ASN Report 2018

to reinforce the justification of the procedures and the optimisation of the ionising radiation doses delivered to the patients. THE INDUSTRIAL AND RESEARCH SECTOR Among the nuclear activities in the industrial sector, industrial radiography and more particularly gamma radiography, are priority sectors for ASN oversight owing to their radiation protection implications. ASN considers that the risks are addressed to varying extents within the companies, even though worker dosimetry monitoring is generally carried out correctly. If the risk of incidents and the doses received by the workers are on the whole well managed by the licensee when this activity is performed in a bunker in accordance with the applicable regulations, ASN is still concerned by the observed shortcomings in terms of the demarcation of the operations area during site work. In the other priority sectors for ASN oversight in the industrial sector – industrial irradiators, particle accelerators including cyclotrons, suppliers of radioactive sources and devices containing them – the state of radiation protection is considered to be on the whole satisfactory. With regard to suppliers, ASN considers that preparations for the expiry of the sources administrative recovery period – which by default is 10 years – and the checks prior to delivery of a source to a customer, are areas in which practices still need to be improved. In the field of research , the actions carried out in recent years have led to improvements in the implementation of radiation protection within the research laboratories. The most significant improvements concern the waste and effluent storage conditions, more particularly the adoption of inspection procedures prior to their disposal. For ASN, however, this subject remains a point requiring particular attention. In addition, the registration and analysis of events which could lead to accidental or unintentional exposure of persons to ionising radiation, including as a result of insufficient traceability of the radioactive sources being held, are as yet not systematic enough. With regard to the veterinary uses of ionising radiation , ASN can see the result of efforts made by veterinary bodies over the past few years to comply with the regulations, notably in conventional radiology activities on pets. For practices concerning large animals such as horses, or performed outside veterinary facilities, ASN considers that the implementation of radiological zoning, the wearing of operational dosimeters and the radiation protection of persons from outside the veterinary facility who take part in the radiographic procedure, are points requiring particular attention. TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES ASN considers that in 2018, the safety of transport of radioactive substances is on the whole satisfactory. Even if a few transport operations were affected by incidents, primarily on the roads, they should be compared with the 770,000 transport operations carried out each year and led neither to dispersal of the package contents into the environment, nor to any significant exposure of humans. The main causes of the 91 significant events concerning the transport of radioactive substances on the public highway which occurred in 2018, were: • material non-conformities affecting a package. These however had no real consequences on the radiation protection of people or the environment, although they did weaken the package (whether or not an accident occurred); •  non-compliance with internal procedures leading to the shipment of non-conforming packages, delivery errors, or packages being temporarily mislaid. The inspections carried out by ASN also frequently identify such deviations. The consignors and carriers must therefore demonstrate greater day-to-day rigorousness. With regard to transport operations involved in the fuel cycle and, more generally, for BNIs, ASN considers that the consignors must further improve how they demonstrate that the contents actually loaded into the packaging comply with the specifications of the approval certificates and the corresponding safety analysis files. ASN observes progress over previous years, as well as better application of the recommendations made in ASN Guide No. 7 (volume 3). The improvements still needed generally concern the description of the authorised contents per type of packaging, a demonstration that no radioactive content is lost or dispersed in normal transport conditions and the impossibility of exceeding the applicable dose limits with the maximum authorised content. At a time when the uses of radionuclides in the medical sector are generating a high volume of transport traffic, progress is still needed in understanding the regulations applicable to these transports and the arrangements made by certain hospitals or nuclear medicine centres for the shipment and receipt of packages. ASN considers that the radiation protection of carriers of radiopharmaceutical products, who are significantly more exposed than the average worker, needs to be improved. ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018  13