Radioecological monitoring around the Gravelines nuclear power plant - October 2023 campaign. Study carried out for: Gravelines Local Information Commission

The Gravelines Local Information Commission (CLI) has decided to renew the monitoring program initiated in 2010 with the ACRO laboratory, in order to track changes in levels of radioactivity in the environment around the nuclear power plant. On the basis of previous campaigns carried out in 2010 and 2014, the sampling plan for which had been devised with the members of the CLI, it was decided to renew most of the sampling under the same conditions (sites, indicator species, analyses carried out) in order to enable a comparison of results and to add new investigations in order to broaden the frame of reference. In this context, we have chosen to focus on three areas: Monitoring of three marine sites on either side of the NPP, to assess the impact of liquid radioactive effluents on the coastal environment; Analysis of terrestrial samples (plant cover, soil, etc.) in the Gravelines region, to assess the impact of atmospheric radioactive effluents on the terrestrial environment; Analysis of locally grown or caught food products (garden vegetables, fish). While the impact of releases from the Gravelines nuclear power plant is the main focus of this monitoring, it does not ignore other possible contributions, such as releases from other facilities, like the French and English nuclear power plants on the English Channel coast, the Orano reprocessing plant at La Hague, and fallout from nuclear bomb tests and from the Chernobyl disaster