Decontamination and Decommissioning of a Radiopharmaceuticals Production Facility: Waste Management - 22075

On May 2012, Best Medical Belgium (BMB) S.A., a manufacturer of radiopharmaceutical products located at the nuclear site of Fleurus (Belgium), was declared bankrupt. According to the Belgian law, ONDRAF/NIRAS (Belgian Radioactive Waste Management Agency) was entrusted with clean-up and decommissioning operations of the former BMB facilities, nowadays known as 'ONDRAF/NIRAS Site Fleurus' (ONSF). In June 2015, ONSF launched a Decontamination and Decommissioning (D and D) program. Tractebel supports ONSF for the definition of the clean-up and decommissioning strategies, the drafting of the Final Decommissioning Plan (FDP) and the decommissioning license as well as for the clean-up follow-up and D and D works on site. Four nuclear buildings are part of the clean-up and dismantling activities. Two of them (building 20 and building 7) have already been cleaned up and decommissioned and one of them (building 8) is exclusively used for drums storage. The fourth one, Building 14 (B14) is the main building that represents the most challenging tasks due to areas with higher contamination levels and some complex dismantling challenges. This building mainly contains two cyclotrons, hot cells, laboratories and gloves boxes. This paper aims at presenting the major waste streams and waste treatment facilities implemented in order to perform clean-up and dismantling operations of the ONSF buildings with highest concerns regarding safety, economic and waste minimization issues. First, the different waste streams and associated waste evacuation routes foreseen for this project will be developed. There are three major waste evacuation routes: -Conditional release and unconditional free release; -Melting; -Radioactive waste managed by ONDRAF/NIRAS. Second, the strategy of waste management on worksites and associated waste streams will be described. The waste management on worksites is done by sorting the material in several classes in order to comply with the acceptance criteria of the different waste evacuation routes defined above and to improve waste management efficiency: -Some materials are directly put into drums on the worksites; -Some materials are free released by surface measurements; -Some materials requiring complex disassembling activities are packaged and sent to dedicated workshops; -Some other materials have to be put aside in order to define a specific treatment campaign (cables, asbestos, high irradiating/contaminated components for example). The design and the organization of the dedicated workshops for clean-up and dismantling activities will also be discussed. Third, dismantling operations that require specific dismantling workshops will be further outlined. Those can be summarized as: -The cutting of big metallic components in order to comply with the requirements of the waste evacuation routes (separation of parts complying with melting or free release evacuation routes, size/weight reduction), this will be typically done directly at the worksites; -The cutting of the activated concrete structures in order to separate the parts of the concrete that can be conditionally released or unconditionally free released. The first cutting will be done directly at the worksites while additional cutting activities will be performed if needed in a specific cutting workshop in order to comply with the waste acceptance criteria of the different waste evacuation routes. The current controlled area is therefore planned to be adapted and a new containment and extension building will be constructed in order to confine radioactive products generated by dismantling operations. This paper will describe the main means implemented (as the containment and extension building) in order to realize those operations in a safe and optimized way. The major handling and storage means foreseen on site to support the D and D operations will be discussed as well. (authors)