Vesa TannerEuropean Commission Radiation Protection Unit (DG TREN H.4)

Report of level 3 and other exercises 12/2007 – 12/2009 Agenda item 3(d)

EUROPEANCOMMISSION

2ECURIE Competent Authorities’ Meeting 2010

. Ireland 2007

» Fire onboard a nuclear submarine. Mexico 2008 (ConvEx-3)

» NPP Laguna Verde. Greece 2009

» Cs-137 ground contamination in Corfu

ECURIE level 3 exercises

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Other exercises

. 28.1.2008 IAEA CovEx-2a. 5.2.2008 Exercise at Ascon NPP, Spain. 27.2.2008 CBSS Communication exercise. 11.3.2008 IAEA ConvEx-1a. 27.8.2008 Exercise "Leadon", Sizewell B NPP, UK. 21.5.2009 "Protection 2009" exercise,

Kozloduy, Bulgaria. 15.7.2009 IAEA ConvEx-1a. 24.9.2009 "Oscar 9" exercise, Sellafield, UK. 14.10.2009 IAEA ConvEx-2a. 19.10.2009 Exercise at Doel NPP, Belgium. 20.10.2009 Exercise at Cernavoda NPP, Romania

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Ireland 2007 feedback (1)

. The ECURIE morning team failed to immediately forward one CoDecS message. This mistake was corrected by the afternoon team.

» This highlights the importance of systematic message logging. . ECURIE room needs to be equipped with a colour printer to print maps etc.

» Colour printing was available, but it required a file transfer from CoDecS to Commission network printer. . Videoconferencing with the accident state or affected states should be

included in the exercises.

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Ireland 2007 feedback (2)

. Injecting artificial data into the EURDEP system proved to very valuable, since it made the exercise realistic and allowed the users of the system to have an updated picture of the emergency development. » This practise should be continued in future exercises.. TREN H4 emergency team should provide more added value than just facilitating communication amongst the States. The team could make more analysis of the situation, carry out situation awareness activities (mappings, table with measures taken, epidemic situation (casualties)), i.e. provide EC support and coordination of action. . Other Commission services (DG SANCO) could be used to back up DG TREN emergency systems.

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Mexico 2008 feedback (1)

. Long exercise duration was good and allowed for practice of shift changes.. The number of messages was too small given the length of the exercise.. There were extended periods where nothing was heard at all. This was waste of a potentially good opportunity to pressurise the staff involved.

» This lack of activity should be avoided in future exercises.. There was no direct access to the local monitoring data in Mexico. » It would be good to create a global automatic exchange system for

radiation monitoring data. EURDEP technology could be used as a basis for this type of system.

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Mexico 2008 feedback (2)

. Emergency team, especially the night shift, assumed a too passive role in looking for new information and mainly responded only to incoming new messages. » Emergency team members should be instructed to look for

information actively from all possible sources and communicate more with their support organisations, hierarchy and the Brussels emergency services.. Emergency team did not produce a second press update in the morning

of 10 July. This press release would have been very important for the regular 11AM press conference in Brussels. . Emergency team paper filing system needs to be improved to create a well structured and easy to use file.. It is recommended that the future ECURIE level 3 exercises would have a scenario with concrete and immediate radiological threat on the European territory.

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Greece 2009 feedback (1)

. CoDecS station in Latvia was off-line and it took the ECURIE duty officer several hours to correct the situation by fax transmissions. This meant that Latvia received the first alert (sent by CoDecS and Fax), but not the subsequent messages. The fax for incoming ECURIE messages had several paper jams during the exercise. Automatic fax forwarding to Luxembourg functioned well despite the mechanical problem in Brussels.. TREN H4 ECURIE room working environment is now in order, the problems encountered in 2007 and 2008 exercises have been fixed.. Some national contact points still do not entirely understand their obligations, for example sending a response to every message is clearly against the ECURIE instructions.

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Greece 2009 feedback (2)

. Videoconferencing with GAEC would have been useful, but was not requested by any of the participants.» Videoconferencing has been acknowledged as an important tool during an

emergency and therefore it should be included in future exercises.

. Mobile radiation monitoring data (terrestrial or airborne) can also be displayed in the EURDEP system. In this type of scenario this functionality would be particularly interesting. » In future exercises it would be very useful to demonstrate mobile monitoring

data transmissions in EURDEP.. Backwards atmospheric dispersion modelling could have given hints on where the contamination could have originated, but none of the exercise participants did this. » The ECURIE community should discuss the matter and identify those

organisations that actually are capable of backwards dispersion modelling in Europe.. Scenario should have been wider and more detailed