Year Of Progress To Decommission Dounreay

25th July 2006

The first annual report on progress to decommission the former experimental reactor site at Dounreay is published today.

Dounreay Review 2005/06 has been produced by UKAEA, the body carrying out the safe clean-up and dismantling of the 140-hectare site.

Its publication covers the 12-month period since April 1, 2005, when UKAEA's clean-up role changed to that of a contractor to the new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The report outlines the key decommissioning achievements during the year as well as safety, environmental and financial indicators, and summarises the performance-based incentives that are used by the NDA to measure delivery and award fee.

Fourteen buildings were demolished, 18 laboratories cleaned out, 20 glove-boxes and 25 fume-cupboards removed, a shielded cell was decommissioned and 150 tonnes of sodium was destroyed.

Clean-up and dismantling work generated almost 250 drums of solid intermediate-level radioactive waste that were checked and consigned for storage, and over 5000 drums of solid low-level radioactive waste that were processed for disposal. In addition, 105m3 of liquid waste was successfully conditioned as solid intermediate-level waste before this work was interrupted by a spillage. A further 403 m3 of waste exempt from the
Radioactive Substances Act was generated and disposed of.

There were 10 Lost Time Accidents among the 2000 or so workers, with a maximum continuous period of almost two million man-hours without a LTA. There were 20 safety events, only one of which - the spillage in the waste treatment plant - was serious enough to be registered on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The highest radiation dose received by a member of staff was 3.26 mSv, which is 16 per cent of the annual legal limit, and the average radiation dose was 0.06 mSv.

Discharges of radioactivity to the environment were 13.25 per cent or less of the authorised limits for different radionuclides. Four radioactive particles were detected during monitoring of almost five million square metres of local beaches, and a further 41 were retrieved from the seabed.

UKAEA delivered the programme at seven per cent below budget and brought forward an additional �12 million of work from future years. Expenditure during the year was �145 million.

Dounreay Review 2005/06 can be downloaded
See Here
Hard copies can be obtained from the Communications Department, Dounreay
(tel: 01847 806080).