Definition of a radiological emergency situation (article R. 1333-76 of the Public Health Code)

"There is a radiological emergency when an event is likely to lead to the emission of radioactive materials or to a level of radioactivity such as to constitute a hazard for public health, in particular with reference to the limits and response levels set in articles R. 1333-8 and R. 1333-80 respectively. This event may be the result of:

1°) an incident or accident occurring during the performance of a nuclear activity defined in article L. 1333-1, including the transport of radioactive substances;

2°) a malicious act;

3°) environmental contamination detected by the environmental radioactivity measurement network mentioned in article R. 1333-11;

4°) environmental contamination made known to the competent authority under the terms of international conventions or agreements, or decisions made by the European Community for information in the event of a radiological emergency."

  
Two implementing orders were published:
– the order of 4 November 2005 concerning information of the population in the event of a radiological emergency situation;
– the order of 8 December 2005 concerning the medical aptitude check-up, radiological surveillance and training or information of the personnel involved in managing a radiological emergency situation.
1.2.6 Protection of the population in a long-term exposure situation

In recent years, and on a case by case basis, the General Directorate for Health (Ministry for Health) set clean-up thresholds for sites contaminated by radioactive substances. These were sites which had been contaminated by a nuclear activity in the recent or more distant past (use of unsealed sources, radium industry, etc.) or an industrial activity using raw materials containing significant quantities of natural radioelements (uranium and thorium families). Most of these sites are listed in the inventory distributed and periodically updated by ANDRA.

This approach has today been abandoned in favour of a complete methodological approach defined in the IPSN guide (methodology guide for sites contaminated by radioactive substances, version 0, December 2000), produced at the request of the ministries for Health and the Environment, and distributed to the prefects (DRIRE and DDASS/DRASS). Based on the current and future uses of the land and premises, this guide proposes a number of steps for local definition of rehabilitation targets expressed in terms of doses. The parties concerned (owners of the site, local elected representatives, local residents, associations) are involved in the process. Operational values for decontamination can then be set for each case.

This new approach now has a regulatory framework in article R. 1333-90 of the Public Health Code.