Commitment: zero impact on the environment

How is the environmental impact measured?

Determining the impact of waste on public health and the environment has two main steps:

• An inventory of the physical flows, based on an exact knowledge of the waste in the environment arising from the relevant activity. It should be pointed out that radioactivity, although effectively impossible to physically detect directly as it is odorless and colorless, can be measured in very great detail, radioisotope by radioisotope.
• Identification of the impact of this waste on people and ecosystems, taking into account the radiotoxicity specific to each radioisotope. The public impact on radioactive waste is expressed in a unit called a microsievert (µSv), which takes into account the specific effect of each radioisotope (type of radioactive product).

Work by the Nord-Cotentin Radioecology Group, the conclusions of which were sent to the government and made public on October 14, 1999, enabled a scientifically recognized assessment method to be drawn up enabling us to determine the impact of waste from nuclear facilities. This method is used to determine the impact of waste from the AREVA La Hague facilities.

In any event, if nuclear operators respect the waste levels authorized by the relevant authorities, this will guarantee the absence of any effect on public health and on the environment.

AREVA's commitment to &uot;zero impact&uot;

The ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection) has set the maximum acceptable impact of nuclear facilities on the public at 1 millisievert per year, so there is no need to implement any special protection.

By way of comparison, the impact of natural radioactivity on an individual in France varies between 1.5 and 6 millisieverts per year, depending on the region. The most recent work undertaken by international experts in radiological protection has set 0.03 millisieverts as the threshold below which risk becomes insignificant for humans. We can therefore consider that this is an operational definition of zero impact.

AREVA is currently committed to the impact of its La Hague facilities - irrespective of their characteristics in terms of industrial programs and the type of material processed - never exceeding the value of 0.03 millisieverts on the reference population groups. This value is effectively considered by experts as being synonymous with "zero impact" and constitutes the operational translation of the concept of zero waste.

Respect for this commitment is constantly checked by the relevant authorities, including the ASN. AREVA regularly sends off all its measurements taken in the environment, depending on the sample and analysis plans previously approved by the IRSN*. The IRSN has a branch at Beaumont-Hague, near the plant, to carry out its own samples and analyses.
*IRSN - Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) serves as technical support to the ASN.

Continuous improvement initiative

AREVA's commitment is part of a continuous improvement initiative which aims to limit the discharge of elements with the strongest impact, as a priority.

Therefore, since the entry into service of the first facilities in 1966, the impact of waste from the plant has been reduced fivefold, while the amount of fuel processed has significantly increased over the past 30 years. All epidemiological and radioecological studies performed to date, including the recent work undertaken by the Nord-Cotentin Radioecological Group, chaired by Mme. Annie Sugier, demonstrate the absence of any significant health consequences from these discharges.

This progress initiative will be carried out in the future, taking into account the work carried out by various industry research bodies. This will lead to the improvement of the facilities, as soon as the measures used for these improvements are shown to be industrially effective.