CHAMPAGNE-ARDENNES

Purpose : final storage of waste said to be of low radioacitivity and short life

Type : surface storage center

Location : 95 ha of land surrounded by forests, some fifty kilometers to the east of Troyes, within Soulaines-Dhuys, Epothémont, and La Ville-aux-Bois (Aube)

Operator : Andra

Period of operation : since 1992

Raw material : wastes said to be of low radioactivity and short life

Nuclear materials : waste contaminated with uranium, plutonium, and tritium

Nominal capacity : 1 million m3 of waste (alpha limit per m3 and maximum limit of the total contents in alpha emitters)

Actual storage : as of April 2006, 200,000 m3 

The planned period of operation is 30 years, but, because of the high cost of storage, producers are making an effort to reduce the volume of waste that they send to the center. From the point of view of volume, the period of operation could last 50 years. On the other hand, the question arises as to whether the center may reach the authorized alpha limit before the one million m3 volume is reached. As of September 2000, the stored waste represented 1.20 PBq in beta and gamma activity and 39.5 TBq in alpha activity [Andra 00].

To prepare the site, Andra removed a layer of clay, and uncovered sands. The simple cells (in concrete) were built on a slab identical to a platform, constructed of an armored concrete slab “placed on the sands at about -4 meters in relation to the level of the center” [Marque 88]. After the packages of waste are put in place, the interstices between them are filled with concrete or gravel, then, when a structure is full, it is covered with a slab of concrete and a layer of polyurethane.

“Separate networks of pipes collect rain water, which comes, on the one hand, from empty structures, and on the other, from any water that may filter through the filled structures” [Andra 95?].

At the end of the operations phase, Andra will put in place a definitive cover, similar to that of the Centre de stockage de la Manche (CSM).

Each structure provides for the storage of 2,200 m3 of packages [Andra (95?)]. In 1999, 55 structures existed, 42 of which had already been filled and closed. The center has sufficient space for about 400 structures [DSIN 95].

The storage area itself occupies some thirty hectares. The other structures include a workshop for packaging waste and injecting cement, a transit building, a storm basin that receives rain water and, after purification, used water from the center, and a structure for experimentation, to make and study the behavior of a sample of the final cover.

The packages are delivered by road, often after having been transported by rail to the rail terminal Briénne le Château, four kilometers from the center [Rivasi 00; RGN vii-viii.97].

The Centre d’étude sur l’évaluation de la protection dans le domain nucléaire (Cepn) estimates that 90% of the waste will come from the fuel chain (EDF, Cogéma, other plants, including wastes from dismantling), and 10% from research centers, medical centers, and other small producers [Dreicer 95].

The authorization of September 4, 1989, fixes limits for different radionuclides, in order to assure, from the point of view of the administration, that the center will be able to enter into the phase of unrestricted use (“banalisation”) 300 years after operation has come to an end.

Limits, as of the date of entry of packages to the site, are fixed for cobalt 60 (400,000 TBq), strontium 90 (40,000 TBq); cesium 137 (200,000 TBq), nickel 63 (40,000 TBq), and tritium (4,000 TBq); as of the end of the operations phase, for alpha emitters (750 TBq). [The radiological capacity for other radionuclides is left to the approval of ministers.]

In 1999, DSIN authorized Andra to receive at the Center a limited quantity of chlorine 36, a long-lived radionuclide. The authorization will allow the center to store packages of graphite sleeves that were irradiated in the Bugey UNGG reactor. They posed a safety problem, at the Bugey site. The first four packages were received in April 2000 [DSIN 00].

It is the producers that certify the contents of their packages. Andra carries out destructive and nondestructive controls on a sample of packages. RFS II.2e, fixes the requirements for packages of radioactive waste intended for storage at a surface center.

Article 2.2 of the 4 September 1989 decree authorizing the creation of the center, states that “The installation will be designed, constructed, and operated so as not to release radioactive liquid or gaseous effluents during the phases of exploitation and surveillance.” Nevertheless, the center does release effluents.

Article 7.2 of the decree states:

“The installation is not authorized to release radioactive liquids. The methods for assessing respect for this requirement will be defined by the central service for protection against ionizing radiation of the minister in charge of health.”

“Any water infiltrating through the structures will be collected at their base . . . If the water proves to be contaminated, it will be sent to the packaging workshop to be incorporated into the waste or, exceptionally, evacuated from the installation to be treated in an authorized establishment” [JO 6.ix.89].

SCPRI put into place in July 1991 a regulation according to which the water collected in the storage reservoirs can be released, on condition that the analysis confirms that the added activity after dilution of the rain water in the basin is less than 400 Bq/l for all radioelements other than tritium and potassium 40 and 0.8 milliBq/l for alpha emitters. Andra reports that the limits are always respected [Gaze i.00].

Article 7.3, “Protection against the risk of spreading radioactive substances in the air,” requires that the center purify the air that may be contaminated by means of “high efficiency filters and permanent monitoring” [JO 6.ix.89].

According to Andra, the Center does not release measurable quantities of iodine 125, iodine 131, tritiated water, and gaseous tritium. The releases of tritium are the largest. In 1995, the tritium releases amounted to 4.0 GB of tritiated water, and 120 GBq of gaseous tritium; in 1998, 1.3 GBq of tritiated water and 1.2 GBq of gaseous tritium [Rivasi 00].

The Atelier de conditionnement des déchets (Workshop for packaging waste, ACD) is the main source of gaseous releases. The dossier seeking authorization for the startup of ACD in 1992 presented an estimate of the effluents that would be produced. According to Andra, DSIN considered that these effluents “were so slight that they do not appear to bear any relationship to the releases normally subject to authorization” [Quoted in GSIEN i.00].

As the result of a decree of 4 May 1995 in regard to releases from INBs,  Andra in 2002 sought modification of the 1989 decree authorizing its creation, and authorization to withdraw water and to release liquid and gaseous effluents.  Public inquiries began November 3, 2004 and January 8, 2005 respectively.  "Décret” 2006-1006, dated August 10, 2006 [Jo 11.viii.06] and an “arrểté” of August 21, 2006 [Jo 19.ix.06]  provided the authorization.   Andra is now officially authorized to release each year in the form of gas or aerosols up to 50 GBq of tritium; 5 GBq per year of carbon 14; 2.10 x 2 GBq of iodides; 2.10 x 4 GBq of other beta-gamma emitters; and 2.10 x 5 GBq of alpha emitters.  The radioactivity released in one month cannot exceed one sixth of the annual limit.  The authorized exit point for the gaseous effluents is the chimney of the ACD, which must, at the top, be at least seventeen meters above the ground.  The effluents before release must pass through very high efficiency filters. 

Andra is also authorized to release into the Noues d’Amance each year liquids containing no more than 5 GBq of tritium; 0.12 GBq of carbon 14; 0.1 GBq of other beta-gamma emitters; and 4.10 x 4 GBq of alpha emitters.  As with the gaseous effluents, the radioactivity released in one month cannot exceed one sixth of the annual limit.  There are various other physical-chemical limits on the releases.   Effluents and water infiltrating through the structures can be released into the storm-water basin unless a liter contains less than 3000 Bq of tritium; 300 Bq of carbon 14, 60 Bq of beta activity (apart from potassium 40) and 0.25 Bq of alpha activity.

ACD produced wastes in Category C, the activity of which is too important for them to be definitively stored in place and that, one may suppose, are packaged and stored temporarily on the site.

According to Andra, “the geology and hydrogeology [of the site] are simple. The storage site is built on a layer of sand that entirely drains the water towards a unique outlet, the river of “Noues d’Amance.” It is thus easy to monitor these waters. The layer of sand and the bed of the river rest on a layer of clay thirty meters thick that protects the deeper levels of water” [Andra (95?)].

Nevertheless, a study by Jean-Louis Kaelin, published by Andra states: “The natural system possesses, in addition to the outlet of the Noues d’Amance, a flow along the aquifer towards the center of the Parisian basin” of 10 l/s or 864 m3/d [Kaelin 90]. The provisional safety report reiterates this detail, stating that it “is deduced from the appearance of the regional piezometrie” [Godinot 95].

“The outlet for the infiltrating water that passes or will pass in the middle of the storage structures is not the brook but the alluvial layer of this brook. Directly beneath the brook, the base of the flow level is several meters under [the surface of the ground and under] the bed of the brook. This alluvial groundwater layer “is, for a length of 1 km, lying on the layer of sand that plunges towards the center of the Parisian basin” [Kaelin 90]. We can imagine that it is by this means that the 860 m3/d that the study edited by Andra talks about are lost [Godinot 95].

Springs existed on and around the storage site. Units were constructed below ground level. Libération-Champagne published, March 1, 1988, an article relaying an anonymous phone call that announced a “rise in the groundwater to a level higher than had been foreseen” and noted that construction “allowed the installation of drains that lower the level of the groundwater, which authorizes employees of the BRGM to affirm that it will not be possible to have a problem during the period of operation.” What will happen after the operations phase?

At the beginning of the surveillance phase, the radioactivity will still be great. The alpha activity will be almost 750 TBq for 1 million cubic meters (370 million Bq/t or 370,000 Bq/Kg). The radioelements with half-lives of about 30 years (30 years for cesium-137 and 28.1 years for strontium-90) will have a thousandth of their initial activity. The center will store 200,000 Tbq of cesium 137. After 300 years, the activity will be 200 TBq. The radioelements with longer periods will have a greater percentage of their original activity at the end of the phase of surveillance.

Radiological impact during the “banalisation” phase

By water. The provisional safety report estimates at 30 mSv/year the dose for someone who digs a well on the site of the center and exclusively consumes water from this well. According to M. Godinot, who criticizes these values, Andra explained that this dose relates to one of the “accident scenarios” and that the radiological impact had been estimated to be 30 mSv/year chiefly because of the presence of iodine 129. This value being too high in relation to the prescribed norms, the DSIN asked Andra to decrease by a factor of 10 the quantity of wastes containing the isotope. Response of M. Godinot: Andra does not have the right to say that a person who “draws his water from these sands, the best aquifer in the region,” is in an “accident” situation, and he specified that a reduction by a factor of 10 would not eliminate the danger [Godinot 95].

By external radiation. The dose would be 2.8 mSv/year for residents of houses where no construction was going on; 2 mSv in two months for workers on a highway.

By return of the radioactivity via land and roots (vegetables, grains). The fundamental safety regulations do not speak of this pathway, and Andra does not take it into account. In Andra’s scenarios, families cultivate their vegetables far from the site [Godinot 95].

Mme Rivasi cites calculations of Andra for the radiological impacts of the different scenarios during the phase of abandoning the site. They include an impact of 1.2 mSv/yr for “residence (adults)” and 1.9 mSv/yr for “residence and playground (children).” She states that “in reality, the very fact that the impact exceeds 1 mSv/yr in several cases suffices to imply that the site cannot be returned to the public domain for unrestricted use and that monitoring will remain indispensable” [Rivasi 00].

Radioactive releases during operation

In November 2006 the Crii-Rad released a report that critiques the dossier that Andra submitted to the public inquiry to obtain authorization for releases (Avis préliminaire sur le dossier de demande d’autorisation de rejets et de prélèvement d’eau du centre de stockage de l’Aube) [see www.criirad.org]..  The report by the Crii-Rad was conducted for CEDRA 52 (Collectif contre l’enfouissement des déchets radioactifs 52, Collective against the burial of radioactive waste), with the financial support of the Champagne-Ardenne Regional Council.

1) The Crii-Rad points out the discrepancy between the decree of 4 September 1989 , which stated that it guaranteed a lack of radioactive releases, and the actual releases that have occurred since.  2) The Crii-Rad notes that Andra’s inventory of radioactive substances is insufficient in that, for example, it does not include the amount of thorium 232, radium 226 (which produces the radioactive gas radon 222), and lead 210 (which creates the toxic polonium 210 when it disintegrates) stored at the site. 3) It states that the self-monitoring of releases that Andra describes in the dossier is insufficient.  Andra, for example, does not include measurement of releases of chlorine 36 (half life of 300,000 years) or nickel 63 (half life of 100 years) as such, or measurement of tritium or carbon 14 as such in aquatic plants, although the last are the radionuclides that the site releases in greatest abundance.  The “arrềté” of August 21, 2006 , maintains the monitoring regime that Andra put forth in the dossier.  4) The Crii-Rad also states that Andra underestimates the dose received by residents of the area, in part by neglecting to count exposure near the boundary and exposure due to transportation of radioactive waste.  

The Crii-Rad adds to the 10 November 2006 press release, readings of gamma radiation just outside the boundary of the site taken two days earlier.  At the south-west fence gamma radiation was two to three times the natural level.  At the east fence, beside certain storage structures, it was five times the natural level and for more than two hundred meters along the path beside the fence it was three times the normal level.

L’Association La Qualité de Vie à Ville-sur-Terre et ses environs (QV), aware of numerous people in the area who have thyroid cancer, asked in 2007 that the operation of the press, which is a major source of gaseous effluents, be stopped immediately and that an epidemiological study of area residents be conducted by an independent body.  The press, which compacts empty drums before they are placed in the alveoles, is located in the Atelier de conditionnement des déchets (ACD) [www.villesurterre.com, accessed 1.iv.07]. 

                                                                                                                                                                 --updated May 2, 2007

                                                                                              copyright © Yggdrasil 2001-2007

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