The Turnover Process at Chalk River Laboratories from Operations to Decommissioning

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has 200 facilities that account for approximately 2 million square feet of building space. Currently there are 23 facilities undergoing various stages of Decommissioning. An additional 30 facilities are scheduled to be turned over to Decommissioning in 2016. CNL is currently restructuring to transition to a Government Owned/Contractor Operated (GoCo) organization and there will be a focus to accelerate the Decommissioning of legacy facilities on site. In the past, facilities were shutdown and left in various configurations with limited documentation or limited staff knowledge of the status of the facility at the start of Decommissioning. Recently, guidelines have been developed to ensure that any facility being turned over is put into a proper and documented safe shutdown configuration. This paper will look at CNL's process for turnover of facilities from Operations to Decommissioning and identify some of the key Lessons Learned. The turnover of nuclear facilities, administrative and support buildings, components or areas from Operations to Decommissioning needs to be documented and managed to ensure Health, Safety, Security and Environmental (HSSE) risks are identified, eliminated or effectively controlled. At CNL, the turnover document Table of Contents is: Introduction and Purpose; Facility Boundaries; Known Deficiencies; Facility Status; Shutdown Status; Hazards; System/Equipment; Drawings/Maps/Records; Significant Environmental Aspects (SEAs); Interface; and other Transfer Documentation. The transfer documentation specifically covers: - Defined boundaries of the facility, building, component or area at the time of turnover; - Identification of all deficiencies associated with the facility, building, component or area and the person, after turnover, who will be responsible for correcting them; - Confirmation of the status of the facility, building, component or area at the time of turnover with respect to: - The status of the Preliminary Decommissioning Plan (PDP). If the PDP is not current then it should be revised before Facilities Decommissioning accepts full responsibility for the facility, building, component or area; - Details of Shutdown activities (e.g. isolations, draining, decontamination, etc.); - Hazards that remain; - Significant environmental aspects and operational controls; - Details of system/equipment that remain energized or continue to perform their design function (e.g. holding tank still containing radiological liquid, etc.); - Updated drawings and equipment specifications; - Status of Engineering Change Control (ECC) that are in progress; - Safety Related Systems (SRS) list; - Fire code and building code violations or deficiencies; - Maintenance schedule; - Inventory of Nuclear Materials; - Governing documents e.g. Criticality Safety Document, Preliminary Decommissioning Plan, Environmental Assessment, Safety Analysis Report, Facility Authorization, etc.; - Outstanding Regulatory commitments; - Information on any required amendments to the Site License; and - Listing of all documentation and records to be included with the Transfer Certificate. Key responsibilities are laid out defining what is required from each party and other groups involved in the transfer of the facility. (authors)