Good practice guidance for site characterisation Version 2

1 CIRIA W30 London, 2009. SAFEGROUNDS. Good practice guidance for site characterisation Version 2. P Towler A Rankine P Kruse A Eslava-Gomez Classic House, 174 180 Old Street, London EC1V 9BP. TEL: +44 (0)20 7549 3300 FAX: +44 (0)20 7253 0523. EMAIL: WEBSITE: SAFEGROUNDS Good practice guidance for site characterisation . Version 2. Towler, P, Rankine, A, Kruse, P, Eslava-Gomez, A. CIRIA. CIRIA W29 CIRIA 2009 RP767. Keywords Contaminated land, environmental good practice , ground improvement, ground investigation and characterisation , health and safety, in situ testing and instrumentation, nuclear, site management, sustainable construction Reader interest Classification This guidance has been AVAILABILITY Unrestricted developed primarily for site CONTENT guidance owners, site operators and their contractors. It is also STATUS Committee-guided/. addressed to governmental Stakeholder dialogue and non-governmental USER site owners, site operators, organisations and other contractors, governmental groups within the public departments, local authorities, regulators, NGOs, and other groups within the public Version control Document title: SAFEGROUNDS Good practice guidance for site characterisation Version and date: Version 1, May 2009.

2 Primary author: Enviros with support from other authors Prepared for: SAFEGROUNDS Learning Network History: Second issue. Output of stakeholder dialogue The front pages were reformatted in February 2007 for consistency across the SAFEGROUNDS documents Status: SAFEGROUNDS good practice guidance document, prepared with the SAFEGROUNDS Project Steering Group This is a live document, subject to revision. Freely available web publication Published by CIRIA, Classic House, 174 180 Old Street, London EC1V 9BP, UK. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information on the subject matter covered. It is sold and/or distributed with the understanding that neither the authors nor the publisher is thereby engaged in rendering a specific legal or any other professional service. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the publication, no warranty or fitness is provided or implied, and the authors and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage arising from its use.

3 All rights reserved. This document is freely available to download, however if you wish to use any part of the document, such as the figures, text or technical information for reproduction elsewhere (in other documents or publications), please contact the Publishing Department for more details on copyright terms and charges at: or tel: +44 (0) 20 7549 3300. 2 CIRIA W30. Summary This document presents current good practice guidance for the characterisation of legacy contaminated or potentially contaminated land on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites. Defence sites are here defined as sites currently owned by the Ministry of Defence where activities involving radioactivity have been undertaken. The Defence sites include two groups of sites: the first group are those few sites where the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (NIA65) does not apply but are managed according to the Act.

4 The second group includes the majority of defence sites where contaminated land is regulated under either Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (as amended). or under the planning regime. Contamination may be present on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites as radioactive, non-radioactive contamination and mixed contamination. These sites are covered by this good practice guidance principally because of the issue of contamination of land by radioactivity, but also to acknowledge and manage other issues including increased client involvement, heightened public awareness and security requirements. The guide has been produced for the SAFEGROUNDS Learning Network, a project managed by CIRIA, on behalf of stakeholders concerned with the health, safety, security and environmental management of contaminated land on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites.

5 It provides technical support to the main SAFEGROUNDS Land management guidance document (Hill et al, 2009a). This guidance combines the technologies and approaches that are available for the characterisation of all types of contaminated land with those widely used for radiological protection. In particular, this guidance focuses on those areas where site investigations on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites differ from those on other contaminated land sites because: nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites managed according to (NIA65) have a complex regulatory regime. There is a need for site characterisation on such sites to satisfy several regulators, who regulate under different legislation and who may have different perspectives on the management of contaminated land there are different regulatory scenarios, the aims of site characterisation on nuclear- licensed sites and defence sites may differ from other contaminated land situations on nuclear-licensed sites staff are required to be suitably qualified and experienced to undertake their responsibilities.

6 On defence sites staff and contractors must have appropriate skills and expertise there will be greater client involvement on nuclear-licensed sites or defence sites managed under NIA65, primarily driven by nuclear site licence requirements such as site health physics requirements site characterisation on nuclear-licensed sites and some defence sites may have a higher public profile, because of the potential presence of radioactive contamination. Effective communication with stakeholders (typically a wider group than would be the case for characterisation of other contaminated sites) is essential radioactive contamination is potentially present at all nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites managed according to NIA65. It is also potentially present at defence sites where luminised or thoriated components is stored, used, maintained or disposed of.

7 Good practice for characterisation of such sites is that radiation CIRIA W30 3. protection advisers (RPAs) and radiation protection supervisors (RPSs) are appointed to provide advice to the employer in compliance with the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 (IRR99) and with the Radioactive Substances Act 1993. (RSA93) It is a statutory requirement under IRR99 to appoint RPAs and RPSs if working with ionising radiations (ie if radioactive contamination is encountered). characterisation of background radioactivity, including improvement due to anthropogenic activities, is required to provide a baseline for future phases of risk assessment involving radioactivity waste minimisation is an important issue on nuclear-licensed sites. There may be requirements for waste segregation, to ensure arisings of radioactive wastes are minimised waste arisings may be radioactive or may contain mixed radioactive and non- radioactive contamination and such wastes require appropriate disposal routes to be planned special requirements apply to transporting radioactive materials, such as samples, and these need to be planned and organised to prevent deterioration of sample quality on nuclear-licensed sites, there is a requirement for long-term storage of records.

8 This may influence the selection of data collection and storage methods. 4 CIRIA W30. Structure of this guidance The figure on page 6 maps the contents of this guidance document. Core site characterisation processes are shown continuously interacting with project planning and project review activities. A multiple readership is anticipated for this document, and early sections include background information and guidance on setting up a site characterisation project. Later sections describe the characterisation process, the technologies and techniques involved, and the requirements to effectively manage the wastes produced. Delivery of a report and the need for comprehensive record-keeping completes each site characterisation project. Practitioners of site characterisation are expected to be suitably qualified and experienced staff. The guide is in eleven chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Natural and anthropogenic radioactivity.

9 Chapter 3: Health, safety, security and environmental protection. Chapter 4: Objective setting. Chapter 5: Planning the site characterisation . Chapter 6: site characterisation : non-intrusive methods. Chapter 7: site characterisation : intrusive methods. Chapter 8: site characterisation methods: sampling and analysis. Chapter 9: Waste management and transport of radioactive materials. Chapter 10: Record-keeping. Chapter 11: Uncertainty. Chapter 1 describes the types of site addressed by this guidance and its relationship with the main SAFEGROUNDS Land management guidance (Hill et al, 2009a). Chapter 2 provides a summary for readers on issues concerned with radioactivity, and radioactive contamination. It also discusses the concept of background levels of radioactivity and improvement of background, which are unrelated to activities at the site being characterised.

10 Chapter 3 covers the health, safety, security and environmental protection issues, with emphasis on those concerned with radioactivity and of particular importance on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites. Chapters 4 and 5 present issues concerned with defining objectives for, and with the planning of, site characterisation programmes. Chapter 4 emphasises the reasons why site characterisation may be required on nuclear-licensed sites and defence sites. It is recognised that the aims for a site characterisation programme depend on the regulatory scenario as well as the phase of characterisation in the overall sequence of a land quality management strategy. Chapter 5 highlights the importance of project planning and interfacing with existing site systems. Early interaction with regulators is essential, to clarify matters such as statutory ambiguities and methods of approach to characterisation .