated Guidance are in Sections 3.1
Further discussions on the Euratom and International BSS are covered in Sections 3.3
The International radiation protection framework may therefore be represented as in Figure 1
below and, while this gives some indication how ICRP recommendations influence BSS, it
also shows that there are many other regimes and organisations exerting influence on
radiological protection and radioactive waste management with ICRP having little if any
influence on some of these matters. In addition, some regimes may be additional to those in
mainstream radiological protection e.g. the OSPAR Convention. Examples where other
conventions are important in NORM and other radioactive waste management are those
relating to transfrontier shipment of waste and their import and export. Examples are the
12
Basel Convention and Code of Practice on the International Transboundary Movement of
Radioactive Waste), pollution control (London Convention and OSPAR), liability (OECD and
the P&B convention) etc. The review has attempted to analyse how these other regimes
address NORM and its impact on the management of NORM waste.
Other than ICRP, the influence of other organisations may be particularly important for the
management of NORM. As discussed in Section 11 of this report, the main regulatory
difference in relation to NORM wastes are the criteria for such material being out of scope
(i.e. are not radioactive waste) or cleared from regulatory control. While the principles for
managing NORM wastes (and other radioactive substances) have been influenced by ICRP,
the detailed regulations applied are outwith ICRP’s remit and stem solely from national
authorities and intergovernmental organisations such as EC and IAEA.
Figure 1: Depiction of the Radioactive Regulatory Regime (Source: SEPA)
3.1 Recommendations of the ICRP
The existing Euratom BSS and previous International BSS were based on the ICRP 60 [7]
recommendations. As noted below, the Revised International BSS [8] and draft (as at the
time this report was being compiled) Euratom BSS are now based on ICRP 103
recommendations.
In comparing existing provisions for regulation of NORM in the UK it is, therefore, sufficient
to compare them with the requirements of the existing Euratom BSS. However, there is also
a need to compare any proposals for future controls on NORM waste management with
ICRP 103 recommendations on the radiation protection framework as it applies to NORM
and any contemporaneous advice from ICRP related to this matter.
13
3.1.1 ICRP Publication 103 -The 2007 Recommendations of the International
Commission on Radiological Protection.
ICRP Publication 103 [6] has evolved from earlier ICRP recommendations. The publication
recommends a “modified” radiological protection system to that in ICRP 60, notably
categorising exposures into ‘planned’, ‘existing’ and ‘emergency’ situations instead of
‘practices’ and ‘interventions’.
In section 53b, ICRP notes that “the decision as to what exposures are not amenable to
control requires a judgement by the legislator, which may be influenced by cultural
perceptions. For instance, national attitudes to regulation of exposures to naturally occurring
materials are extremely variable”. The document notes that further guidance on exclusion
and exemption from regulatory control is provided in Publication 104 and indeed this
document has much more to say about the regulation of NORM than does ICRP 103 itself.
In section 180, the recommendation noted that for public exposure the component due to
natural sources is by far the largest.
In section 261, additional constraints were advocated to prevent the build-up of long-lived
radionuclides in the environment. It is noted in this section that in planned exposure
situations involving natural radioactive material this limitation is not feasible and not required.
ICRP 103 does discuss NORM in relation to existing exposure situations in section 6.3 and
table 8.
The system of radiation protection set out in ICRP 103 has been incorporated in the latest
version of the Euratom and International BSS. However, in relation to NORM waste and
regulation of NORM, ICRP 103 has little to say.
3.1.2 ICRP Publication 104 – Scope of Radiological Protection Control measures [2]
This document provides detailed consideration of the concepts of exclusion, exemption and
clearance from regulatory control in various circumstances. One major point made is that the
ICRP recognises it is not for it to define regulatory scope and it defers to national
administrations and intergovernmental organisations in this respect
Some examples of the strength with which it makes this point are reinforced from the
following text, extracted from ICRP 104 –
“the formal definition of regulatory scope is the sovereign task of national administrations …”
“Agreements on generically derived exemption and clearance levels are being reached
under the aegis of intergovernmental organisations. … The Commission [i.e. the ICRP]
neither specifically endorses nor disapproves the use of these levels, but considers that this
type of consensual intergovernmental generic guidance is very useful for the purposes of
international standardisation.”
Section 7.3 of the document entitled ‘Exposure to naturally occurring radioactive materials’ is
the most relevant part in the current context. The reasons for the inapplicability of a 10
µSv/y criterion for public dose in relation to NORM is described and in paragraphs 140 to
14
142, the basis for the criteria of 1 mSv/y worker dose criteria to be used in NORM industries
is set out.
The coherence in worker dose consequences of using the IAEA standards of 1,000 Bq/kg for
primordial decay chains and 10,000 Bq/kg for 40-K is discussed in paragraph 142 and
elsewhere.
There is also discussion in the document regarding commodities and the need to avoid
artificial barriers to trade. Section 7.5 discusses in detail exposure to commodities containing
radioactive substances. In paragraph 177, ICRP notes that “natural background exposure
causes annual doses of at least a few mSv/y and, taking account of possible annual doses
from authorised practices, this leaves an upper bound of the order of a few mSv/y for annual
doses from all commodities to be exempted from intervention. It is not likely that several
types of commodities would be simultaneous sources of high exposure to any given
individual.”
Section 2.6 deals with societal attitudes and notes the following in paragraph 39. “There is a
variable societal attitude to exposure situations involving dichotomous feelings, which have
naturally generated a non-uniform approach for controlling radiation exposure. This has
been a common feature of radiological protection regulations, notably when dealing with
artificial versus natural exposure situations. This is reflected in the way in which radiological
protection developed; in short; occupational exposure due to 226-Ra and x-rays; then the
advent of nuclear power and its by-product artificial radionuclides, particle accelerators etc.;
and finally an ‘awakening’ regarding the significance and controllability of natural radiation
exposures. The approach was non-uniform, although it may not have appeared to be so at
the time. It is plausible that the advent of the nuclear age led automatically to a focus on
artificial radionuclides, with less attention paid to a few situations involving natural
radionuclides that were sometimes controlled previously, such as the extraction and use of
some primordial radio-elements, e.g. radium, uranium and thorium. Furthermore, societal
views seem to have developed to be much more risk averse to readily controllable artificial
sources than to other circumstances of exposure from less controllable natural sources. This
is partly because of public perceptions about radiation risks, and also because it has been
found feasible to control trivial doses from artificial practise, whereas it is usually prohibitively
costly to exercise control in existing situations of natural exposure.”
Additionally, in paragraph 136, it is noted that “The Commission’s guidance on protection
against exposure to NORMs has not been developed thoroughly and, not surprisingly, the
current national and international standards on the topic are ambiguous. ….”
In paragraph 137 it is indicated that “There is a practical need for an international consensus
on whether exposure to NORMs should be included or excluded from the scope of
regulations …”
This seems to suggest that, for many years, ICRP and other International Bodies involved in
Radiological Protection have focused their attention on the radiation protection frameworks
as they apply to control radiation exposures to artificial radionuclides. However, these
bodies are now giving their attention to exposures to natural sources. This is reinforced in
the current draft Euratom BSS where the regulatory framework for controlling exposures of
15
NORM used or processed in specific industries should be the same as for other practices
dealing with artificial radionuclides.
3.1.3 ICRP Publication 108 – Environmental Protection: the Concept and Use of
Reference Animals and Plants [9]
This document explicitly does not set regulatory standards, essentially giving scientific
consideration to development of a radiological protection framework for protection of biota. It
does not differentiate between natural and man-made radioactivity and e.g. includes the
naturally occurring radionuclides along with man-made radionuclides in tables of dose
conversion factors along. In paragraph 161, it is noted that many animals and plants have
very high levels of naturally occurring alpha-emitting nuclides in their tissues. In paragraph
191 it is noted that natural background radiation dose rate may be a comparator in
considering the significance of exposures.
There would appear to be no direct requirements on the management of NORM waste in the
UK resulting from the ICRP considerations in ICRP 108. However, the assessments
methodologies that have developed are used in Habitats Assessments to comply with other
requirements and these may have implications for NORM waste management (see section
10.2 below).
3.2 The Euratom Treaty and Associated Documentation.
The key document relating to setting radiation protection principles in the European
community is the Euratom Basic Safety Standards Directive. These standards have evolved
over time and were first published in 1959 then revised in 1962, 1966, 1976 and 1980. They
are currently under revision and further details of the proposed and existing BSS are given
below in section 3.3.1. The European Union produces a number of different types of
document and instrument related to radioactivity which may be categorised as in Figure 1. It
should be noted that the majority of ‘EC Radiation Protection (RP) Publications’ are not
published in the Official Journal of the EC and most contain ‘disclaimers’ of some sort
indicating that they are not binding or cannot be taken to represent the views of the EC. This
has significance in respect of this report as a number of the documents that have been
reviewed to compile this report are ‘RP Publications’.
16
Figure 2 Types of European Union Publications and Documents (Source: SEPA)
3.3 EURATOM and International BSS
The high-level fundamental principles of radiological protection to be applied within the
European Union and advocated by the International Atomic Energy Agency are set out in
Basic Safety Standards produced by those bodies. To distinguish between the IAEA and
Euratom BSS, the terms International BSS and Euratom BSS are used hereinafter As the
UK is both a member state of the European Union and a contracting party to certain UN
Treaties both BSS are relevant to the UK.
Evidence that ICRP recommendations influence international standards to which the UK
adheres is given from the following two extracts -
In ICRP103, (section 18) [6] the ICRP note that “there is a close connection between the
Commission’s Recommendations and the International Basic Safety Standards for
Protection against Ionizing Radiation and the Safety of Sources … which are co-sponsored
by the relevant international organisations within the UN family and issued by the IAEA. The
governing body of the IAEA has decided that the BSS have to take the Commission’s
Recommendations into account. The BSS have always followed the establishment of new
Recommendations from the Commission …”
The European Commission in a communication on the implementation of the current
Euratom Basic Safety Standards [4B] indicates that “those Directives have always made use
of the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP)
and the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU). Those
organisations are internationally recognised for their assessments of the state of the art in
their respective fields.”
Given that the ICRP recommendations influence both Euratom and International BSS, a
great degree of coherence in terms of substance if not detailed terminology or procedure
would be expected. The UK is a signatory to the Euratom Treaty, therefore, the Euratom
17
Treaty requirements of the Euratom BSS are legally binding on the UK as a Member State
with transposition into UK law as necessary. In contrast, the International BSS requirements
do not have to be transposed into UK legislation as such. Also, reporting requirements to
IAEA in respect of NORM waste are not at present significant. There are, however, some
documents produced by IAEA which are fundamental to the approach taken internationally
to NORM waste management and these are highlighted in this report.
3.3.1 Euratom BSS
Articles 30 – 33 of the Euratom Treaty concern the laying down of Basic Safety Standards.
The following sections describe the current Euratom BSS (of 1996) and proposals for a
revised BSS (as consulted on in 2009, then as set out in a publicly-available draft of 2011
and as currently under final negotiations in 2013).
3.3.1.1 Current BSS
The current Euratom Basic Safety Standards (96/29/Euratom) [4] make provision in respect
of “practices which involve ionising radiation emanating from an artificial source or from a
natural source in cases where natural radionuclides are or have been processed to take due
account of their radioactive, fissile or fertile properties”. (Art 2, 1). European Commission
Communication of 1998 [4B] makes clear that the current BSS is based on ICRP publication
No 60 while the previous version was based on ICRP Publication No 26. Article 2.2 provides
for application of the Directive in respect of work activities in accordance with title VII while
Art 2.4 indicates the Directive shall not apply to radon in dwellings or to the natural level of
radiation, i.e. to radionuclides contained in the human body, to cosmic radiation prevailing at
ground level or to aboveground exposure to radionuclides present in the undisturbed earth’s
crust.
In Title VII of the current BSS “Significant Increase in Exposure Due to Natural Radiation
Sources” further provision is made inter alia for Member States to identify “work activities”
which may be of concern (i.e. with natural radiation sources leading to a significant increase
in the exposure of workers or of members of the public which cannot be disregarded from
the radiation protection point of view and which are not ‘practices’) including (Art 40, 2, b and
c)
work activities involving operations with, and storage of, materials, not usually
regarded as radioactive but which contain naturally occurring radionuclides, causing
a significant increase in exposure of workers and, where appropriate, members of the
public;
work activities which lead to the production of residues not usually regarded as
radioactive but which contain naturally occurring radionuclides, causing a significant
increase in the exposure of members of the public and, where appropriate workers.
Art 41 provides, in respect of terrestrial natural radiation sources declared, for radiation
protection measures to be implemented by the Member State as necessary in a similar way
to if they were practices or in cases of intervention under Title IX.
Essentially, the current Euratom BSS provides for Member States to identify NORM work
activities of concern and apply radiation protection measures to them. Work activities of this
18
sort had not been included in the previous Euratom BSS and considerable discretion was
given to Member States in respect of implementation of this section of the Directive.
Shortly after the BSS were issued, guidance (RP88) was issued by the European
Commission [4A]. This gave the following guidance regarding public and worker exposures,
relevant extractions from RP 88 are given below; paragraph referencing numbers are also
included–
“53 The important routes of radiation exposure from these processes for workers are
normally external gammas and inhalation of dust. The appropriate control measures may
include limitation of exposure time, attention to the arrangements for storage of bulk material
and dust control. In some cases radon or thoron may present a problem and surface
contamination may also need to be considered. It is not necessarily the case that the highest
doses arise when the plant is operating normally. In some circumstances, the maximum
doses will be incurred during maintenance.
54 Normal common sense precautions should be taken to avoid all unnecessary exposures
to radiation. Beyond this, assessments should be made to estimate the doses to workers
from such natural radionuclides. If the doses are less than 1 mSv per year then no special
precautions are required. If annual doses exceed 1 mSv then the normal scheme for
controlling exposures can usually be applied. The Directive requires that, as necessary,
Titles III, IV, V, and VI would apply in whole or in part. If doses exceed 6 mSv then it may, in
rare cases, be appropriate to define a controlled area.
55 If doses exceed 1 mSv but are less than 6 mSv it would be appropriate to consider, for
example, whether doses could effectively be reduced and whether there is a possibility that
doses increase either over time or as the result of an accident. If doses are low and cannot
effectively be reduced and if there is no realistic potential for accidents then few radiation
protection measures are likely to be required beyond whatever is necessary to ensure that
doses do not increase.
56 Exposures of the public may arise from the product of a process (e.g., building materials)
or from atmospheric or liquid discharges, from re-use of by-product material or from disposal
of solid waste. The important routes of radiation exposure of the public are external gamma
radiation, inhalation and ingestion.
57 The practical protection of members of the public is dealt with in Title VIII. Article 43 lays
down a general duty on Member States to create the conditions for the best possible
protection of the public. Article 47 stipulates that the undertaking responsible for a practice
shall be responsible for achieving and maintaining an optimal level of protection for the
environment and the population. The same general principles should apply to work involving
natural radiation even if it falls outside the definition of a practice.”
EC RP88 guidance also provided a table with examples of industries where enhanced
exposure to natural sources or radiation might occur.
The UK has identified 12 categories of work activity involving NORM where radiation
protection measures may be required [1]
3.3.1.2 Exemption from Reporting
19
The current Basic Safety Standards provide, in Annex 1, criteria under which a practice may
be exempted from the requirement ‘to report’ set out primarily in terms of tables of quantities
and concentrations of radionuclides and which are based on work reported in the publication
RP65 [11]
RP 65 notes “In view of the earlier considerations, Annex 1 refers to practices involving small
scale usage of radioactivity where the radiological risks incurred from the use, misuse and
subsequent disposal are too small to warrant regulatory concern.”
This work used a value of 10 µSv/y public exposure for normal situations but additionally RP
65 notes that “Moreover, the accompanying exempt levels are set such that even in
pessimistic situations the dose limit for members of the public, 1 mSv/y, would not be
exceeded.” (in addition to effective dose RP65 considered skin dose).
The exemption criteria set out in RP65 related to practices and not NORM work activities.
3.3.1.3 Revision of BSS and Requirements Regarding NORM
In 2009 the European Commission was in the process of recasting several related Directives
including the Euratom BSS and took the opportunity to reconsider how NORM was handled
under these in the consultation document entitled “BSS European Commission Services
considerations with regard to natural radiation sources in BSS Directive - 16 January
2009”[12]
The Commission recorded the following reasons for revision of Title VII.
“When adopting the present EU BSS the European Community opted for a flexible
approach to natural radiation sources, thus leaving considerable room for interpretation. This
has led to different approaches by the Member States, occasionally resulting in different
conclusions on which materials should be subject to regulatory control. Some of the products
including NORM or residues from NORM industries intended for recycling are subject to
trade between Member States. Therefore, harmonisation is also needed from the point of
view of trade.
Since 1996 the Member States have gained considerable knowledge in the field of natural
radiation sources by national studies, inventories and assessments. Knowledge has
improved through a number of conferences on this topic and case studies. Guidance
material has been published by international organisations and bodies, such as the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). An international safety standard on the
concepts of exclusion, exemption and clearance has also been published, see IAEA Safety
Guide RS-G-1.7. The knowledge gained provides, along with the new Recommendations
from the ICRP (ICRP Publication 103), a firm basis for introducing more binding
requirements on natural radiation sources.”
The Commission proposed that “the natural radiation sources that will explicitly be
incorporated in the new BSS are:–
- naturally occurring radioactive materials used or processed in specific industries
(NORM-industries) or used as building materials
– indoor exposure to radon in dwellings and workplaces
20
– exposure of aircrew and space crew to cosmic radiation.”
Also that “The regulatory framework for NORM industries should essentially be the same as
for other practices dealing with "artificial" radionuclides. In the new BSS NORM industries
are considered planned exposure situations and have therefore been integrated in the
regulatory system as practices. However …specific requirements will still be made for
NORM based on the fact that natural radiation sources are ubiquitous in the environment. In
the case of NORM it is also most unlikely that severe radiological accidents would occur and
the existence of other industrial hygiene controls should be taken into account.
Nevertheless, the system of protection can be made the same. A graded approach was
considered a suitable way to proceed with notification as a first step, then registering or
licensing depending on expected doses to workers or the public and the effectiveness of
control measures. This approach is intended for all practices not only NORM industries.”
The Commission proposed harmonising as follows – “As was previously mentioned, the present Title VII requires Member States to ensure the identification of work activities which may be of concern, leaving the Member State to decide what is considered of concern. For clarification, but also as a step towards harmonisation of the regulatory framework for NORM, a specific list of industrial activities of concern is introduced in the new EU BSS. The list covers industrial activities known to require regulatory consideration and is to a large extent similar to the NORM work activities listed by IAEA:
- Extraction of rare earths from monazite
- Production of thorium compounds and manufacture of thorium containing products
- Processing of niobium/tantalum ore
- Oil and gas production
- TiO2 pigment production
- Thermal phosphorus production
- Zircon and zirconia industry
- Production of phosphate fertilisers
- Cement production, maintenance of clinker ovens
- Coal-fire power plants, maintenance of boilers
- Phosphoric acid production,
- Primary iron production,
- Tin/lead/copper smelting
- Ground water treatment
The proposed list of industrial activities is a so-called positive list specifying what activities may be subject to notification. If a NORM industry is not on the list, the idea is that it is exempted from notification. Member States may however add industrial activities to the list if the national authorities identify other activities requiring regulatory attention.”
21
In section 3.2 of this EC consultation document ‘Materials of concern’ the following is noted
“As a starting point, the following dose criteria for the exemption of NORM industries from regulatory control: 1 mSv/y for workers or 0.3 mSv/y for members of the public, are proposed. Above these values protective actions should be considered to reduce the doses, bearing in mind that as for all other practices the principle of optimisation should always be applied.
Assessing doses from NORM activities can be complicated, in particular doses to members of the public. Exemption levels based on activity concentrations are therefore proposed, see table 1. According to UNSCEAR 2000 and ICRP Publication 75 workers or members of the public will generally not receive doses higher than 1 or 0.3 mSv/y respectively if the activity concentrations are lower than the values in Table 1, except for particular situations such as exposure due to building materials containing natural radionuclides. If a NORM industry on the positive list produces residues used in building materials there is always a requirement on notification, irrespective of the levels of concentration of the radionuclides.”
Table 1: Values for natural radionuclides in secular equilibrium in solid materials (3)
Natural radionuclides from the U-238 series 1 Bq/g
Natural radionuclides from the Th-232 series 1 Bq/g
K-40 10 Bq/g
Table 1 includes the following two footnotes:
1. Uranium mining and uranium milling are part of the nuclear fuel cycle and require licensing
2. Values in Table 1 have been proposed in IAEA Safety Guide RS-G-1.7 on the concept of exclusion, exemption and clearance, and are based essentially on the distribution of concentrations in the earth's crust)
Some individual elements in the decay chain, e.g. Po-210 or Pb-210, may warrant the use of values significantly higher than those in Table 1, by up to two orders of magnitude. Numerical values for segments of the decay chain can be found in EC guidance Radiation Protection 122, Part II; Part II applies to NORM radionuclides, Part I applies to artificial radionuclides. “
Section 3.3 says that: “A graded approach to occupational exposure if, at any point in the industrial process, the activity concentration in any materials exceeds the values indicated Table 1, the regulatory authorities should be notified by the undertaking. The notification should include information on the materials processed, radionuclide concentrations, products, by-products and residues. Based on this information the authorities will decide on the level of regulatory control and can impose requirements for the initial assessment of the exposure of workers. When the assessed exposure of workers is expected to be less than 1 mSv/y, the practice may be exempted from further regulatory control. If the assessed exposure of workers in a group of identical industrial processes is consistently less than 1 mSv/y, these processes could be exempted on a generic basis. If the exposure of workers can exceed 1 mSv/y but is less than 6 mSv/y, Member States shall consider authorisation, i.e. either registration or licensing, or consider if circumstances indicate that the practice shall be exempted from further regulation”
22
Thus, at the time of the BSS consultation (2011), the Commission were proposing exemption values for NORM activities based on criteria of 1 mSv/y for workers or 0.3 mSv/y for members of the public with some further details.
The 2009 consultation document contains the following Annex – International framework. The Annex presents the main documents forming the international framework for natural radiation sources. The content does not claim to be comprehensive, for instance UNSCEAR reports are not described. This shows that ICRP publications 103 and 104 were considered.
Both ICRP 103 and 104 refer to regulating NORM practices and indicate that the feasibility of controlling the situation and the past experience are the main factors to be considered for setting reference dose levels for existing exposure situations. It noted that the IAEA Safety Series No. 115 International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources (1996) was in the process of being revised, and that IAEA had published a safety guide (RS-G-1.7) on the application of the concepts of exclusion, exemption and clearance
3.3.1.4 Revised BSS - Brussels 29.9.2011 COM(2011) 593 final 2011/0254 (NLE
Proposal for a COUNCIL DIRECTIVE laying down basic safety standards for
protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation
)[5]
Following this consultation, the European Commission has subsequently issued a draft version of a revised BSS under Article 31 Euratom Treaty for the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee {SEC(2011) 1098 final} {SEC(2011) 1099 final}
In relation to NORM, the 2011 document indicates that “A large proportion of workers in
industries processing naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) receive doses above
the dose limit for members of the public, but still do not benefit from protection as
occupationally exposed workers. This anomaly is not sustainable, so the ICRP’s new
Recommendations aim to integrate natural radiation sources within the overall system.
Already in 1996, the current Euratom legislation had introduced requirements for work
activities involving natural radiation sources. These were put together in a separate Title
rather than being integrated within the overall radiation protection framework. In addition,
maximum flexibility was offered to Member States to decide for instance which NORM
industries were of concern. This has led to wide differences in controlling NORM industries
and in protecting workers in these industries. This situation is not compatible with Euratom’s
role in setting uniform standards.”
It also notes that “Radioactivity in building materials has been included in the Construction
Products Directive, but this has still not led to any corresponding standards being adopted by
the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). The revision of the Basic Safety
Standards (BSS) Directive will not only address the recycling of residues from NORM
industries into building materials, but also ensure coherent and harmonised protection
against other building materials with enhanced levels of radioactivity.”
3.4 Main requirements of the Revised BSS
The main requirement of the draft BSS as it relates to NORM is summarised below
23
3.4.1 In scope: “Exclusion from scope”.
This Directive shall not apply to radionuclides naturally contained in the human body, to
cosmic radiation prevailing at ground level, and to above ground exposure to radionuclides
present in the undisturbed earth’s crust.”
Draft Article 13 retains the following -
“Dose limits for public exposure: The limit on the effective dose for public exposure shall be
1 mSv in a year. In addition to the dose limit referred to in the first subparagraph, the
following limits on the equivalent dose shall apply:
(a) the limit on the equivalent dose for the lens of the eye shall be 15 mSv in a year;
(b) the limit on the equivalent dose for the skin shall be 50 mSv in a year, averaged over
any 1 cm² area of skin, regardless of the area exposed.”
3.4.1.1 Draft Article 24 Identification of practices involving naturally occurring
radioactive material
Member States shall ensure the identification of practices involving naturally occurring
radioactive material and leading to exposure of workers or members of the public which
cannot be disregarded from a radiation protection point of view. Such identification shall be
carried out by means of surveys or by any other appropriate means taking into account
industrial sectors listed in Annex V.
ANNEX V lists those NORM Industrial practices where radiation protection controls are
required to protect workers or members of the public.
For the purposes of Article 24, the following list of industrial practices involving naturally
occurring radioactive material, including relevant secondary processes, shall be taken into
account:
(1) extraction of rare earths from monazite;
(2) production of thorium compounds and manufacture of thorium-containing products;
(3) processing of niobium/tantalum ore;
(4) oil and gas production;
(5) geothermal energy production;
(6) TiO2 pigment production;
(7) thermal phosphorus production;
(8) zircon and zirconium industry;
(9) production of phosphate fertilisers;
(10) cement production, maintenance of clinker ovens;
24
(11) coal-fired power plants, maintenance of boilers;
(12) phosphoric acid production;
(13) primary iron production;
(14) tin/lead/copper smelting;
(15) ground water filtration facilities;
(16) mining of ores other than uranium ore.
Like the International BSS, the draft Euratom BSS adopts a graded approach to regulation
that includes for notification, authorisation and an appropriate frequency of inspections.
Collectively, authorisation refers to either registration or licensing and is the highest “grade”
of regulatory control.
3.4.1.2 Draft Article 25 on Notification.
Member States require those NORM industrial activities listed in Annex V of the Euratom
BSS to be notified. Also, those practices that produce or process residues which are known
to be recycled into identified building materials are subject to notification if the activity
concentration index, as defined in Annex VII, in the resulting building materials is liable to
exceed 1.
Where there is concern that a NORM practice identified in accordance with Article 24 may
lead to NORM radionuclides entering water in concentrations liable to affect the quality of
drinking water supplies or affect any other exposure pathways, so as to be of concern from a
radiation protection point of view, the competent authority may require that the practice be
subject to notification
3.4.1.3 Draft Article 27 on Authorisation
In cases where a limited risk of exposure does not necessitate the examination of individual
cases and the NORM practice is undertaken in accordance with conditions laid down in
national legislation, Competent Authorities may limit regulatory control to registration of the
practice and an appropriate frequency of inspections.
Member States shall require licensing for the following practices:
(e) practices in which workers are liable to receive an annual effective dose of more than
6 mSv in normal operation and under normal working conditions;
(f) practices discharging significant amounts of airborne or liquid effluent into the
environment.
Member States shall require either registration or licensing of the following practices:
(e) practices in which workers are liable to receive an annual effective dose of more than 1
mSv in normal operation and under normal working conditions;
25
(f) industries involving naturally occurring radioactive material identified by Member States
as required in Article 24, and liable to lead to an annual effective dose to a member of the
public equal to or exceeding 0.3 mSv.
3.4.1.4 Draft Article 29 on Release from Regulatory Control
For the clearance of materials containing naturally occurring radionuclides, the values for the
concentrations of activity per unit mass shall be those laid down in Annex VI, part 2 of Table
A. Nevertheless, the following requirements shall apply:
(a) for practices subject to licensing as specified in Article 27(3)(f), the dose criteria for
clearance of naturally occurring radionuclides shall be complied with;
3.4.1.5 Draft Article 33 on Arrangements in workplaces
Where there is a possibility of exposure to ionising radiation that exceeds the dose limits in
Article 13, Article 33 requires that radiation arrangements are put in place appropriate to the
nature of the installations and sources and to the magnitude and nature of the risks.
For practices where the effective dose to workers from NORM practices is liable to exceed 6
mSv per year, radiation protection requirements are required to minimise exposures. Where
the effective dose to workers is less than or equal to 6 mSv per year, the Competent
Authorities shall at least require undertakings to keep exposures under review over time and
as a result of changes in the process or the work arrangements.
3.4.1.6 Draft Article 75 deals with Building materials
Among other things this text notes that “for identified types of building materials which are
liable to give doses exceeding the reference level of 1 mSv per year for indoor external
exposure from building materials, in excess of the prevailing outdoor external exposure, the
competent authority shall decide on appropriate measures, ranging from registration and
general application of relevant building codes to specific restrictions on the envisaged use of
such materials.”
3.4.1.7 Draft Article 100 on Programmes on existing exposure situations
Member States shall ensure that programmes are established to identify and evaluate
existing exposure situations and to determine which occupational and public exposures are
of concern from a radiation protection point of view.
Specific reference is made to a programme to establish and identify existing exposures to
natural radiation sources.
3.4.1.8 Draft ANNEX VI on Exemption and clearance criteria
Exemption
Practices may be exempted from requirements of this Directive either directly, on the basis
of compliance with numerical exemption criteria (activity values (Bq) or concentration values
(Bq/g)) laid down in Annex VI (section 2), or through a regulatory decision, on the basis of
26
the information provided in conjunction with the notification of the practice and in line with
general exemption criteria (section 3), to exempt the practice from further requirements.
Exemption and clearance values
The total activity values (Bq) for exemption apply to the total activity involved in a practice
and are laid down in column 3 of Table B for artificial radionuclides and for some naturally
occurring radionuclides used in consumer products. For other practices involving naturally
occurring radionuclides, such values are in general not applicable. …
General exemption and clearance criteria …
For notified practices not complying with these values, an assessment shall be made of the
resulting exposure of individuals. For compliance with the general criterion (a), it shall be
demonstrated that the following dose criteria are met in all feasible circumstances:
- For artificial radionuclides: The effective dose expected to be incurred by an
individual due to the exempted practice is of the order of 10 μSv or less in a year.
- For naturally occurring radionuclides: The dose increment, allowing for the prevailing
background radiation from natural radiation sources, liable to be incurred by an
individual due to the exempted practice is of the order of 300 μSv or less in a year for
members of the public and less than 1 mSv for workers.
The assessment of doses to members of the public shall take into account not only
pathways of exposure through airborne or liquid effluent, but also pathways resulting from
the disposal or recycling of solid residues.
3.4.1.9 TABLE A:
Activity concentration values for exemption or clearance of materials which can be applied
by default to any amount and to any type of solid material are included in TABLE A Part 1:
for artificial radionuclides …
TABLE A Part 2 contains values for exemption or clearance for naturally occurring
radionuclides in solid materials
In many ways this revised version of the BSS was as had been consulted on in 2009.
3.5 Outlook for the Final Revised EURATOM BSS - Expected 2013.
The draft BSS text [13] is under negotiation.
It is understood that the current draft BSS sets, for naturally-occurring radionuclides, a
criterion for out of scope as a dose increment, allowing for the prevailing background
radiation from natural radiation sources, liable to be incurred by an individual due to the
exempted practice of the order of 1 mSv or less in a year.
It is believed that as in the draft described in section 3.2.1.3 the 1mSv/a public dose limit will
be retained.
27
There will be a need to clarify how a 1mSv/y criterion for NORM that falls out of scope of
radioactive regulation can be reconciled with a 1mSv/y public dose limit.
It is believed that the UK position on this point is as follows - The purpose of the BSS is to
establish minimum standards to which MS must adhere; the text is clear that more stringent
levels can be applied in national regulation. Therefore, the new text does not inhibit the UK
from doing anything, or require the UK to move away from 0.3mSv/y public dose criterion.
[14].
It is believed that there will be a requirement on regulators to provide information on
controlling NORM that is not managed as a planned exposure situation. Clearly this aspect
will need to be addressed in any NORM Waste Strategy.
3.6 Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources: International
Basic Safety Standards INTERIM EDITION GSR Part 3 (Interim)
INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY VIENNA, 2011 [8]
These international BSS were produced in response to ICRP Publication 103. The
Secretariat notes that “The IAEA safety standards reflect an international consensus on what
constitutes a high level of safety for protecting people and the environment from harmful
effects of ionizing radiation. The process of developing, reviewing and establishing the IAEA
standards involves the IAEA Secretariat and all Member States, many of which are
represented on the four IAEA safety standards committees and the IAEA Commission on
Safety Standards”.
Section 3.4. indicates that exposure due to natural sources is in general considered an
existing exposure situation and is subject to the requirements stated in Section 5. However,
the relevant requirements in Section 3 for planned exposure situations apply to:
(a) Exposures due to material (footnote 16) in any practice specified in para. 3.1 where the
activity concentration in the material of any radionuclide in the uranium or thorium decay
chains is greater than 1 Bq/g or the activity concentration of 40-K is greater than 10 Bq/g;
Where para 3.1 includes the following categories –
(f) The mining and processing of raw materials that involve exposure due to radioactive
material;
(g) Any other practice as specified by the regulatory body.
And footnote 16 refers to a situation of exposure due to radionuclides of natural origin in
food, feed, drinking water, agricultural fertilizer and soil amendments, construction material
and existing residues in the environment is treated as an existing exposure situation
regardless of the activity concentrations of the radionuclides concerned.
(b) Public exposure delivered by discharges or in the management of radioactive waste
arising from a practice involving material as specified in para. 3.4(a);
In considering how NORM is handled it is relevant to note that in relation to ‘commodities’
Requirement 51: Exposure due to radionuclides in commodities
28
The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish reference levels for
radionuclides in commodities.
5.22. The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish specific reference levels
for exposure due to radionuclides in commodities such as construction material, food, feed
and drinking water, each of which shall typically be expressed as, or based on, an annual
effective dose to the representative person generally that does not exceed a value of about
1 mSv.
5.23. The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall consider the guideline levels for
radionuclides contained in food traded internationally that could contain radioactive
substances as a result of a nuclear or radiation emergency, as published by the Joint
FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission. The regulatory body or other relevant authority
shall consider the guideline levels for radionuclides contained in drinking water that have
been published by the WHO.
Further, in relation to clearance for natural radionuclides –
TABLE I-3: LEVELS FOR CLEARANCE OF MATERIAL: ACTIVITY CONCENTRATIONS
OF RADIONUCLIDES OF NATURAL ORIGIN
Radionuclide Activity concentration (Bq/g)
K-40 10
Each radionuclide in the uranium and
thorium decay chains
1
The information in Table I-3 above would suggest a certain coherences with respect to
setting a level of activity for natural radionuclides before their use might trigger the
requirements for a practice which is consistent with the levels applicable for clearance and
the underlying relationship to 1mSv/y exposures.
The new International and Euratom BSS set out similar arrangements and have similar
requirements incumbent on regulatory bodies to ensure NORM exposures from industrial
practices and commodities do not exceed prescribed dose or activity concentrations.
3.7 Other EURATOM Issues
3.7.1 Article 37 of the EURATOM Treaty
Article 37 requires that each Member State is to provide the Commission with such general
data relating to any plan for the disposal of radioactive waste in whatever form as will make it
possible to determine whether the implementation of such plan is liable to result in the
radioactive contamination of the water, soil or airspace of another Member State. The
Commission is to deliver its opinion within six months, after consulting the group of experts
referred to in Article 31.
29
To appraise disposal plans in a consistent manner, it is necessary to specify which types of
operation may result in the disposal of radioactive waste within the meaning of Article 37 of
the Treaty, and to specify for the different types of operation which information is to be
supplied as the general data. The European Commission therefore issues
Recommendations periodically on what should be supplied to the Commission to meet the
requirements of Article 37. The present Recommendation is dated 11 October 2010 [15] and
that previous was dated 6 December 1999 [16].
The Recommendation lists certain categories for which it defines the nature of an Art 37
Submission to be made.
Of these categories one makes specific reference to NORM as follows –
(11) the industrial processing of naturally occurring radioactive materials subject to a
discharge authorisation;
One category has also been amended to exclude NORM by adding the word “artificial” into
the previous text as follows –
(7) the handling and processing of artificial radioactive substances on an industrial scale;
Some categories could apply to NORM and are essentially unchanged from those before
e.g. –
(10) the emplacement of radioactive waste above or under the ground without the intention
of retrieval;
The Recommendation also makes clear that for category (11), reporting of information in
relation to certain unplanned releases would not normally be required. Thus, NORM would
seem to be treated as somewhat different from artificial radioactive substances for the
purposes of Article 37 .e.g. the data required for category (11) operations would appear to
be as in Annex 1 of the recommendations but do not requiring information as set out in
sections 6 and 7 Annex 1 of the recommendation.
It is also notable that the most recent recommendations attempt to set ‘’de minimus’’ [A term
explicitly not used by EC in the recommendations] levels for activities such that they are
presumed unlikely to affect other Member States by their releases in normal conditions. In
the cases where information is required in relation to release from the installation of airborne
radioactive effluents in normal conditions for ‘Evaluation of transfer to man’ it is noted that
Except for operations listed under (1) and (2), if the assessed maximum exposure levels
from releases in normal conditions to adults, children and infants in the vicinity of the plant
are below 10 μSv per annum and there are no exceptional pathways of exposure, e.g.
involving the export of foodstuffs, no data on effective doses in other affected ( 2 ) Member
States are required if doses to the reference groups in the vicinity of the plant are provided.
Form the above, the requirements of Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty explicitly apply to
NORM materials/waste in some categories of activities, whereas in other cases it is explicitly
excluded. There is a clear assumption that certain NORM activities are unlikely to result in
severe unplanned release situations. The criteria of 10 μSv/y in the vicinity of the plant
described in the above paragraph would not appear to be entirely coherent with proposals to
accept doses to members of the public of 300 μSv/y from NORM disposals.
30
3.7.2 Commission Opinion of 15 July 2011 in accordance with Art 37 Euratom
(Stoneyhill) [17]
The Article 37 Submission in respect of this facility included details of both the NORM
descaling activities and NORM waste disposal route (to an adjacent landfill) and included
potential accident scenarios for both facilities.
This opinion was given is response to General Data relating to the plan for the disposal of
radioactive waste arising from the Stoneyhill NORM Descaling and Disposal Facility
submitted by the British Government on 3 February 2011.
The Commission was of the opinion that the implementation of the plan for the disposal of
radioactive waste in whatever form from the Stoneyhill NORM Descaling and Disposal
Facility in the United Kingdom, during its normal operational life and after its final closure, as
well as in the event of an accident of the type and magnitude considered in the General
Data, is not liable to result in the radioactive contamination of the water, soil or airspace of
another Member State.
This submission was made under the terms of the current 2010 recommendations on Article
37 submissions from the Commission. It would appear to set precedent for similar
submissions to be made in relation to NORM descaling facilities though this may be a matter
that is given further consideration in the NORM Strategy.
3.8 Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive waste
Government Policy on the import and export of radioactive waste to and from the UK are set
out in paragraphs 142-147 of Cm 2919 [18] with paragraphs 145 and 146 having been
amended, for LLW, by paragraphs 28 – 30 of the 2007 Low Level Radioactive Waste
Policy[19]. It is clear from these documents that it is intended that the policy towards import
and export of radioactive waste be broadly similar to that for other wastes, though specific
provisions are made for radioactive waste.
Tromans and Fitzgerald [20] have provided an analysis of the relevance to radioactive waste
of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste.
Essentially, this indicates that ‘wastes, which as a result of being radioactive, are subject to
other international control systems, including international instruments applying specifically
to radioactive materials’ are excluded from the provisions of the Convention.
DEFRA, has recently consulted on the Waste Management Plan for England dated July
2013 [21] with consultation having closed on Friday 9th August 2013. This Plan does not
apply to wastes that are excluded from the scope of the revised Waste Framework Directive
(by Article 2 of the Directive), which includes radioactive wastes where already covered by
other legislation. The Plan describes similar plans for other parts of the UK and also the UK
Plan for Shipments of Waste of May 2012 [22]. The UK Plan implements obligations under
the Waste Framework Directive for Member States to move towards a position of self-
sufficiency in waste disposal and prohibits shipments of waste to and from the UK for
disposal, save for certain exceptions.
Recent or future changes to categories of NORM waste which are out of scope of regulation
as radioactive substances and considered as non-radioactive could result in requirements
31
applicable under the UK Plan for Shipments of Waste which would need further detailed
consideration.
3.9 COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2006/117/EURATOM of 20 November 2006 on the
supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste and spent
fuel. [23]
The Directive notes the following –
Article 1(5) This Directive shall not apply to transboundary shipments of waste that contains
only naturally occurring radioactive material which does not arise from practices.
And further defines radioactive waste as meaning “radioactive material in gaseous, liquid or
solid form for which no further use is foreseen by the countries of origin and destination, or
by a natural or legal person whose decision is accepted by these countries, and which is
controlled as radioactive waste by a regulatory body under the legislative and regulatory
framework of the countries of origin and destination”.
These provisions are transposed into UK legislation by the Transfrontier Shipment of
Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations 2008 [24]
The above would indicate that NORM which does not arise form ‘practices’ is not intended to
be regulated under these provisions and further that should certain NORM wastes not come
into the scope of national regulations of both countries involved that they should not be
regulated as radioactive waste. NORM is therefore treated as different from artificial
radioactive substances in this context. Given the proposed changes to criteria for NORM
being classified as radioactive waste under the BSS, further guidance and clarity on the
application of transfrontier shipment provisions is likely to be required in future.
3.10 IAEA, 2004, RS – G – 1.7, SAFETY GUIDE, Application of the Concepts of
Exclusion, Exemption and Clearance [25]
The preface to this document records that “in September 2000, the General Conference of
the IAEA requested the Secretariat to develop radiological criteria for long lived
radionuclides in commodities, particularly foodstuffs and wood.” That “the present Safety
Guide has been prepared in partial fulfilment of that request, and the guidance it provides
can be applied to all commodities other than foodstuffs and drinking water.” And further that
“the general request contained in the resolution has been addressed by reviewing and
expanding on the concepts of exclusion, exemption and clearance as discussed in the
International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the
Safety of Radiation Sources (BSS; IAEA Safety Series No. 115).” This document therefore
formed the basis for IAEA’s approach to exclusion, exemption and clearance and is quoted
in several other sections of this report.
It is of interest to note the close link here between exclusion, exemption and clearance and
radiological criteria for commodities.
32
3.11 The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on
the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (the Joint Convention).
[26]
Further international controls on radioactive wastes, including discharges, are provided by
the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of
Radioactive Waste Management, to which the UK is a Contracting Party. This Convention,
which entered into force in June 2001, provides for a system of regular peer reviews of the
policies and practices of radioactive waste management in each Contracting Party. The UK
must provide a national report under the convention every three years for peer review under
the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is an Agency of the
United Nations. In addition, the IAEA Radioactive Waste Safety Standards system provides
a hierarchy of documents, from broad principles to detailed guidance, on all aspects of
radioactive waste management.
In compliance with this Convention the UK makes periodic reports.
The fourth report was entitled: The United Kingdom’s Fourth National Report on
Compliance with the Obligations of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel
Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management – DECC -
September 2011 [27]
The report noted the Convention requirement that -
“This Convention shall also apply to the safety of radioactive waste management when the
radioactive waste results from civilian applications. However, this Convention shall not apply
to waste that contains only naturally occurring radioactive materials and that does not
originate from the nuclear fuel cycle, unless it constitutes a disused sealed source or it is
declared as radioactive waste for the purposes of this Convention by the Contracting Party.
And in its report, the UK stated that -
Taking into account that declaration, this report addresses the Government’s approach to:
a) the safety of spent fuel management when the spent fuel results from the operation
of civilian nuclear reactors, including spent fuel held at reprocessing facilities as part
of a reprocessing activity;
b) the safety of radioactive waste management when the radioactive waste results from
civilian applications, but not waste that contains only naturally-occurring radioactive
materials and that does not originate from the nuclear fuel cycle, unless it constitutes
a disused sealed source; and
The wording of point b above indicates that, for the UK, the Convention does not apply to
NORM Waste as considered in this review i.e. that from work activities.
33
3.12 Other IAEA Publications of relevance.
3.12.1 IAEA, 2003, Safety Reports Series No.34, Radiation Protection and the
Management of Radioactive Waste in the Oil and Gas Industry [28]
This document is largely descriptive in nature, with chapter 5 relating to NORM in the Oil and
Gas Industry describing its genesis and fate as understood at the time of the report.
3.12.2 IAEA, 2006, Safety Reports Series No. 49 Assessing the Need for Radiation
Protection Measures in Work Involving Minerals and Raw Materials [29]
In relation to exemption, this document notes –
(a) With regard to the activity concentration levels in materials below which it is usually
unnecessary to regulate (1 Bq/g for uranium and thorium series radionuclides and 10 Bq/g
for 40-K (see Section 2.2.2)) the Standards state that “Doses to individuals as a
consequence of these activity concentrations would be unlikely to exceed about 1 mSv in a
year, excluding the contribution from the emanation of radon, which is dealt with separately
in the BSS” (Ref. [2], para. 3.3). The corollary of this is that it would usually be unnecessary
to regulate any activity involving exposure to NORM if the effective dose received by a
worker or member of the public does not exceed about 1 mSv in a year.
(b) The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends, for
materials containing uranium and thorium series radionuclides, that “regulatory agencies
choose activity concentrations of parent nuclides within the range 1–10 Bq/g to determine
whether the exposures from these materials should be regarded as occupational”, noting
that such concentrations “will lead to an effective dose of about 1–2 mSv in a year” [16]. This
recommendation is reflected in the Safety Guide on Occupational Radiation Protection [3]
and implies that if the effective dose received by a worker from exposure to gamma radiation
and to dust does not exceed 1–2 mSv in a year it would be unnecessary to regulate that
exposure. Experience with industrial activities involving exposure to NORM indicates that the
dose received by a member of the public living near the industrial facility concerned is
generally no more than a few microsieverts per year (exceptionally of the order of 100 μSv/a
— see, for instance, Ref. [14], Annex B, para. 188) and is consequently only a small fraction
of the dose that could be received by a worker. Therefore, a decision not to impose
regulatory requirements (i.e. a decision to exempt the practice or source) can generally be
made on the basis of the worker dose not exceeding 1–2 mSv in a year, secure in the
knowledge that under such circumstances the dose received by a member of the public
living nearby is likely to be lower by at least an order of magnitude. This approach greatly
facilitates the decision making process because it avoids the practical problems involved in
making reliable assessments of doses to members of the public at small increments above
background levels.
It is of interest to note that in part (a) above a criterion of 1mSv/y to ‘individuals’ and to ‘a
worker or member of the public’ is quoted while in part (b) it is suggested that setting a
criterion of 1-2 mSv/y to workers would result in doses to members of the public of only a
few microsieverts or, exceptionally, around 100 μSv/y.
34
3.12.3 IAEA, 2008, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM V), Proceedings of
an international symposium, Seville, Spain, 19–22 March 2007 [30]
In relation to criteria for exemption, it was noted that that there now seemed to be
unanimous recognition that the so-called 10 μSv/y criterion for exemption for artificial
radionuclides (the criterion of ‘trivial dose’) was not appropriate for activities involving NORM
and that a value of the order of 1 mSv/y was more likely to be consistent with the optimum
use of regulatory resources. Many countries mentioned, either directly or by implication, that
the value of 1 mSv/y was indeed being used as an exemption level and in the final
rapporteur presentation it was concluded that this was now commonplace as a de facto
NORM standard. For example, it was reported that in Germany, “Control of residues [from
industrial processes with enhanced natural radioactivity] is required if the processing or
disposal of these residues could result in the reference effective dose of 1 mSv in a calendar
year being exceeded”. The European Commission reported that exemption criteria of 1 mSv
in a year for occupational exposure and 0.3 mSv in a year for public exposure were being
considered for adoption into the revised Euratom Directive.
This document records the widespread acceptance of 10 μSv/y for artificial radionuclides but
a strongly held view by many countries that a value of around 1 mSv/y is more appropriate
for NORM and indeed is already a ‘de facto standard’ applied of necessity. It does record the
EC consideration at the time of setting exemption criteria for NORM at 1mSv/y for workers
and 0.3 mSv/y for the public. This reinforces the reasons why different exemption numbers
for NORM and artificial radionuclides have developed
3.12.4 IAEA, 2013, Safety Reports Series No. 78, Radiation Protection and
Management of NORM Residues in the Phosphate Industry [31]
Although principally dealing with NORM in the phosphate industry, Chapter 3 deals with
Radiation Protection in general and Transport regulation. The document also provides
several examples of where the combination of concentration, worker and public dose is used
to determine the approach to regulation to be taken compliant with a graded approach. The
document is also up-to-date in using the latest IAEA BSS.
This document provides a very useful series of examples of application of the graded
approach to regulation advocated by IAEA (and Euratom in the revised BSS) and illustrates
the nature of judgements to be made.
3.12.5 Some further IAEA Publications related to NORM.
The following further publications are also of relevance to considerations of NORM and are
of particular relevance to the extractive industries described in each publication.
IAEA, 2012, Safety Reports Series No. 76, Radiation Protection and NORM Residue
Management in the Titanium Dioxide and Related Industries [32]
IAEA, 2011, Safety Reports Series No. 68 Radiation Protection and NORM Residue
Management in the Production of Rare Earths from Thorium Containing Minerals [33]
35
IAEA, 2007, Safety Reports Series No. 51, Radiation Protection and NORM Residue
Management in the Zircon and Zirconia Industries [34]
3.13 COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 establishing a
Community framework for the responsible and safe management of
spent fuel and radioactive waste. [35]
From its title and that it cites the Joint Convention in its preamble, it would appear that this
Directive at least in part sets out to put into Community legislation the requirements of the
Joint Convention. However, given that NORM waste from work activities is not covered by
the Joint Convention it might be expected that this Directive might also not apply to such
NORM waste for consistency.
Brief examination of the Directive reveals that the preamble states that - Directive
2006/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the
management of waste from extractive industries covers the management of waste from
extractive industries which may be radioactive, but excluding such aspects as are specific to
radioactivity, which are matters dealt with under the Euratom Treaty.
And in the body of the Directive at Article 2.2. This Directive shall not apply to:
(a) waste from extractive industries which may be radioactive and which falls within the
scope of Directive 2006/21/EC;
(b) authorised releases.
Examination of DIRECTIVE 2006/21/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE
COUNCIL of 15 March 2006 on the management of waste from extractive industries
and amending Directive 2004/35/EC [36]
Article 2.records that;
The following shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive:
(a) waste which is generated by the prospecting, extraction and treatment of mineral
resources and the working of quarries, but which does not directly result from those
operations;
(b) waste resulting from the offshore prospecting, extraction and treatment of mineral
resources;
Article 2b would suggest that there may be a difference in application of COUNCIL
DIRECTIVE 2011/70/EURATOM onshore and offshore and legal advice is required on this
point.
It would appear that only offshore wastes are excluded from the scope of Directive
2006/21/EC, whereas onshore waste could be included within the scope of the Directive,
hence Directive 2011/70/EURATOM could apply to offshore NORM wastes, though legal
examination of this point is, clearly, necessary.
36
3.14 OSPAR
The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (the
‘OSPAR Convention’) [37] imposes specific requirements to reduce discharges of
radioactive substances but sets subtly different aspirations for naturally occurring radioactive
substances and artificial radioactive substances. The Convention and its strategies set
requirements resulting in OSPAR effectively being a Convention regarding optimisation of
discharges.
Contained within the OSPAR Convention are a series of Annexes which deal with the
following specific areas:
Annex I: Prevention and elimination of pollution from land-based sources;
Annex II: Prevention and elimination of pollution by dumping or incineration;
Annex III: Prevention and elimination of pollution from offshore sources; and
Annex IV: Assessment of the quality of the marine environment.
Annex II prohibits the dumping of low and intermediate level radioactive substances,
including wastes, and this is now accepted by the UK. However Annexes I and III indicate
that discharges and emissions/releases are permitted but must be controlled using Best
Environmental Practice and for land-based point sources and offshore sources Best
Available Techniques.
Additionally, Annex I requires that when adopting programmes and measures in relation to
radioactive substances, including waste, the Contracting Parties shall also take account of:
(a) the recommendations of the other appropriate international organisations and agencies;
(b) the monitoring procedures recommended by these international organisations and
agencies.
These provisions are reiterated in section 2.1 (a) and (b) of the OSPAR radioactive
substances strategy. Additionally, it is noted that in section 3.2 that to this end, the OSPAR
Commission will focus on the following main strategic directions in the period up to 2020:
a. continue monitoring programmes, to improve the evidence base and further develop
assessment tools;
b. monitor the international development of environmental quality criteria (e.g. the
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), initiatives by the
European Commission implementing the Euratom Treaty, and the International
Atomic Energy Agency under its Plan of Activities on the Radiation Protection of the
Environment).to evaluate the impacts of discharges on the marine environment and
adopt such criteria as they become established;
The OSPAR Convention, therefore, gives some weight to recommendation of other
international bodies such as ICRP, IAEA and EC and the approaches of these bodies to
NORM might, consequently, be considered to be influential on OSPAR.
37
The UK Discharge Strategy notes the following; reference numbers have been included for
ease of reference:-
1.2 OSPAR
1.2.1 The OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East
Atlantic was agreed in 1992. Countries that have either a North East Atlantic coast or
discharge into the OSPAR maritime area via their rivers are Contracting Parties to the
Convention. Environment agencies in the UK have a duty to implement the general
requirements of the OSPAR Convention.
1.2.2 At the 1998 Ministerial meeting of the OSPAR Commission, the Contracting Parties
agreed a strategy with regard to radioactive substances (see Box 1).
Box 1: OSPAR Radioactive Substances Strategy (RSS)*
Overall objective:
To prevent pollution of the maritime area, as defined under the Convention, from ionising
radiation, through progressive and substantial reductions of discharges, emissions and
losses of radioactive substances. The ultimate aim is to achieve concentrations in the
environment near background values for naturally occurring radioactive substances and
close to zero for artificial radioactive substances. In achieving this objective, the following
issues should, inter alia, be taken into account:
• legitimate uses of the sea;
• technical feasibility;
• radiological impacts to man and biota.
Intermediate objective (2020):
By the year 2020, the OSPAR Commission will ensure that discharges, emissions and
losses of radioactive substances are reduced to levels where the additional concentrations in
the marine environment above historic levels, resulting from such discharges, emissions and
losses, are close to zero.
* Radioactive Substance Strategy of the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the
Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic, 1998
1.2.3 Each Contracting Party was required to produce a national plan to demonstrate how it
would achieve the strategy objectives. The OSPAR Commission monitors progress in
achieving the strategy through the assessment of national plans for meeting the 2020
objective and through evaluation of actual discharges, environmental concentrations and
doses.
1.2.4 The UK’s 2002 Strategy for Radioactive Discharges comprised a national plan to
implement (or accord with) for the purposes of OSPAR. In 2003, OSPAR concluded that,
provided the national plans of Contracting Parties were implemented as forecast,
discharges, emissions and losses would be reduced. However, at that stage it was not
possible to make a final assessment on whether or not the combined effects of the national
38
plans would be sufficient to achieve the objectives of the OSPAR Radioactive Substances
Strategy (RSS), to the extent required by 2020.
It is notable that the OSPAR Radioactive Substances Strategy explicitly refers to naturally
occurring radioactive substances and its requirements will therefore need to be considered
in any strategy for NORM wastes.
3.14 UK Discharge Strategy - July 2009. [38]
The UK reported that “this revised UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges updates
Government policy and describes how the UK will continue to implement the agreements
reached at the 1998 OSPAR Ministerial meeting, and subsequent OSPAR meetings on
radioactive substances, particularly the Radioactive Substances Strategy (RSS). This builds
on the initial UK Discharge Strategy, published in 2002 [39], and expands its scope to
include aerial, as well as liquid discharges, from decommissioning as well as operational
activities, and from the non-nuclear as well as the nuclear industry sectors. A draft version of
this document was the subject of a public consultation in 2008.
The scope of the Strategy encompasses radioactive discharges from nuclear licensed sites,
defence activities and other nuclear and non-nuclear sources of radioactive discharges.”
Chapter 13 described discharges from the non-nuclear sector relating to naturally occurring
radioactive materials (NORM) as follows; reference numbers in Chapter 13 are repeated
below.
13.1 NORM are radioactive materials which are naturally present in the earth’s crust and
have not resulted from any anthropogenic activity. Discharges of NORM may arise in the UK
through the following activities:
• Onshore and offshore oil and gas facilities: NORM are injected into oil/gas reservoirs
or discharged to the sea if not practicable, in the form of sludge and macerated scale
deposits and in produced water.
• Energy production from fossil fuels (i.e. coal fired power stations) where aerial
emissions of mostly radon and thorium are released to the environment.
13.2 There are a number of other industries which are known to discharge NORM into the
environment, including: steel manufacturing, titanium dioxide industry, phosphate industry
and rare-earth production.
13.3 There are three primary steel manufacturing plants in the UK. These plants operate a
dry gas cleaning process and any dust removed from the stack is either recycled or sent to
landfill. Therefore, there are no liquid discharges arising from this process.
13.4 There are three titanium dioxide plants in the UK, but there are no reported radioactive
discharges from these plants and they do not hold authorisations to discharge radioactivity.
There is no longer a phosphate industry in the UK and there is no rare-earth production.
In common with the 2002 Strategy, no targets have been set for the non-nuclear sector in
the 2009 revised Strategy. In addition it is notable that a 0.02 mSv/y critical group dose
target set in the 2002 strategy has been removed. This latter target would perhaps have
39
been somewhat incoherent particularly with the current UK approach to excluding certain
NORM from regulatory control described elsewhere in this paper.
The discharge strategy provides a reasonable amount of descriptive material in relation to
NORM industries. In relation to wastes from Oil and Gas industries it notes, inter alia, that
other abatement technologies have been considered by site operators such as re-injection of
produced water into oil fields, although this is not technically possible in all oil fields. It further
notes that in some cases, offshore equipment contaminated with NORM (LSA) scale can be
brought back to shore and descaled at designated onshore facilities with subsequent
disposal of material to authorised sites. In the majority of cases, this is not possible for
operational reasons as the equipment cannot be removed from the well, pipeline system or
processing system infrastructure; therefore decontamination has to take place in situ. In
such cases, the preferred option is disposal of the waste stream by reinjection beneath the
seabed, but this may be impractical in some areas for technical reasons and therefore,
overboard disposal to sea is used where reinjection is not feasible or practicable.
Government has issued Statutory Guidance to the Environment Agencies in relation to the
Discharge Strategy.
That issued to the Environment Agency in 2009 [40] required, in section 22, that where the
prospective dose to the most exposed group of members of the public from discharges from
a site at its current discharge limits is below 10 μSv/y the Environment Agency should not
seek to reduce further the discharge limits that are in place, provided that the holder of the
authorisation applies and continues to apply BAT. It also noted that -this supersedes the
“threshold for optimisation” of 20 μSv/y set out at paragraph 73 of Cm 2919, Review of
Radioactive Waste Management Policy – Final Conclusions, July 1995. It should be noted
that the 10μSv/yr figure is not a dose target, a dose limit, threshold or a radiation standard.
Instead, it represents an appropriate level of dose, below which discharge limits should not
be reduced further if the operator is continuing to apply BAT. Similar Guidance has been
issued to SEPA by the Scottish Government requiring it to take account of the Discharge
Strategy but without the reference to the 10μSv/y figure above.
It would appear that this figure of 10 μSv/y would be out of line with current expectations for
NORM waste regulation where 0.3mSv/y is used by the UK as criteria from exemption of
NORM industries from regulatory control.
3.15 MARINA II STUDY & UPDATES
An update of the MARINA project on the radiological exposure of the European Community
from radioactivity in North European marine waters was carried out by the European
Commission and published in final form in 2003 [41]
Among other conclusions the report made comment on discharges of NORM to the OSPAR
Area, commenting that –
The peak collective dose rate from NORM industries occurred in 1984 and was just over 600
man Sv/y. This collective dose was almost entirely due to discharges from the phosphate
industry with the important sources being discharges into Cumbrian waters from the UK and
into the North Sea from the Netherlands. Discharges from the phosphate industry,
40
particularly in the UK, were reduced in the 1990s but the phosphate industry is still a major
contributor to the collective dose rate.
It also noted that - Discharges from the oil and gas industry, which made a small
contribution over much of the period from 1981 to 1999, have become relatively more
important. In 2000, discharges from the oil and gas industry contributed about 39% to the
total collective dose rate from the NORM industries.
This study had the effect of bringing attention to radioactivity discharged in produced water
from the Oil and Gas industry. The study noted the following “The collective dose rates to
the population of the EU over the period 1981 to 2000 due to discharges from all sources are
shown in Figure 11. At its peak, collective dose rate of about 760 man Sv/y is around a
factor of 20 less than the annual collective dose from natural radioactivity in the marine
environment.” [In this case NORM and other natural radioactivity are being contrasted].
A reassessment of the collective and per caput doses arising from NORM discharges was
carried out in 2010 [42] concluding that –
“Collective doses and individual doses received per head of population (per caput doses)
due to discharges of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) from oil and gas
installations located in the North-East Atlantic Ocean have been calculated for a group of 12
countries in the European Union and Norway (EU12 plus Norway). These doses were
calculated for three different source terms for discharges occurring over the period 2005 to
2008. The first source term used the discharge data as provided by the Environment Agency
for England and Wales under the OSPAR initiative. The second also used these data but, in
addition, included progeny of radiological significance that would be expected to exist in
secular equilibrium in the source. The third was based on the discharges used in the
MARINA II study.
Collective doses integrated to 2500 to the population of EU12 plus Norway were estimated
to be 140, 160 and 1200 man Sv for source terms 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
The highest per caput annual doses to the population of EU12 plus Norway are expected to
occur in 2008 and are estimated to be 0.026 µSv, 0.041 µSv and 0.11 µSv for source terms
1, 2 and 3, respectively.
The MARINA II study estimated that the collective dose to the EU population, integrated to
2500, due to discharges occurring over the period 1970 to 2000 was 3700 man Sv.”
It was concluded that “This study estimated doses from discharges of NORMs from oil and
gas installations in the OSPAR region to a group of 12 EU countries (EU12) plus Norway
using three source terms based on discharges for 2005 to 2008. The first source term used
the discharge data as provided by the Environment Agency for England and Wales under
the OSPAR initiative. The second also used these data but, in addition, included progeny of
radiological significance that would be expected to exist in secular equilibrium in the source.
The third was based on the discharges used in the MARINA II study. The collective doses
integrated to 2500 were estimated to be 140 and 160 man Sv for source terms 1 and 2,
respectively, and 1200 man Sv for source term 3. Hence, the use of source terms 1 and 2
indicates that collective doses from discharges form the oil and gas industry based on recent
41
data from the OSPAR Commission are significantly lower than those based on discharge
estimates used in the MARINA II study (source term 3).”
Consequently, the significance of NORM discharges for the Oil and Gas sectors would now
be seen as somewhat less than suggested by the MARINA II study.
3.16 THE PARIS & BRUSSELS CONVENTION
The Revised text of the Exposé des Motifs of the Paris Convention [43], approved by the
OECD Council on 16th November 1982, make the purpose of this Convention clear. It
indicates that a special regime for nuclear third party liability is necessary with the prime
objective of this special regime is to ensure the adequate compensation of damage caused
to persons and to property by a nuclear incident.
The Scope of Application of the Convention in sections 9 and 10 of the Exposé des Motifs
(repeated below) makes it clear that the Convention applies as follows -
“9.Nuclear installations are defined as reactors (3) other than those comprised in any means
of transport (see paragraph 11), factories for the manufacture or processing of nuclear
substances, factories for the separation of isotopes of nuclear fuel, factories for the
reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel, and facilities for the storage of nuclear substances.
Where nuclear substances are stored only as an incidental part of their carriage -- for
example, on a railway station platform -- the facilities used for such storage will normally not
be deemed to come within the definition of nuclear installation because of the transitory and
fortuitous nature of the storage. Nuclear fuel is defined as fissionable material, i.e. uranium,
including natural uranium in all its forms, and plutonium in all its forms. Nuclear substances
are defined as nuclear fuel, other than natural uranium and depleted uranium, and
radioactive products or waste. Depleted uranium means uranium which contains a smaller
proportion of the isotope U-235 than is contained in natural uranium (4).
Some activities, as for example, mining, milling and the physical concentration of uranium
ores, do not involve high levels of radioactivity and such hazard as there is concerns
persons immediately involved in those activities rather than the public at large. Hence, these
activities do not fall within the scope of the exceptional regime of the Convention. Factories
for the manufacture or processing of natural or depleted uranium, facilities for the storage of
natural or depleted uranium, and the transport of natural or depleted uranium, since the level
of radioactivity is low and there are no criticality risks, are also excluded.
Installations where small amounts of fissionable materials are to be found, such as research
laboratories, are likewise outside the Convention. Particle accelerators, too, are excluded.
Finally, where materials, such as uranium salts, are used incidentally in various industrial
activities not related to the nuclear industry, such usage does not bring the plant concerned
within the scope of the Convention.
10. Similarly, risks which arise in respect of radioisotopes usable for any industrial,
commercial, agricultural, medical, scientific or educational purposes are excluded from the
scope of the Convention, provided the radioisotopes have completed their final stage of
manufacture and are outside a nuclear installation. Such risks are not of an exceptional
nature and, indeed, are covered by the insurance industry in the ordinary course of
business. Despite the rapidly increasing use of radioisotopes in many fields, which will
42
require continual and careful observance of health protection precautions, there is little
possibility of catastrophe. Hence no special third party liability problems are posed and the
matter is left to ordinary legal regimes.”
NORM is not specifically mentioned in either the Paris or Brussels Conventions. Therefore,
it would appear clear that the Paris and the Brussels Supplementary Conventions don’t
apply to NORM unless it is fissile and used as “nuclear fuel” or arises from the use or
production of nuclear fuel.
3.17 Radioactivity in Drinking Water
Both the WHO and the European Union have produced guidelines and direction on
radioactivity in drinking water, including natural radioactivity. WHO guidelines of 2011 [44]
note that
“In terms of health risk assessment, the Guidelines do not differentiate between
radionuclides that occur naturally and those that arise from human activities. However, in
terms of risk management, a differentiation is made because, in principle, human-made
radionuclides are often controllable at the point at which they enter the water supply.
Naturally occurring radionuclides, in contrast, can potentially enter the water supply at any
point, or at several points, prior to consumption. For this reason, naturally occurring
radionuclides in drinking-water are often less amenable to control.”
They indicate their Rationale for screening levels and guidance levels as -
“The current Guidelines are based on the approach proposed by the ICRP in situations of
prolonged radiation exposure of the public. According to the ICRP, in planned exposure
situations (see Box 9.2), it is prudent to restrict the prolonged component of the individual
dose to 0.1 mSv in any given year (ICRP, 2000). It is recognized that exposure to
radionuclides in drinking-water may be a consequence of a planned exposure situation, but
is more likely to be from an existing exposure situation. Rather than adopt a different
approach depending on whether or not the radionuclides are naturally occurring or human-
made, a pragmatic and conservative approach was adopted, with an Individual Dose
criterion (IDC) of 0.1 mSv from 1 year’s consumption of drinking-water, regardless of the
origin of the radionuclides.”
In the European Commission Proposal of 2012 for a Council Directive [45] laying down
requirements for the protection of the health of the general public with regard to radioactive
substances in water intended for human consumption the following was noted -
That “Monitoring of drinking water for Total Indicative Dose (TID) shall be carried out where
a source of artificial or enhanced natural radioactivity is present within the catchment and it
cannot be shown on basis of other surveillance programmes or investigations that the level
of TID is well below its parametric indicator value 0.1 mSv/year.”
Subsequently Council Directive 2013/51/EURATOM [46] has now been issued putting these
requirements into effect.
43
It can be seen that the European Union requirements apply standards similar to WHO
guidelines and both include natural and artificial radioactivity.
The Council Directive defines ‘radioactive substances’ as any substance that contains one or
more radionuclides the activity of which cannot be disregarded as far as radiation protection
is concerned and it is interesting note that the 0.1 mSv/y values for IDC and TID is lower
than dose criteria use to derive NORM levels which are out of scope of other requirements.
The TID and IDC are not ‘limits’.
From the above, it would appear that artificial radioactivity and NORM are being regarded as
requiring regulation to the same standards in respect radiological aspects of drinking water
quality.
44
4 UK POLICY
4.1 OVERVIEW OF RW POLICY AND STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT IN THE UK
LEADING TO THE NORM STRATEGY.
4.1.1 Review of Radioactive waste Management Policy - Final conclusions – Cm2919
July 1995. [18]
The last, fully comprehensive, review of radioactive waste management policy (Cm 2919) in
the UK was that completed in July 1995. Parts of this policy have subsequently been
replaced by other reviews of sections of that policy. Nevertheless, the policy has on-going
relevance.
Cm 2919 does not mention ‘NORM’ Wastes as such, but, in paragraph 2, it does make
mention of radioactivity also occurring naturally and that most of the radiation exposure of
the UK population is from natural sources (including cosmic rays, gamma rays from the
earth, radon, and thoron decay products in the air, and various radionuclides in foodstuffs).
This section also notes that the volume of solid radioactive waste is small in comparison with
other wastes, accounting for only 0.02% of the total annual waste production of the UK, and
that nearly four fifths of the radioactive waste contains only a relatively small amount of
radioactivity. Similarly, in paragraph 67, in the context that the proposed constraint on dose
to members of the public for a single new source should not exceed 0.3 mSv/y, that this
represented about 10% of the average exposure from all forms of radiation, principally
natural radiation which itself varied much more than 0.3 mSv/yr across the country even
when excluding radon exposure. In paragraph 68 it was advised that the Environment
Agencies should consider whether lower constraints should be defined for radioactive waste
disposals from different applications, both nuclear and non-nuclear, for the purpose of
authorisations under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993, (RSA93).
In discussing controlled burial1 of LLW in paragraphs 114- 119, it was noted that this
disposal was used by non-nuclear industries which process raw materials containing natural
radioactivity, and by major hospitals and universities for their relatively more active waste
streams. The policy concluded that controlled burial should continue to be available for
“small users” – such as hospitals, universities, research laboratories and non-nuclear
industries subject to conditions. However, the Government decided not to encourage
greater use of controlled burial by the nuclear industry at that time, recognising genuine
anxieties that this proposal had caused. [This latter decision was to be rescinded by the
outcome of the 2007 LLW Policy review discussed below].
The policy makes reference to radioactive wastes from Small Users of radioactive materials
(such as hospitals, universities, research laboratories and non-nuclear industries) specifically
in sections 148 – 154.
In considering contaminated land in paragraphs 132 – 133, reference was made to the
contaminated land regime of the, then, Environment Bill and that while the provisions were
1 A practice at UK landfills where radioactive wastes is co-disposed with other, substantial, quantities of non-
radioactive wastes
45
not developed specifically to deal with land contaminated by radioactivity, such as the sites
of old luminising works, that they provided a suitable framework for dealing with radioactive
contaminated land. However, it was noted that a number of issues needed to be addressed
including levels at which radioactivity - which is also a natural phenomenon - should be
regarded as a contaminant. Consequently, a power to make regulations applying to
radioactive contamination at a later date with a commitment to consult fully on draft
regulations was included.
From the above, it would appear that policy advice given on radioactive waste management,
radiological protection, and indeed categorisation of waste as HLW, ILW, LLW or VLLW in
Cm2919 relates to both nuclear and non-nuclear waste, including NORM waste, though
recognition is given to exposures to radiation from natural sources which are not considered
waste.
Cm 2919 makes no distinction between NORM and other radioactive waste, however, the
focus is on the management of radioactive wastes generated from artificial sources. This
supports the view expressed earlier (e.g. section 3.1.2) that international bodies such as
ICRP had a similar focus on the radiation protection framework as it applied to artificial
radionuclides
4.1.2 Policy for the Long Term Management of Solid Low Level radioactive Waste in
the United Kingdom – 26 March 2007. [19]
Following consultation in 2006, Government published a policy for the Long Term
Management of Solid Low Level radioactive Waste in the United Kingdom along with a
summary of comments on the proposed policy and Government response on 26 March
2007.
This policy amended and replaced relevant parts of Cm2919 .The policy did not change the
definition of LLW in terms of activity (not exceeding 4 GBq/te alpha or 12 GBq/te
beta/gamma) given in Cm 2919 though it did remove reference to a specific disposal site
and the sub-category of VLLW was redefined in terms of either low-volume VLLW or high
volume VLLW. The policy made clear that a relaxation in activity concentration was
applicable for 3H and 14C in relation to LVVLLW and for 3H in relation to HVVLLW. The policy
did not at that time define the boundary in terms of volume between HVLLW and LVLLW
which was later defined as 50m3 as noted in the subsequently produced Strategy for the
management of solid low level waste from the non-nuclear industry in the United Kingdom
Part 1, of March 2012. [This boundary set by ‘volume’ was later superseded by an ‘activity’
criterion enshrined in the UK radioactive substances Exemption Order regime].
The lower activity limit for LLW, below which waste was not required to be subject to specific
regulatory control remained unchanged, and was defined as–
“For certain natural radionuclides in the uranium and throrium decay series, the levels
specified in Schedule 1 of RSA93, below which the substances are outside the scope of the
Act, or
For other artificial or man-made radionuclides, the levels were as laid down in the current
suite of Exemption Orders issued under RSA93. These levels were those below which
controls additional to those specified in the Exemption Orders, were not required. The most
46
notable of these was the Substances of Low Activity Exemption Order. This specified a level
of exemption from regulatory control of 0.4 Bq/g for waste which are substantially insoluble
in water.(Different exemption thresholds may apply for the transport of radioactive waste.)”
From the above and examination of RSA93, it can be seen that there was exclusion of
certain natural radioelements in solid, liquids and gaseous from the provisions of the Act at
certain concentrations specified in Schedule 1 of RSA93. Although this section of the 2007
LLW Policy Statement refers also to the SoLA Exemption Order as being the most notable, it
is arguable that in the context of NORM waste management that exemptions orders such as
the Phosphatic Substances Exemption Order (even if applied more widely than perhaps
originally envisaged) were more important in the management of NORM wastes - the 2007
Policy did not amend these exemption orders at that time.
In their general thrust, the 2006 policy consultation and the 2007 Policy statement did not
propose any radical deviation from the radiological protection standards already cited in Cm
2919, notably dose constraints or dose limits to the public. Indeed, the 2007 document
continued to refer to Cm 2919 and also to the Environment Agencies’1997 Guidance on
Requirements for Authorisation of Disposal facilities on land for Low and Intermediate Level
radioactive Wastes [47]. This document also referred to radiological protection criteria
essentially as cited in Cm 2919 and made no special provisions for NORM waste, while
noting exclusion of natural background and medical exposures from consideration of limits
on effective dose to the public. [This document has been superseded by the more recent
GRA’s of February 2009 of which the near surface GRA is probably the most relevant to
NORM waste issues]
It was noted during consultation that the review of LLW policy paralleled and complemented
the CoRWM/MRWS review for the long term management of higher activity waste and also
that “Policy for the disposal, or discharge of liquid and gaseous LLW” was set out in the UK
Strategy for Radioactive Discharges (at that time dated July 2002, but subsequently updated
in July 2009). Thus, these additional reviews and policies may be of relevance to NORM
wastes which are either not solid or are solid waste of such activity or type that they are
covered by the MRWS process.
The 2007 LLW Policy aimed, inter alia, to –
- Allow flexibility in managing waste.
- Minimise the amount of LLW created before looking at disposal options, through
avoiding generation, minimising the amount of radioactive substances used,
recycling and reuse
- Require the creation a UK-wide strategy for managing waste from the nuclear
industry which would address certain specific issues; NDA supported Government in
compiling the nuclear LLW strategy which was published in 2010 .
- Initiate the development of a UK-wide strategy for the management of non-nuclear
LLW with the first step being to gain a clear picture of current and future solid,
anthropogenic LLW arisings from the non-nuclear sector which was published in
2012 and is referred to as the Part I Non-nuclear LLW Strategy.
47
In responding to comments, Government made it clear that the risk based approach of the
strategy led to the conclusion that there should be no distinction in principle between nuclear
and non-nuclear radioactive wastes. It was indicated that wastes were hazardous on the
basis of their radio-toxicity, half-lives etc. and not on the basis of their provenance. However,
in Supplementary notes to the policy on the application of the waste management hierarchy,
Government cited guidance from both the European Community and the IAEA including
publications RP122 Part I and Part II. [RP122 Part I and Part II distinguish between NORM
work activities and from ‘practices’ based on provenance and reinforce the radiation
protection framework that different dose criteria for exemption etc. should apply to protecting
workers and the public from artificial sources (based on 10μSv/y) and natural sources
(based on 300μSv/y)]
As a result of the requirement to develop strategies relating to Solid LLW, Government
published a Strategy for solid LLW from the nuclear industry in 2010 [48]. A similar strategy
relating only to solid LLW of anthropogenic origin from the non-nuclear industry (i.e. ‘Part I’,
excluding NORM wastes) was produced by DECC and the Devolved Administrations in 2012
[49]. This latter Strategy committed Government to producing a ‘Part II’ Strategy for NORM
Wastes but with a remit wider than that covering just solid radioactive LLW as described
below in section 4.1.4.
The 2007 LLW Policy introduced the requirement for LLW Management Plans to be
developed by waste managers to a level of detail suitable for consideration by the relevant
regulatory bodies. In respect of the non-nuclear industry, the policy indicated that these LLW
Management Plans should be proportionate to the scale of their waste production and
holdings, as agreed with the regulator.
It would be useful if further policy guidance could be provided on the nature of LLW
Management Plans for NORM waste.
4.1.3 UK Strategy for the Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste from
the Nuclear Industry – NDA - August 2010. [48]
Government’s 2007 LLW Policy required a strategy for the management of solid LLW from
the nuclear industry. For the purposes of this strategy the nuclear industry is defined as sites
that hold a nuclear site licence. This includes NDA Site Licence Companies (SLCs), existing
commercial nuclear power stations, and certain Ministry of Defence and other defence
related sites.
This strategy was prepared by NDA for Government and addressed such issues as optimum
utilisation of the LLWR etc. It emphasises the use of the waste hierarchy. The strategy
indicates that in order to support the development of a risk-informed approach to the
disposal of LLW it was expected that, inter alia, consignors would make appropriate use of
alternative waste management and disposal options for High Volume VLLW and controlled
burial.
It was noted that where appropriate and practicable, NDA will make waste management
facilities on NDA sites available for non- NDA producers of LLW on suitable commercial
terms. Likewise, availability of non-NDA facilities to waste producers will support
implementation of the strategy.
48
The strategy noted that certain LLW wastes are not currently suitable for disposal at the
LLWR, for example because they do not meet the CFA, and at the present time do not have
a defined route for either treatment or disposal. [As indicated below in section 4.2 on Higher
Activity Waste some asset of this sort could be needed to manage NORM disposals.]
At the time of producing the nuclear strategy it was noted that in England and Wales
regulation of disposals of radioactive waste was under the Environmental Permitting
Regulations 2010 (EPR10) while in Scotland and Northern Ireland this was under RSA93.
An on-going Government review of Exemption Orders under radioactive waste regulations
was likely to have an influence on the overall waste inventory that could affect the strategy in
terms of the quantities of LLW that would require management.
The Nuclear LLW Strategy was essentially silent on the subject of NORM Waste and so is
unlikely to provide any insights into management issues specific to NORM wastes only.
However, where waste management issues relate to solid LLW management this strategy
would be expected to inform issues related to solid NORM LLW management and those that
would subsequently be exempt from regulatory control (generally applies to VLLW).
4.1.4 Strategy for the Management of solid low level radioactive waste from the non-
nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. Part I – anthropogenic radionuclides.
March 2012. [49]
As already noted, the requirement to produce a non-nuclear low level radioactive waste
strategy arose from the 2007 LLW Policy review. This ‘Part I’ document addressed that
requirement in respect of anthropogenic (i.e. non-NORM Wastes). In addressing Part I, this
Strategy notes that “The oil and gas sector is a special case within the non-nuclear industry,
both because of the physical form of the wastes produced, and their particular radionuclide
content. They face imminent difficulties with disposal of certain types of their solid
radioactive (NORM) waste. … This issue will be dealt with in a parallel strategy for NORM
wastes in the LLW category.”
Although setting out to deal principally with anthropogenic radionuclides, this strategy, as
noted in section 2.2, includes general information applicable to the whole of the non-nuclear
industry. Some material of a descriptive nature is included in sections a2.20 – A2.22 entitled
‘Oil and Gas Industries’ and in the associated box 2.5 showing the decay series of 238U and
232Th.
The strategy defines the volume associated with Low Volume VLLW as 50m3. In section
2.14 noting that in the case of VLLW, disposals to landfill or via incineration are made with
other Directive wastes, with mixing of VLLW and these other wastes taking place before the
material leaves the point of arising. Annex 6 of this strategy sets out the levels of risk
associated with low volume VLLW disposal to landfill or via incinerators, and it is because
risks to the public and workers are so low that these disposal routes are allowed under
exemption provisions (from October 2011). In summary, provided a site produces less than
50 m3 of VLLW per year, this is classed as low volume VLLW and is exempt. A footnote to
this section records that higher-volumes of exempt waste usually arise as Naturally
Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM); such wastes are a matter for the parallel strategy
on NORM wastes, and that different considerations apply for exemption of high volume
exempt wastes in this category.
49
Although the Part I non-nuclear LLW Strategy did not explain what these different
considerations are, what was implied would lead to the conclusion that higher dose
thresholds or activity concentrations for NORM waste are appropriate. It is understood that
this argument will be taken forward in the Part II NORM Strategy.
In relation to contaminated land sections A3.42 – A3.46 of the strategy record the following;
repeated below with the relevant paragraph numbers for ease of reference –
“Contaminated land
A3.42 The UK has a legacy of contaminated soil, some of which contains above-background
concentrations of certain naturally occurring radionuclides. This contamination has resulted
from past industrial activities that pre-date the proper control of the use and disposal of
radioactive wastes. An example is the processing of uranium ore by a number of businesses
during the 1940s and 50s, to extract radium which was then incorporated into paint and used
to illuminate aircraft dials, watches and other products.
When these businesses ceased to exist, they often left behind soil contaminated by
radionuclides in the natural decay chains of uranium and thorium, the most significant of
which is radium. Where such contaminated soil presents significant risks to people (defined
as greater than 3 millisieverts per year), the land may be determined as “contaminated land”
in the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Paragraph A3.46 of the Strategy notes that majority of radioactive waste in the LLW
category is high volume NORM waste‟ for this reason, the parallel strategy for NORM
wastes will explore this issue further.”
Essentially this section is recording that most contaminated land is likely to result in NORM
waste and so it not dealt with in Part I of the non-nuclear LLW strategy. Also, the Strategy
advocates a preference for voluntary remediation, but notes that regulation under Part IIA of
EPA 90 has been developed to cover situations where the contamination presents significant
risks and there is unlikely to be a voluntary solution. Further, the Strategy notes that the
planning authority has the responsibility to ensure land contamination is dealt with in cases
where there is a change of use of land. However, the Strategy does not include any
requirements on planning authorities to make specific provision within their planning
frameworks. The Strategy concludes that land contamination should be dealt with on a case
by case basis and notes that it would be prudent for waste planning authorities to make
reference in their planning documents to the possibility that contaminated land might arise in
their area, and that some disposals of contaminated soil might be required within local
landfills.
For ease of reference the section numbers of the documents are retained where quoted
below.
A6.2 The risk of health effects to people from the disposal of VLLW and LLW from the non-
nuclear industry are very low, being of the order of one in a million per year or less.
In section A6.15 – A6.17, the strategy sets out to describe the assessed radiological risks
resulting from disposal to landfill and incinerators of LLW and VLLW generated by the non-
nuclear industry, recording the following –
50
The demonstration of these low risks is through the study of possible ways in which people could receive a radiation dose from the radioactivity present in the waste, called “potential
exposure scenarios‟. “
“Controlled burial (special precautions burial) of Low Level Waste
A6.15 LLW from non-nuclear industries may be disposed of to landfills, along with other non-
radioactive waste, under environmental permits issued by the environment agencies. These
environmental permits differ from those for VLLW because they stipulate additional
conditions for disposal. The designation of landfills suitable for LLW is based on the concept
of radiological capacity, that is, how much radioactivity can be consigned to a landfill such
that radiation doses to people are very unlikely to exceed a dose of 10 Sv/y (the latter is
called a dose constraint, on the basis that the environment agencies regard the practice of
landfilling such material to be constrained by this level of dose). In this approach, instead of
calculating the dose from an assumed amount of radioactivity present in a landfill site, a
“back calculation” is undertaken, in which peak doses to workers and the public from a wide
range of potential exposure scenarios are compared with the dose constraint, and then
disposal limits for categories of different radionuclides are derived [Ref. 16]. To ensure that
the radiological capacity of such a landfill is not exceeded, one of the environmental permit
conditions is that records should be kept by the landfill operator of what LLW has already
been received by the site. The methodology for calculating radiological capacities includes
assumptions about other potential disposals of radioactivity to the site being assessed, in
particular from wastes that are exempt from the requirements of an authorisation, and VLLW
(which may go to an unspecified landfill).
A6.16 The latest assessments of worker and public doses from LLW and VLLW disposal to
incinerators and to landfill are all less than 10 Sv/y.
A6.17 The risks associated with the disposal of VLLW from the non-nuclear industry
(excluding the oil and gas sectors) have been reviewed by SNIFFER [Ref. 16] As a
consequence of this review, SNIFFER has concluded that “current practices of management
and disposal of VLLW from the non-nuclear sector remain acceptable, and that the
increasing occurrence of waste segregation and recycling does not appear to be significant
in terms of radiological safety”
Additionally, the strategy, in Table 6.2 gives a summary of assessed radiation doses from
management of LLW and VLLW from the non-nuclear industry. In that table almost all doses
are shown as being less than 20 Sv/y. One notable exception is the entry for “VLLW and
LLW disposal from oil and gas sectors” which records that “Apart from the LLWR near Drigg
in Cumbria, no landfill sites currently take VLLW or LLW NORM from the oil and gas
industries (footnote 11). Dose assessments from landfill disposals would need to be done on
a site-specific basis. However, permits to dispose of the waste to landfill would only be
permitted if the levels of predicted dose to members of the public met the regulators’ dose
constraint for this disposal route (footnote 12)” Footnote 11 records that “waste which is
exempt from radioactive waste regulations may be landfilled without an associated
environmental permit”. Footnote 12 records - that “The Environment Agency will not permit
disposals to landfills unless they are satisfied that any exposures will be beneath a dose
constraint of 300 µSv/y. In most cases, they expect them to be no greater than 10 µSv/y.”
51
This was accurate at the time of writing the Strategy. Since then, landfill sites have applied
and been permitted to accept disposals of NORM waste from the Oil and Gas industry.
It should be noted that both ‘NORM’ and ‘NORM Waste’ are defined in the glossary of this
strategy.
As for the nuclear LLW Strategy, this non-nuclear strategy highlights general waste
management issues and would be expected to inform issues related to solid NORM LLW
management also.
When developing the NORM waste strategy, it will be necessary to remember the contents
of the two strategies already developed under the LLW Strategy and seek consistency
where appropriate. This will be particularly so for the likes of principles which are common to
both strategies such as application of the waste hierarchy, sustainable development etc.
which have their roots in the LLW Policy and indeed Cm 2919. The need for consistency will
also be required where reference is made to NORM matters in the Strategy for the
Management of solid low level radioactive waste from the non-nuclear industry in the United
Kingdom Part I.
4.1.5 NORM Waste Strategy
Details of the NORM Waste Strategy development programme are given on the SEPA
website [50]
In addition to its other aims, the strategy intends to identify and take steps to overcome
obstacles preventing those managing NORM waste from contributing to sustainable
economic growth. Unlike the other strategies detailed in sections 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 above the
NORM Strategy will not be limited to consideration of solid wastes. Therefore, Policy for the
disposal or discharge of liquid and gaseous LLW will be relevant to the NORM Waste
Strategy. As it was noted during the consultation that the “Policy for the disposal or
discharge of liquid and gaseous LLW” is set out in the UK Strategy for Radioactive
Discharges (previously dated July 2002, but subsequently updated in July 2009) the UK
Strategy for Radioactive Discharges will be particularly relevant.
4.2 Higher Activity Waste Policy.
As already stated, it was noted during consultation that the review of LLW policy paralleled
and complemented the CoRWM/MRWS review for the long term management of higher
activity waste. There is now a separate policy for Higher Activity Waste Management in
Scotland [51] The approach to management of higher activity waste is such that in all parts
of the UK, certain wastes categorised as Low Level Waste (LLW), which by their nature are
not currently suitable for disposal in existing LLW for which the most appropriate long-term
management option may be the same as that for higher activity radioactive waste.
CoRWM [52] in its work under the UK Managing Radioactive Waste Safely programme
noted in relation to naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) that “Although this
category of waste is not within the CoRWM remit because there is one current disposal route
to sea, there are uncertainties of whether this route will continue to be used. The waste is
LLW, but the radium content may make it unsuitable for disposal at the LLWR. Alternative
routes of disposal could be sought following the LLW review.” CoRWM noted that the
52
generation of NORM waste from a variety of non-nuclear industries could potentially have
important consequences for LLW disposal capacity recognising that nuclear and non-nuclear
NORM wastes have problems in how long-lived radionuclides are managed. In that regard
CoRWM was alluding to the potential problem with a lack of NORM waste disposal facilities
There is, therefore, potential for some NORM LLW to fall into this category of LLW and may
require management as described above. Thus, any strategy for NORM wastes may need
to consider this aspect or interface with relevant higher activity waste policies.
4.3 UK Policy on Dilution of Radioactive Waste.
In its report “A Review of the Application of ‘Best Practicable Means’ within a Regulatory
Framework for Managing Radioactive Wastes [53]” some reference is made to the
presumption against dilution as follows. …In the context of how the UK Environmental
Agencies scrutinise BPM studies the agencies look at “How the segregation and
categorisation of wastes is undertaken and dilution avoided where practicable”.
In the 2011 Guidance on Exemptions [1] Chapter 4 on Technical considerations notes that in
relation to the averaging and assay for radioactive waste the following -
4.1 In general the levels in the tables apply to waste as measured at the point of arising.
4.2 Where radioactive material must be chemically or mechanically processed prior to
disposal, averaging of concentrations over reasonable quantities of (non-radioactive) waste
in mixtures is permissible, but deliberate dilution to render a mixture of waste below the
relevant levels is not. The regulators will provide guidance on sampling and averaging in
such cases.
The Scottish Government Higher Activity Waste Policy accepts that waste may be treated
and additional guidance on this [54] notes that “Treatment of higher activity radioactive
waste can result in an increase or decrease in volume of the original waste but it can also
produce secondary waste as part of the treatment process.”
In RP 122 Part II [55] it is stated that “In addition, while for practices it is not allowed to mix
or dilute contaminated materials if this would be a means of circumventing requirements for
confinement of radioactive waste, for naturally occurring radionuclides one can argue that in
most cases dilution or dispersion is nothing more than re-establishing the original natural
concentration of the ore.” This idea suggested in RP122 Part II was taken forward in the
European Commission’s consultation on revision of the BSS where it was stated that “For
some residues from identified and listed NORM industries the optimised solution may be to
mix the residues with other inert materials. It is, however, clearly pointed out that this may
only be permitted in specific justified cases.” In the 2011draft of the revised BSS the
following is recorded “The deliberate dilution of radioactive residues, other than the mixing of
materials that takes place in normal operation when radioactivity is not a consideration, shall
not be permitted. The competent authority may authorise in specific situations the mixing of
radioactive residues containing naturally occurring radioactive material with other materials
to promote the reuse and recycling of these materials and to reduce public exposure.”
53
Should this proposal to allow the deliberate mixing (dilution) of NORM residues with other
materials in certain circumstances be finalised in the revised BSS, then there will be a need
to review the UK Radioactive Waste Policy in this context and explain any regulatory
controls that may be applied.
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5 REGULATORS’ GUIDANCE.
5.1 Near-surface Disposal Facilities on Land for Solid Radioactive Wastes
Guidance on Requirements for Authorisation - February 2009 EA, SEPA,
NIEA [56]
The 2007 LLW policy is referred to extensively in this document which is referred to as the
near-surface GRA.
The near-surface GRA deals with radioactive waste disposed of in near surface facilities and
does not discuss NORM waste as such.
The only significant reference to natural radioactivity is in section 6.3.39 where it is indicated
that possible intruder scenarios should exclude naturally occurring radon but should include
radon from the waste.
The guidance uses ICRP risk factors (1.4.3). The guidance notes that VLLW, LLW and
shorter-lived or less radiotoxic ILW may be suitable for near surface disposal (3.4.1). The
guidance does not, however, apply to LV VLLW but does to dedicated facilities for large
volumes of VLLW (3.5.4).
Section 4.2 indices that the Fundamental Protection objective is closely linked to Sustainable
Development. Section 4.5 deals with non-radiological hazards of the radioactive waste.
Section 4.5.23 notes that e.g. Uranium is also a heavy metal and, so, is chemically toxic.
The Process By Agreement in section 5.4 also makes reference to advice to land use
Planners and further mention is made in section 5.6.
Section 6.3 indicates dose constraints to individuals during the period the RSA93
authorisation remains and is 0.3 and 0.5 mSv/yr in line with the governments’ Directions to
the environment Agencies (and also refers to 0.15 mSv/yr advice from, then, HPA (now
Public Health England Centres for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards).
The guidance makes reference to workers at various points but without specifying a dose
that they might receive.
At the time of writing, nearly all NORM waste disposed to landfill is by means of controlled
burial where the NORM wastes are co-disposed with other, non-radioactive, wastes. Any
dose assessment for these controlled burial landfills is not based on the GRA approach.
There are no dedicated NORM waste disposal facilities in the UK. Small concentrations of
NORM waste are disposed to the LLWR in Cumbria, but the CFA for the LLWR imposes
activity limits and a cost premium for long-lived radionuclides (e.g. radium-226) that would
limit disposals of higher volumes of NORM waste. [57] SEPA
A risk guidance level of 10-6/yr is set out in section 6.3.1 for after the period of authorisation
and a dose guidance level of 3-20mSv, as a surrogate for risk, for intrusion in section 6.3.36.
The GRA document makes provision for update (1.1.6) and for guidance more specific to
particular types of facility (3.5.5).
55
Given the developments regarding NORM waste management, it might be worth considering
an update of the GRA in this respect.
5.2 Exemption Guidance – Guidance for NORM industrial activities on how
to comply with the radioactive substances exemption regime, February
2013, Version 1 [58]
The guidance, produced by the Environment Agencies, covers all aspects of out of scope
and exemption for NORM wastes. The guidance indicates that for NORM waste of
concentration less than 5 Bq/g and activity over 50GBq/y may be disposed of to an landfill
where no radiological dose assessment is required (an “unassessed” landfill). That an
assessed landfill is the appropriate disposal route where the activity is more than 50 GBq/y
and that this option is available also for NORM waste with concentrations between 5 and 10
Bq/g. The guidance indicates that an assessed landfill is one where the disposer has
provided a robust radiological assessment to the relevant environment agency which
demonstrates that radiation doses are not expected to exceed:
1mSv/y to workers at the place of disposal, and
300 µSv/y to the public.
5.3 Regulatory Guidance: Coal Bed Methane and Shale Gas
SEPA has produced regulatory guidance on these operations [59], including that under
RSA93 and other environmental legislation. In relation to NORM and Radioactive
Substances it notes the following at paragraph 49 -
49. From experience in the industry it is very likely that the fluids that flow-back to the
surface after hydraulic fracturing will contain naturally occurring radioactive materials
(NORM). The production of oil and gas is classed as a NORM Industrial Activity for which
the Radioactive Substances Act (1993) (RSA93) provides threshold values for radioactive
concentration. Above these the fluid will be classed as radioactive waste but below them
RSA93 does not apply. Based on experience, we are adopting a prudent position that unless
the operator can demonstrate by measurements that the concentrations of NORM are below
the threshold values, all developments will require an authorisation issued under RSA93,
prior to the start of groundwater abstraction, for the accumulation and disposal of the fluids
that flow back as radioactive wastes.
Public Health England has subsequently produced a draft report entitled ‘Review of the
Potential Public Health Impacts of exposures to Chemical and Radioactive Pollutants as a
result of Shale Gas Extraction’ [60]. This report was based on a literature survey and, while
noting a certain lack of information in the UK context, concluded that currently available
evidence indicated that the potential risks to public health from exposure to emissions
associated with the shale gas extraction process were low if operations are properly run and
regulated. In relation to radioactive exposures the assumptions made were that doses to
members of the public would need to be kept well below the statutory limit of 1mSv/y
(resulting from all doses from exposure to regulated practices at a location).An assumption
of applying a dose constraint of 0.3 mSv/y was also made.
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6 RADIOACTIVE WASTE LEGISLATION IN THE UK
6.1 Radioactive Substances Act 1993
The Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA93) is the relevant legislation in Scotland and
Northern Ireland under which ‘authorisation’ (for the accumulation and disposal of
radioactive waste) and ‘registration’ (for the keeping and use of radioactive substances) is
made. Before the introduction of the Environmental Permitting Regulations in England and
Wales the RSA93 was a UK-wide Act. However the provisions of both Acts in relation to
NORM are essentially the same as described in Guidance on the scope of and exemptions
from the radioactive substances legislation in the UK [1].
6.1.1 General
6.1.2 The Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards)(Scotland) Direction
2000. [61]
This Direction requires SEPA to ensure the dose limits set in the Euratom Basic Safety
Standards Directive of 1996 to the public are complied with when discharging its functions in
relation to radioactive waste disposal. The Directive also requires all exposures to ionising
radiation of any members of the public and of the population as a whole resulting from the
disposal of radioactive waste are kept as low as reasonably achievable, economic and social
factors being taken into account. With respect to this duty, SEPA is also required to have
regard to the following maximum doses which may result from a defined source, for use at
the planning stage in radiation protection–
a. 0.3 mSv/y from any source from which radioactive discharges are first made on, or
after, 13 May 2000; or
b. 0.5 mSv/y from the discharges from any single site.
The dose constraints cited above would not appear to be consistent with the principles being
applied to NORM exclusion, exemption and clearance in the UK. Notably, if such material
only came into scope when dose implications are 0.3 mSv/y or above it would appear to be
somewhat contradictory to require the doses to then be reduced to less than 0.3 mSv/y.
Some consideration will need to be given to the compatibility of this Direction with recent
changes to RSA93 and indeed to proposed future changes to the Euratom BSS Directive.
6.2 The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
6.2.1 General
As noted in section 6.1 above, the relevant legislation in in England and Wales are the
Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 permitting the
accumulation and disposal of radioactive waste and the accumulation and disposal of
radioactive waste using principles that are essentially the same as RSA93
57
6.2.2 The Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards) (England and Wales)
Direction 2000 [62]
As is done for SEPA, parts of the BSSD in relation to optimisation, radiation dose limits and
qualified experts were implemented by the Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety
Standards) (England and Wales) Direction 2000. These requirements are now included in
Schedule 23, Part 4 of the Regulations. The BSS requirements are dealt with in more detail
in Chapter 3.
This would suggest that similar considerations may be needed in England and Wales to
those described in section 6.1.2 above.
The above Act and Regulations control the keeping and use of radioactive substances and
their disposal with the enactments differing in structure and geographical applicability within
the UK but with the principles being the same.
6.3 Guidance on the scope of and exemptions from the radioactive
substances legislation in the UK produced by the UK Government and
devolved Administrations [1]
This guidance describes provisions for both RSA 93 and EPR10
As well as setting out the detail the Guide indicates the basis for exemption …
It is indicated in section 1.3 that two concepts are used in this document (see Annex 1 for a
fuller explanation of these concepts as applied in UK legislation):
1. Out of scope’ of regulation. Effectively, ‘out of scope’ equates to ‘not radioactive’ for
the purposes of the legislation. Radioactive substances which are ‘out of scope’ are
not subject to any regulatory requirement under this legislation.
2. Exempt from permitting’. Substances which are considered to be radioactive by
definition may be exempt from the need for a permit. The Basic Safety Standards
Directive 1996 (BSSD) refers to the need or otherwise for ‘prior reporting’. In the UK,
we have taken ‘prior reporting’ to be equivalent to ‘permitting’, and ‘exemption to
mean that ‘prior reporting’ is not necessary.
The guidance indicates the basis underpinning of the ‘exemptions’ and ‘out of scope’
numerical values as follows (references in the guidance are repeated below)
1.8 The basis on which the various numerical values and waste disposal criteria have been
developed are mainly related to the radiation dose which could be received by a member of
the public. There are exceptions to this general concept. Threshold values for ‘keeping and
use’, for instance, are based on practical considerations, bearing in mind that radiation
safety for workers for ‘keeping and use’ are a matter for the health and safety regulators
under the Ionising Radiations Regulations.
1.9 For the ’out of scope’ and exemption values, we have selected two radiation dose
criteria:
58
1. For naturally occurring radioactive substances or articles used in ‘industrial activities’
(see paragraphs 2.15-2.16), the numerical values are based on a radiation dose of
300 μSv/year to a member of the public; this aligns with RP122 Part II
2. For artificial radionuclides, and for naturally occurring radioactive substances or
articles used for their radioactive, fissile or fertile properties (a ‘practice’), the values
are based on a radiation dose of 10 μSv/year to a member of the public; this aligns
with RP 122 Part I [63]
And
1.14 The principal difference between the criteria selected for NORM industrial activities
(300 μSv/year) and for practices (10 μSv/year) is that in the former case it is not practicable
to regulate NORM such that the lower criterion is met. The exception to this general
principle, where the lower criterion can be applied, is when NORM radionuclides are being
used specifically for their radioactive, fertile or fissile properties. This is because, in the latter
case, NORM radionuclides are deliberately employed in situations where a radiation dose
can be expected.
1.15 For the exemption levels and waste disposal criteria, the dose limit is, again 10
μSv/year to a member of the public for most situations. However, for NORM wastes, the
exemption criterion of 300 μSv/year applies to disposals from industrial activities, with an
additional limit of 1mSv/year to a landfill operative.
And
1.16 In addition to NORM wastes from industrial activities, the same criterion (300 μSv/year)
applies to exemption for the management of wastes arising from the remediation of land
contaminated with NORM radionuclides if the contamination did not occur as a result of an
activity carried out on a nuclear licensed site to which the license would have applied (a
footnote indicates : For instance, wastes arising from the remediation of land historically
contaminated with radium as a result of a radium luminising activity will be exempt, even if
this work was carried out on what is now a site licensed under the Nuclear Installations Act
1965, provided that the activity concentration limits are not exceeded. This is because the
luminising activity itself is not a practice which requires a licence under that Act.)
And
1.17 However, in the case of exemption for disposal, the radiological impact assessments do
not assume uncontrolled disposal of waste to the environment. Restrictions are placed on
the type of substance or article (for example, a waste sealed source), on the disposal route
(for example, to a sewer, or to a landfill), or on the management of waste (for example,
disposed of in considerable quantities of non-radioactive waste) etc. These restrictions are
imposed by way of conditions set out in the legislation.
And
1.18 Exemption conditions are in place to help ensure that the dose criterion of 10 μSv/year
(300 μSv/year in the case of solid NORM wastes) to a member of the public will be met
when waste is discharged to the environment; these conditions are often in the form of
numerical limits to an annual waste disposal. The other conditions are in place to ensure that
59
the generation of radioactive waste is minimised, limit disposals so as to ensure low
consequences, and such that an operator can assure him or herself that they are in control.
In the Explanatory Notes to enactments making recent changes to RSA93 and related
Exemption Orders [64] the text specifically indicates that changes are being made in order to
align more closely with the structure and terminology used in the 1996 Basic Safety
Standards Directive. In the regulations amending the Act text was inserted which is specific
to NORM industrial activities as and in the explanatory note to the exemption order specific
mention is made of special provisions etc. in relation to NORM waste.
As noted in section 3.5, although the structure is similar, the latter editions of the BSS have
removed reference to a 300mSv/y dose criterion to members of the public and only a
1mSv/y individual dose criterion remains. This point will require to be addressed in the
NORM Strategy
6.4 UK Justification Regulations
The 2009 Discharge Strategy notes that “UK policy on the control of radiation exposure has
long been based upon acceptance of the recommendations of the appropriate international
bodies. The ICRP has recommended a system of radiological protection based on the
principles of justification of activities involving ionising radiation, optimisation of protection
and dose limitation. Further recommendations have built on this system and have introduced
the use of dose constraints and risk constraints.”
The requirements for justification of practices are also contained in the Euratom Basic Safety
Standards 96/29/Euratom and have been transposed in to UK law by the Justification of
Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004.[65]
These Regulations do not explicitly mention ‘NORM’ however regulation 3 (2) indicates that
expressions and words used in both these regulations and the 1996 Directive have the same
meaning for the purposes of these regulations. Consequently it would not be expected that
NORM work activities would currently require justification. .
It is possible that re-categorisation of NORM work activities vs. practices in future BSS could
change this position. Clearly, legal opinion would be necessary on this point. Should this be
the case, then the following considerations may be relevant in future and these points might
be considered if policy statements on this were being developed in future.
In the summary of governments response to consultation on LLW policy it is noted in section
9.5 that the Government believes that all radioactive wastes, whatever their provenance, of
the same radionuclide content, have the same intrinsic hazards and should be subject to the
same limits and other principles of radiological protection (‘justification’ and ‘optimisation’).
The Part I LLW non-nuclear Strategy notes in section 2.51 that in principle, there is no
reason why the waste hierarchy cannot be applied to radioactive wastes, although special
considerations apply. For instance, the “avoidance‟ step in the hierarchy will have already
been applied to non-nuclear users of radioactive material, in part, by way of the UK
Justification Regulations [Ref. 5]. A person may not use radioactive materials for any
practice unless the practice has been “justified‟, and this justification includes a
60
consideration of the wastes produced in addition to the initial use of the radioactive material.
However, it is recognised that there are limited opportunities to apply the hierarchy to low
level radioactive waste generated historically within the non-nuclear industry; therefore a
large component of this strategy is focussed on disposal. Furthermore, the primary objective
of radioactive waste management is the protection of human health, and this objective over-
rides any consideration of the hierarchy.
6.5 Scotoil Appeal under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993, Aberdeen,
2007.
In 2007 a hearing was held in Aberdeen to consider an appeal by Scotoil Services Ltd
against certain aspects of variation of its authorisation by SEPA under RSA93.
The details of the appeal and judgement are complex with full detail of what this public local
inquiry considered when hearing an appeal by Scotoil Services Ltd. is given in Gordon, D. N.
(2008).
It would be an oversimplification to suggest that one party or another’s views were upheld
entirely in the appeal. However, a clear judgement was made in relation to the
appropriateness of making discharges to sea by pipeline of NORM waste from onshore
facilities such as the Scotoil plant after grinding up scale removed from plant used in the oil
and gas industry. In his report of 31 July 2008 [66A and B] the Reporter concluded “that the
process operated by Scotoil is contrary to statue, policy and internationally accepted best
practice, and does not represent BPM. However requiring it to cease by 15 December 2008
would be unreasonable. I conclude that a period of 3 years from the date of the appeal
decision would be reasonable”
As such the outcome of this appeal would reaffirm a preference for ‘concentrate and contain’
over ‘dilute and disperse’ for radioactive waste management of NORM form the Oil and Gas
industries. The proposals contained within current drafts of Euratom BSS would suggest that
presumptions against dilution and mixing to facilitate disposals may be more acceptable in
the future and the conclusions of this Appeal may need to be reconsidered.
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7 DOCUMENTS IN WHICH ‘OUT OF SCOPE VALUES’
WERE DERIVED.
The European Commission published two documents relating to the practical use of the
concepts of clearance and exemption. RP122 Part I [63] relating to practices and RP122
Part II [55] relating to natural radiation sources. Broadly speaking the former document used
the 10 Sv/y criteria and the latter 300 Sv/y criteria relating to public doses.
RP122 Part II table 2 clearly has values of the type used in RSA93’s table 2 column relating
to solid and relevant liquid concentrations for ‘out of scope’ values while RP122 Part 1 Table
1 ‘rounded clearance levels’ equates the concentrations given in table 3 of RSA93.
Gaseous values are not given in RP122 Part II. The values in RSA93 table 2 column 4
relating to gaseous concentrations for ‘out of scope’ values were similarly derived in the UK
based on scenarios where an adult would receive 300 Sv/y [67].
In section 5.3 of RP122 Part II the Article 31 experts propose the setting of criteria for
exemption-clearance for work activities at an annual effective dose increment of 300
microsieverts. Among other reasons for selecting this dose criterion is coherence with the
exemption level proposed for building materials in RP112 and coherence with any dose
constraint which may usefully be considered for the control of effluents. They indicate this
constraint to be 300 Sv/y recommended by ICRP for practices and state that a higher value
up to 1 mSv/y would probably be more appropriate for work activities.
In 2010 The European Commission also published a document [68] comparing EC and IAEA
guidance on exemption and clearance mainly relating to ‘practices’ and so comparing mainly
RP122 Part I and IAEA RS-G-1.7. The document indicates that it was used in the then
ongoing revision of the Euratom Basic Safety Standards Directive. Because of its focus
when terms such as natural radionuclides are used in the report these would appear to refer
to the context of ‘practices’. NORM as such (in the non-practice context) and RP 122 Pt II
are fleetingly referred to in the context of consumer goods etc. and in section 6.4.1 the view
is expressed that the release of NORM waste from regulatory control is normally based on
the “1 mSv/a constraint for the effective dose, while the clearance of wastes from practices is
based on the 10 µSv/a criterion”. The authors of the report are from a German institute and
these comments may be somewhat influence by the national practices there and indeed
Annex B of the report deals with the use of exemption values in the Radiation Protection
Legislation of Germany.
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8. OTHER UK REGULATIONS RELATING TO RADIATION
AND RADIOACTIVITY.
8.1 Regulations Related to radioactive contaminated land
At the time Cm 2919 was produced, it was noted in section 133 in the context of the, then,
Environment Bill that this provided a suitable framework for the dealing with radioactive
contaminated land but a number of issues needed to be addressed including levels at which
radioactivity - which is also a natural phenomenon - should be regarded as a contaminant.
Consequently, a power to make regulation applying to radioactive contamination at a later
date with a commitment to consult fully on draft regulations was included.
These regulations were subsequently made from 2005 onwards and are described in
Statutory Guidance issued for England [69] and for Scotland [70]. These regulations do not
contain provisions relating to waste management
The regulations and guidance prescribe how contaminated land should be regulated setting
levels which indicate when action should be considered or taken. Action “trigger” levels are
essentially in terms of exposures and do not in this respect differentiate between those
resulting from contamination from practices or past work activities involving NORM if the
contamination did not occur as a result of an activity carried out on a nuclear licensed site to
which the license would have applied. As noted in section 6.3 of this report such waste from
remediation of land contaminated by NORM is managed by principles using the same
criterion to exemption for the management of wastes arising (300 μSv/y) as for NORM
wastes from industrial activities.
In the statutory guidance for England it notes that in relation to the definition of “substance”
in section 78A of the 1990 Act set out at paragraph 4.2 below. This definition was amended
by the Radioactive Contaminated Land (Enabling Powers and Modification of Enactments)
(England) (Amendment) Regulations 2010. The effect of the amendment was to remove the
previous exclusion of radon gas and certain radionuclides form the definition of “substance”.
However, even though the exclusion has been removed, these substances are only covered
to the extent that they have resulted from the after-effects of a radiological emergency or
have been processed as part of a past practice or work activity – naturally occurring
substances (such as naturally occurring radon) are not covered.
From the above, it can be see that land contaminated by work activities using NORM is
essentially within the framework of regulation as for contamination arising from practices but
with different criteria applied to exemption of waste arising from these two categories.
8.2 The Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999
As noted in the Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) associated with these regulations –“The
main aim of the Regulations and the supporting ACOP [71] is to establish a framework for
ensuring that exposure to ionising radiation arising from work activities is kept as low as
reasonably practicable and does not exceed dose limits specified for individuals. This
applies to exposure, whether from man-made or natural radiation and from external radiation
(e.g. X-ray set) or internal radiation (e.g. inhalation of a radioactive substance).”
63
The regulations therefore apply to NORM and in relation to Scope of the 1999 Ionising
Radiations Regulations (IRR99) note -
“The scope of application of IRR99 is set out in regulation 3. The Regulations apply to three
categories of work - practices, work in radon atmospheres at concentrations above a
specified action level, and work with materials containing naturally occurring radionuclides.
The definition of ‘practice’ (regulation 2(1)) mainly covers work with artificial sources
including both man-made radioactive substances and the operation of certain electrical
equipment, such as X-ray sets, which emit ionising radiations. It also includes work with
materials containing naturally occurring radionuclides but only where they are being
processed for their ‘radioactive, fissile or fertile properties’. This means that all activities in
the nuclear fuel cycle are subject to the full control regime for practices.”
In Relation to “Work activities with naturally occurring radioactive materials” the ACOP note
the following in paragraphs 11 – 13.
11 In the special case of substances containing naturally occurring radionuclides used in
work other than a practice, their activity cannot be disregarded for the purposes of radiation
protection where their use is likely to lead to employees or other people receiving an
effective dose of ionising radiations in excess of 1 millisievert in a year.
12 The judgement about what constitutes a radioactive substance within the meaning of the
Regulations can be particularly difficult for materials containing naturally occurring
radionuclides. Processing of such materials can lead to concentration of certain of these
radionuclides and to the potential for significant exposure at particular stages of a process.
There are two main exposure routes: direct exposure to external radiation from bulk
quantities, often held in store; and inhalation arising from dusty operations.
13 An initial assessment should indicate whether it is likely that exposure could lead to
anyone receiving an effective dose approaching or exceeding1 mSv a year. If this appears to
be the case, a more detailed assessment might be necessary to confirm that the material
should be considered radioactive for regulatory purposes, to decide where the risk arises
and to determine what protective measures might be needed (see regulation 7). Some
processes with a recognised potential to cause significant exposure are:
a. oil and gas extraction, where scale in pipes and vessels may contain significant
amounts of uranium and thorium and their decay products including radium;
b. some forms of metal, where refractory materials or feed ores may contain naturally
occurring radioactive materials and where radionuclides can volatilise and condense,
or concentrate in the product or the slags to enhance activity levels; and
c. thorium alloy manufacture, for example for aircraft parts, and the use of thoriated
products, such as special types of welding electrodes.
Definition of Practice in IRR99 -“practice” means work involving -
(a) the production, processing, handling, use, holding, storage, transport or disposal of
radioactive substances; or
64
(b) the operation of any electrical equipment emitting ionising radiation and containing
components operating at a potential difference of more than 5kV, which can increase
the exposure of individuals to radiation from an artificial source, or from a radioactive
substance containing naturally occurring radionuclides which are processed for their
radioactive, fissile or fertile properties;
All the above would suggest a certain coherence between the IRR99 regulations and
approaches to NORM Waste Management which effectively do not require regulation where
doses can be demonstrated to be less than 1mSv/y to workers. The Regulations also
acknowledge a different approach to practices and work activities with NORM.
8.3 Transport Regulations
A study of the transport of naturally-occurring radioactive materials in the UK was carried out
by Hughes and Harvey [72].
This study concluded that there were low dose implications for such transport both for the
public and workers. The study also describes the transport regulations and their applicability
to such wastes. NORM is not excluded from the application of the transport regulations.
IAEA, 2013, Safety Reports Series No. 78 [31] provide an excellent description of the
regulatory regime applying to NORM.
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9 ISSUES RELATING TO CHEMOTOXIC PROPERTIES
OF NORM.
Radiological aspects of NORM in drinking water have already been discussed in section
3.17.
In WHO, 2008, Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality,[73] it was indicated that an objective is
to provide criteria with which to assess the safety of drinking-water with respect to its
radionuclide content. The Guidelines do not differentiate between naturally occurring and
artificial or human-made radionuclides.
Although setting guidance levels for uranium in terms of Bq/l the guidance also notes that
The provisional guideline value for uranium in drinking-water is 15 mg/l based on its
chemical toxicity for the kidney (see section 8.5).
Material noted in section 10.1 is also relevant.
This would suggest that for certain NORM issues chemotoxicity as well as radiotoxicity may
be a factor to consider.
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10 NON-RS FOCUSED ISSUES WITH IMPACT ON RWM -
“SOME INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER REGIMES”
10.1 ‘Conventional’ Waste Regulations
In the guidance on exemptions [1] in relation to conventional waste regulations the following
is noted -
“5.4 Some radioactive waste may exhibit hazardous properties not related to its radioactive
properties. For radioactive waste which is exempted from the need for permitting, waste
producers need to be aware of the hazardous properties of the waste and take appropriate
action. This action may include a consideration of other hazardous waste legislation in
respect of hazardous waste. Regardless of these other hazardous properties, exempt waste
is still ‘waste’ and subject to regulation as such.”
“5.5 In England and Wales some radioactive wastes fall into the requirement for a waste
operation permit where it is exempt from the requirement for a permit in respect of a
radioactive substances activity. This is dealt with in more detail in the Environmental
Permitting guidance on Radioactive Substances Regulation19.”
A footnote indicates that “For instance, the exemptions provisions in this legislation for the
disposal of aqueous liquids containing uranium and thorium compounds should not be taken
to imply that these compounds can be disposed of safely; only that the radiological
properties need not be taken into account.”
10.2 Habitats Assessment for Radioactive Substances.
The Environment Agency has published report [74] detailing how it carried out a habitats
assessment explaining the following -
That the UK has a duty to comply with the EU Birds and Habitats Directives (Council
Directives 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild birds and 92/43/EEC on the conservation
of natural habitats and wild flora and fauna) when planning and undertaking all of its
regulatory and operational activities. These European Directives were introduced into UK
legislation by the Conservation (Natural Habitats & c.) Regulations 1994. These Directives
established and protect a network of conservation areas across the EU called ‘Natura
2000’.Natura 2000 is made up of sites designated as Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)
and Special Protection Areas (SPAs).
That under the Habitats Regulations, the Environment Agency has obligations to review
relevant existing authorisations, permits, consents, licences and permissions (collectively
referred to as permits) to ensure that no Environment Agency authorised activity or
permission results in an adverse effect, either directly or indirectly, on the integrity of Natura
2000 sites. The Environment Agency is also required to ensure that any new or varied
permits do not have an adverse effect on the integrity of the Natura 2000 sites. The
Environment Agency has adopted a staged approach to reviewing existing permits.
67
That the total dose rates, calculated in the Stage 3 assessments, were compared to a
threshold of 40 microgray/h, below which the Environment Agency, Natural England and the
Countryside Council for Wales agreed there would be no adverse effect to the integrity of a
Natura 2000 site The Environment Agency, Natural England and the Countryside Council for
Wales have agreed a dose rate threshold of 40 microgray/h, below which it has been
concluded that there will be no adverse effect on the integrity of a Natura 2000 site. This has
been derived as follows:
That Research from the Euratom FP5 Project ‘FASSET’ (Larsson et al. 2004) indicated that,
in general and from the available data, there appear to be no significant adverse effects in
biota exposed at levels of up to 100 microgray/h.
That a review paper from the FASSET Project (Brown et al. 2004) indicated that wildlife
might receive up to 60 microgray/h from natural sources in European ecosystems.
That the threshold of 40 microgray/h for authorised discharges of radioactive substances is
the difference between these two values. This threshold of 40 microgray/h is the same as
the lower 1992 guideline level for terrestrial animals published by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA 1992). The
IAEA stated that it is unlikely that there would be any significant effect on populations of
terrestrial animals which are chronically exposed at these levels.
Given the above, it would appear that NORM, both ‘in-scope’ of radioactive regulations and
‘out-or-scope’ of radioactive regulations, would be a contributor to the assessed doses to
biota under this methodology and some further consideration of the implications of this may
be appropriate.
10.3 Water Framework Directive and Groundwater Directive
A common objective of the Water Framework Directive (“WFD”) and the Groundwater
Directive (“GWD 2006”) is to prevent the entry into groundwater of hazardous substances.
The earlier 1980 Groundwater Directive (which GWD 2006 replaces and will fully repeal on
22 December 2013) had excluded radioactive substances from its requirements. However,
neither GWD 2006 nor WFD maintain this exclusion, and the UK environment agencies have
deemed that radioactive substances are hazardous substances, for the purposes of these
directives. The directives’ requirements are transposed into law in Scotland by the Water
Environment (Controlled Activities) Regulations (Scotland) 2011 (“CAR”). CAR requires
registrations and authorisations granted under RSA93 to comply with the requirements of
GWD 2006. This means that any application for authorisation to accumulate or dispose of
radioactive waste, which may result in entry of radioactive substances into groundwater,
must be supported by an assessment that demonstrates the impact is acceptable. There is
no exemption of NORM from this requirement, except as may be provided for by the
Radioactive Substances Exemption (Scotland) Order 2011.
68
11 DISCUSSION
From the literature survey carried out and reported above, several key points emerge–
a) There is considerable and explicit discussion in current documents produced at an
international level of how the radiation protection framework applies to NORM waste
management. Fortuitously, there is a considerable degree of consensus and
coherence of approaches recommended by bodies such as ICRP, IAEA and EC.
However, the criteria for considering regulation of NORM are seen as fundamentally
different from practices dealing with artificial radionuclides and often refer to the
ubiquitous nature of NORM. There is widespread acceptance of 10 μSv/y for artificial
radionuclides but a strongly held view by many countries that a value of around 1
mSv/y is more appropriate for NORM and indeed is already a ‘de facto standard’
b) There is little or no explanation of how NORM waste should be considered in
overarching or high-level UK policy documentation, which is largely silent on this
subject. Consequently, the reader of UK Radioactive Waste Policy and Strategy
Documentation would be likely to form the opinion that one set of uniform principles
applied to all radioactive waste containing natural or artificial radioisotopes (and that
this was the approach applied to the latter) unless that reader was familiar with some
of the reference material cited in some of these policy documents (see section 4.1.2
above). The only clear explanation uncovered in the literature survey explaining the
application different standards to NORM and artificial radioactivity relating to criteria
for considering wastes in scope of legislation was given in the Guidance produced by
Defra on the scope of and exemptions from the radioactive substances legislation
(see section 6.3).
The above discussion would suggest that there is a clear need for UK policy documentation
describing explicitly how NORM wastes are managed.
From the literature survey it is suggested that, in respect of the regulation of NORM wastes,
the principal difference in how regulatory regimes deal or propose to deal with NORM waste
as opposed to artificial radionuclides is in respect of the criteria for what is excluded/out of
scope or exempted or cleared etc., not how it is regulated. In respect of NORM waste, there
is clear international consensus that setting levels that limit doses to workers in NORM
industries to around 1mSv/y will result in much lower dose to the public of around 0.3 mSv/y
or so. It is also accepted that the concentrations set in IAEA RS-G-1.7 are compatible with
this (see section 3.3.1.2). Consequently if a criterion of 1mSv/y to an individual (worker or
member of the public) were set, then modelling and assessment (at least according to much
published literature) would suggest the worker would be the limiting case and public dose
would remain below these levels.(see section 3.12.2). There is a need for any UK Policy or
Strategy to address this point and also the relationship with the public dose limit. It is noted
that the UK IRR’s take an approach which is compatible with this (see section 8.2) for
substances containing naturally occurring radionuclides used in work other than a practice,
where their activity cannot be disregarded for the purposes of radiation protection where
their use is likely to lead to employees or other people receiving an effective dose of ionising
radiations in excess of 1 mSv/y.
69
As noted in section 4.3, there is an emerging divergence between international proposals
and UK policy on the applicability of dilution/mixing of NORM wastes to facilitate its disposal.
There is consequently a need for any future NORM policy or strategy to address this issue.
In formulating any future UK Policy or Strategy for NORM waste, it will be necessary to be
explicit when dose criteria, limits or constraints are quoted as to what these relate to and this
will be particularly so where there are criteria sharing the same numerical values e.g. the
dose constraint to the public of 0.3 mSv/y or the criterion for NORM being out of scope of
regulation of 0.3 mSv/y. Similarly, the 1mSv/y public dose limit and 1mSv/y criterion in
relation to exposure of workers from NORM for considering out of scope are conceptually
different. Such attention should also probably be paid to use of terms such as exemption,
exclusion, clearance, out-of scope etc. and indeed to the meaning of ‘NORM’ in a particular
context (which is used variably).
As noted in Section 9, NORM is rather unusual as a radioactive waste in that even in the
absence of non-radioactive chemically toxic materials, it can present significant chemotoxic
hazards comparable in level to the radiotoxic hazard. This factor further emphasises the
need to ensure consideration is given to conventional waste legislation in any NORM
Strategy and Policy.
A range of issues have been identified during this review and are generally emphasised
using italics in the text in sections of this report. Some of these issues are listed in the
bullets that follow –
There would appear to be no direct requirements on the management of NORM
waste in the UK resulting from ICRP 108 considerations. However, the assessments
methodologies that have developed are used in Habitats Assessments to comply
with other requirements and these may have implications for NORM waste
management
The new International and Euratom BSS set out similar arrangements and have
similar requirements incumbent on regulatory bodies to ensure NORM exposures
from industrial practices and commodities do not exceed prescribed dose or activity
concentrations.
It is believed that there will be requirements in the BSS for regulators to provide
information on controlling NORM that is not managed as a planned exposure
situation. Clearly, this aspect will need to be addressed in any NORM Waste
Strategy.
There will be a need to clarify how a 1mSv/y criterion for NORM that is out of scope
of regulation can be reconciled with a 1mSv/y public dose limit.
The requirements of Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty explicitly apply to NORM
materials/waste in some categories of activities and in other cases it is explicitly
excluded. There is a clear assumption that certain NORM activities are unlikely to
result in severe unplanned release situations. The criteria of 10 μSv/y in the vicinity
70
of the plant would not appear to be entirely coherent with proposals to accept doses
to members of the public of 300 μSv/y from NORM disposals
Recent or future changes to categories of NORM waste which are out of scope of
radioactive substances regulation (and are considered as non-radioactive) could
result in requirements applicable under the UK Plan for Shipments of Waste which
would need further detailed consideration.
NORM which does not arise from ‘practices’ is not intended to be regulated under the
TFS Regulations. Further, should certain NORM wastes not come into the scope of
national regulations of both countries involved in either NORM waste import or
export, it is not deemed to be regulated as radioactive waste. NORM is, therefore,
treated as different from artificial radioactive substances in this context. Given the
proposed changes to criteria for NORM being classified as radioactive waste under
the BSS, further guidance and clarity on the application of transfrontier shipment
provisions is likely to be required in future.
There may be a difference in application of COUNCIL DIRECTIVE
2011/70/EURATOM in respect of its application to onshore and offshore industries. It
would appear that only offshore wastes are excluded from the scope of Directive
2006/21/EC, whereas onshore waste could be included within the scope of the
Directive, hence Directive 2011/70/EURATOM could apply to offshore NORM
wastes. Legal advice is required on this point.
Dose constraints cited above would not appear to be consistent with the principles
being applied to NORM exclusion, exemption and clearance in the UK. Notably, if
NORM material only comes into scope when its dose implications are 0.3 mSv/y or
above, it would appear to be somewhat contradictory for government to require the
environment agencies to ensure doses are reduced to less than 0.3 mSv/y. as
required by the Directions placed by respective governments on the environment
agencies. Consideration will need to be given to the compatibility of these Directions
with recent changes to the exemption order regime and indeed to proposed future
changes to the Euratom BSS Directive. Similar considerations may be needed in
England and Wales to those described in section 6.1.2 above.
Consideration of the above leads to the main conclusions set out below.
71
12 CONCLUSIONS
A review of the UK and international policies, strategies and legislation that govern NORM
waste management was carried out to the terms of reference indicated in Section 2 of this
report.
The review led to the following conclusions.
The regulatory framework for NORM waste in the UK is robust, is based on radiation
protection principles (where there is a now high level of international consensus) and
provides a high level of protection to people and the environment. Notwithstanding this
overall conclusion, there are a number of legislative and policy areas that are confusing or
unclear, as listed below:
1. NORM Policy
In general, published UK radioactive waste policy does not specifically address NORM
wastes. Therefore, it is unclear whether policy requirements were intended to apply to
NORM waste or if they apply because NORM has not been explicitly considered. The recent
changes to the radioactive waste exclusions and exemptions regime [1], where NORM was
explicitly considered, highlight this gap in policy. Specifically,
(a) current Government policy requires that radioactive waste disposals should not give
rise to public exposures to ionising radiation exceeding a dose constraint of 300 µSv/y and
be optimised in accordance with the “as low as reasonably achievable” ALARA, principle.
However, this dose constraint (implying a maximum) would appear to be inconsistent with
the criteria used in Government policy to exclude NORM wastes from regulatory
consideration (300 µSv/y) i.e. this is a radiation dose where regulation of NORM waste
disposals is not deemed necessary.
(b) the term “threshold for optimisation” (10 or 20 µSv/y) is referred to in Government
policy as a dose threshold to control practices involving radioactive waste management.
However, this dose threshold is less than the criteria used to exclude NORM wastes from
regulatory consideration (300 µSv/y).
(c) it is unclear whether the 1 mSv/y dose limit to the public in the new Euratom Basic
Safety Standards Directive (BSS) is appropriate for NORM wastes
(d) the criteria proposed for exclusion of NORM wastes from regulation for worker and
public doses in the new BSS is 1 mSv/y; there is confusion whether the UK should adopt this
or a different criteria
(e) import and export policies for NORM waste may not be appropriate - see point 2
below
(f) it is unclear whether the Euratom and International BSS are consistent in terms of
NORM exclusion criteria.
72
(g) consideration needs to be given to whether the Scottish Government higher activity
waste policy/strategy needs to address NORM wastes.
2. Import/Export of NORM Waste
The policy on import and export of radioactive waste is clear and it is based on the principle
of self-sufficiency. However, due to the ubiquitous nature of NORM and the fact that other
States may not consider some wastes to be radioactive waste, it may be appropriate to
review the import export policy to ensure it is appropriate and to provide clarity with respect
to NORM wastes.
3. Transfrontier Shipments (Import/Export) of NORM Waste
NORM wastes, other than those from ’practices, fall outside the scope of the Transfrontier
Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Regulations 2008. However, it is not clear
whether they then fall within the scope of the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations
2007 (the conventional TFS Regulations). It is likely that the intention of international
treaties is that some TFS provisions should apply to all wastes and therefore if the
radioactive TFS regime does not apply, then the conventional ones should. The issue may
be further complicated by the proposed changes to the Euratom BSS which, due to changes
in terminology, may bring NORM wastes back into the radioactive TFS regime.
4. UK Justification Regulations
The new BSS makes NORM a practice rather than a work activity and this change may
mean that NORM practices may need to be specifically considered and taken account of
under the UK Justification of Practices Involving Ionising Radiation Regulations 2004
5. Spent Fuel & Radioactive Waste Directive
The scope of Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 is unclear. It can be
interpreted that the only type of NORM waste it applies to is that from the offshore industry,
but, this is unclear and further clarification is needed. However, considering that the UK has
a robust regulatory framework for controlling all NORM wastes, this would not appear to be a
problem.
6. Euratom Article 37 Requirements
The dose criteria associated with the components of the Article 37 recommendations related
to management and disposal of NORM waste are inconsistent with international
recommendations and the UK and EC regulatory framework.
7. Link between International Recommendations and Requirements and UK Legislation
International recommendations and requirements state that Competent Authorities in
Member States should consider whether NORM activities are of concern from a radiation
protection point of view when determining whether or not such activities should be subject to
regulation. A clear statement of how this is applied in the UK radioactive waste legislation
would be helpful. As the UK legislation requires that specified NORM activities are subject to
regulation, the UK environment agencies would have to apply proportionate regulation
which, if no control is reasonable, may only be to issue a permit without conditions.
73
8. Clarity of Terms: Criteria, Constraint and Limit
These terms are not always used consistently and can lead to confusion when interpreting
guidance, policy and legislation.
9. Waste Dilution and Averaging
The permissibility of dilution, mixing and averaging of NORM wastes was an issue apparent
from the literature review and raised in other work on the NORM strategy by those NORM
industries who produce, treat and dispose NORM waste. This is because it is mentioned in
the draft BSS and also several industry sectors (particularly steel) have raised the issue of
when is mixing appropriate to facilitate re-use or residues produced during steel
manufacture. The UK LLW policy expresses a preference to concentrate and contain
radioactive wastes instead of dilute and disperse and doesn’t really address mixing and
dilution of NORM residues at all. There was a consensus that clear guidance on dilution,
mixing and averaging of NORM waste is needed from the environment agencies
10 Habitats Assessments.
As discussed in section 10.2, if carrying out assessments under the UK Habitats Regulations
1994, the contribution to biota dose from NORM should be estimated and the impact of
changes in NORM regulation on this should be considered.
74
13 GLOSSARY
ACOP Approved Code of Practice
BPM Best Practicable Means
Bq becquerel
BSS Basic Safety Standards
BSSD Basic Safety Standards Directive
CoRWM Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
DECC Department of Energy and Climate Change
EC European Commission
EPR10 The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales)
Regulations 2010
EU European Union
EURATOM The European Atomic Energy Community
g gram
GRA Guidance on Requirements for Authorisation
HAW Higher Activity Radioactive Waste
HSE Health and Safety Executive
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
ICRP International Commission on Radiological Protection
ICRU International Commission on Radiation Units and
Measurements
IRR99 The Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999
kg kilogram
K-40 Potassium 40
LLW Low Level Radioactive Waste
mSv millisievert
µSv microsievert
NDA Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
NORM Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material
75
OCED/NEA The Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development
ONR Office for Nuclear Regulation
OSPAR The Convention for the Protection of the marine Environment
of the North-East Atlantic
Pb Lead
Po Polonium
REPPIR Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information)
Regulations 2001
RSA93 The Radioactive Substances Act 1993
SEPA The Scottish Environment Protection Agency
SG Scottish Government
SLC Site Licence Company
SoLA Substances of Low Activity Exemption Order.
TFS Transfrontier Shipment
Th Thorium
TiO2 Titanium Dioxide
U Uranium
UK United Kingdom
UNSCEAR United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation
VLLW Very Low Level Radioactive Waste
WHO World Health Organisation
y year
76
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