ASN Report 2015

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The approval procedure includes:
• presentation of an application file by the laboratory
concerned, after participation in an Inter-laboratory
Comparison Test (ILT);
• review of it by ASN;
• review of the application files – which are made
anonymous – by a pluralistic approval commission
which delivers an opinion on them.
The laboratories are approvedbyASNresolution, published
in its official bulletin. The list of approved laboratories
is updated every six months.
4.3.2 The approval commission
The approval commission is the body which is tasked
with ensuring that the measurement laboratories have
the organisational and technical competence to provide
the network with high-quality measurement results.
The commission is authorised to propose approval,
rejection, revocation or suspension of approval to ASN.
It issues a decision on the basis of an application file
submitted by the candidate laboratory and its results in
the inter-laboratory comparison tests organised by IRSN.
The commission presided over by ASN comprises
qualified persons and representatives of the State
services, laboratories, standardising authorities and
IRSN. ASN resolution 2013-CODEP-DEU-2013-061297
of 12th November 2013, appointing candidates to the
environmental radioactivity measurement laboratories
approval commission, renewed the mandates of the
commission’s members for a further five years.
4.3.3 Approval conditions
Laboratories seeking approval must set up an organisation
meeting the requirements of standard NF EN ISO/IEC
17025 concerning the general requirements for the
competence of calibration and test laboratories.
In order to demonstrate their technical competence, they
must take part in Inter-laboratoryComparisonTests (ILTs)
organised by IRSN. The ILT programme, which now
operates on a five-yearly basis, is updated annually. It is
reviewed by the approval commission and published on
the national network’swebsite .
Up to 70 laboratories sign up for each test, including a
number of laboratories from other countries.
To ensure that the laboratory approval conditions are
fully transparent, precise assessment criteria are used by
the approval commission. These criteria are published
on .
In 2015, IRSN organised four ILTs; 58 ILTs since 2003
have covered nearly 50 types of approval. The most
numerous approved laboratories (55) are in the field
of monitoring of radioactivity in water. About thirty
to forty laboratories are approved for measurement of
biological matrices (fauna, flora, milk), atmospheric dust,
air, or ambient gamma dosimetry. 32 laboratories deal
with soils and sediments. Although most laboratories
are competent to measure gamma emitters in all
environmental matrices, only about ten of them are
approved to measure carbon-14, transuranic elements
or radionuclides of the natural chains of uranium and
thorium in water, soil and sediments and the biological
matrices (grass, plant crops or livestock breeding, milk,
aquatic fauna and flora, etc.).
The national network’s website:
In order to meet the transparency goal, the RNM launched a
website in 2010 to present the environmental radioactivity
monitoring results and information on the health impact of
nuclear activities in France. In order to guarantee the quality
of the measurements, only those taken by an approved
laboratory or by IRSN may be communicated to the RNM.
The website is organised around three topics (radioactivity,
the national network and the measurements map) and
can be used to obtain information about radioactivity
(what is radioactivity? how is it measured? what are its
biological effects?), about the national monitoring network
(operation, network participants, laboratory approval
procedure), plus access to a database containing all the
radioactivity measurements taken nationwide (almost
600,000 measurements). The RNM management report is
also available on it.
ASN considers that the launch of the RNM website is a
decisive step forward in terms of transparency. It however
considers this to be just a first step in providing the public
with environmental radioactivity monitoring information, and
ensures that the expectations of the general public and web
users about how they would like this website to develop are
identified and taken into account. A panel of users was set up
in 2012 to test the website. This feedback led ASN and IRSN
to decide to initiate an overhaul of the site, in order to add
functions and information enabling the public to understand
and interpret the environmental radioactivity measurement
results transmitted to the RNM.
After approval by the RNM steering committee in
November 2014, the overhaul of the site was started in
2015. The new version of the
site should be on-line during the course of 2016.
UNDERSTAND
156 CHAPTER 04: REGULATION OF NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES AND EXPOSURE TO IONISING RADIATION
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015