Management of remediation of a partly decommissioned nuclear site

The Necsa site in South Africa is a multiple facility site with operational facilities and closed facilities that have been decommissioned or are in a decommissioning phase. The operational facilities include a research reactor, isotope production facilities, nuclear fuel development facilities, waste management facilities as well as a range of chemical production facilities. The decommissioned facilities and facilities that are in a decommissioning phase consist mainly of nuclear fuel cycle facilities. Historical, recent and future events caused or could potentially cause radiological and/or chemical contamination outside facilities. An approach has been applied previously whereby cleanup of such contamination has been implemented but without a consistent approach or criteria, which resulted in a limited ability to verify and demonstrate successful cleaning. Recent developments and regulatory control initiatives resulted in review of the approach and the development of a management system to ensure environmentally good practices and management of contamination outside radiological and chemical controlled areas. The management system was developed based on pre-defined objectives, principles for site remediation and IAEA guidelines. The remediation management process as implemented on the NECSA site is illustrated in Annex 1. The principles and main building blocks of remediation management on the NECSA site are covered in the paper. (author)