Improving Nuclear Emergency Preparedness and Response the Need to Exercise. Abstract

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1 Improving Nuclear Emergency Preparedness and Response the Need to Exercise 1 Wim Molhoek, 2 Vince McClelland, 3 Stefan Mundigl, 4 D. A. van den Wall Bake 1 Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment VROM, Netherlands 2 Department of Energy, United States 3 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, France 4 Safety and Crisismanagement, Berenschot B.V. The Netherlands Abstract In the case of a nuclear or radiological emergency, countries need to be well prepared to manage the crisis situation. The Chernobyl accident triggered the start of many national and international programmes, which led to a considerable improvement of national and international procedures for nuclear emergency management and preparedness, especially in the areas of international communication and information exchange, and in harmonisation of response. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has been actively involved in this area, and focuses part of its work programme on the exploration and development of new concepts and future procedures to enhance national and international preparedness and response management. The effectiveness of existing nuclear emergency response plans and procedures has to be regularly tested and proven. In most countries, nuclear emergency exercises, drills and tests are regularly performed at the local, regional and national levels. To explore the international aspects of nuclear accidents, the NEA initiated and established an international nuclear emergency "exercise culture", starting with the INEX 1 table-top exercise, the first international nuclear emergency exercise in 1993, followed by the series of real-time command-post exercises INEX 2 and INEX 2000 (five exercises between ). The INEX 2 series resulted in a major step forward for nuclear emergency management. A prominent finding was the identification of deficiencies in the area of communication and information exchange which led to the development of a new communication and information exchange strategy. This strategy has been implemented in various countries as well as by the international community, and has strengthened preparedness and response to nuclear emergencies. In addition, one of these exercises explored for the first time compensation and third party liability procedures after a nuclear accident. Regarding the role of international organisations, the INEX 2 series contributed to a better knowledge and understanding of the relevant international organisations, obligations and responsibilities of each organisation, and how to co-ordinate and harmonise emergency response in the event of a nuclear emergency. On a national level, many countries participating in INEX 1 and INEX 2 exercises used the experiences and lessons identified to modify and improve national procedures for nuclear emergency preparedness and management. Based on these achievements and lessons learned, the NEA is currently developing the third generation of international nuclear emergency exercises, INEX 3, which focuses on decision-making mechanisms after a serious contamination. The INEX 3 will be a series of table-top exercises based on a footprint scenario starting from a serious contamination. The main objectives of the exercises will be agricultural countermeasures and food restrictions, including criteria for food contamination, and decisions on soft/light countermeasures such as travel, trade and tourism. Additional points of interest are socio-economic aspects, psychological issues, waste disposal in relation to agricultural countermeasures, compensation issues, and harmonisation of response. The INEX 3 exercise programme is planned to be held in the summer/autumn International nuclear emergency exercises, such as the new INEX 3 exercise, are essential to assure continuous improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of nuclear emergency preparedness and response management. 1

2 Improving Nuclear Emergency Preparedness and Response the Need to Exercise 1 Wim Molhoek, 2 Vince McClelland, 3 Stefan Mundigl, 4 D. A. van den Wall Bake 1 Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment VROM, Netherlands 2 Department of Energy, United States 3 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, France 4 Safety and Crisismanagement, Berenschot B.V. The Netherlands Introduction The past several years have seen significant national and international activities in the area of nuclear emergency management. Through the use of internationally organised, multinational drills, a wealth of experience and knowledge have been gained at both the national and international level. These lessons and experiences have focused largely on the early, urgent-communication phases of nuclear emergencies, and are currently in the process of being consolidated and incorporated into national structures and approaches. While communication and data management technologies continue to advance, international exercises are becoming more routine and tutorial. The focus of current work has thus shifted towards later accident phases, particularly to the mid-term phase when control has been regained of the emergency situation, but the accident s consequences have yet to be addressed. In addition to these classic nuclear emergency response interests, since the 11 th of September 2001 national authorities have been concerned with the accident response capabilities in case of terrorist acts that might involve radiation. Verification that existing emergency response structures, plans and capabilities are adequately flexible to address the results of terrorist activities has been a significant focus at the national level. This, in turn, has focused much attention on the physical security of large radiation sources, and of nuclear installations. The NEA s INEX Exercises From the modest national and international nuclear emergency response structures and capabilities of the pre-chernobyl era, significant and sustainable improvements have been achieved. This has not been, however, without significant efforts. Recognising the need to improve international communication and co-ordination following the Chernobyl accident, the Conventions on Early Notification and on Assistance were developed through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and quickly ratified by all relevant countries. The European Commission also issued a Directive to its Member States requiring accident notification and public communications. However, to assist countries in improving their international capabilities, the NEA developed and held a series of international nuclear emergency exercises. Broadly, the main objectives of these exercises focused on: - decision making based on limited information and uncertain plant conditions - the use of real time communications with actual equipment and procedures - public information and interaction with media - the use of real weather for real time forecasts The first International Nuclear Emergency Exercise (INEX 1) was held in This table-top exercise brought together national nuclear emergency response organisations to address a simulated accident at a fictitious reactor near the border of two fictitious countries. The results of this exercise highlighted the need for more detailed study of international issues, and lead the NEA to develop the second exercise series, INEX 2. This more ambitious drill used real national and international emergency response centres, their hardware, their procedures and their personnel to address, in realtime, a simulated accident at a real reactor. Four such exercises were performed between 1996 and 1999, with the active participation of the IAEA and the EC. Finally, the INEX 2000 exercise was organised and run in 2001, similarly to the four INEX 2 exercises but with the principal objective of testing the implementation of lessons learned from INEX 2. 2

3 Lessons Learned The experience from these exercises can be characterised broadly in the areas of communications and emergency response structural improvements. It was recognised that the communication of accidentrelated information to other countries was of strategic importance. This came of the realisation that, even for accidents with effects only within one country s national borders, other countries would be very interested in the transport of goods from the affected country, in the movement of people (by train, plane or car) into and out of the affected country, in the health and safety of their citizens in the affected country and numerous other health and safety related issues. The increasing interconnectedness of modern infrastructures only heightens the strategic need for prompt and accurate communication among nations. Further, the emergency management community began focusing on more appropriately addressing the information needs of decision makers. This involved more clearly identifying the types and formats of information that should be supplied at the various stages of an accident to facilitate the making of decisions by government officials. The technological mechanisms for collecting, transmitting and formatting accident-related information were also improved, moving from fax and Telex communications to increasing use of the world-wide web and electronic mail. In parallel to the need for better and more tailored communication and information formatting, the desire to co-ordinate actions was seen as a policy objective. In border regions, the co-ordination of urgent countermeasures for population protection was seen as needed to prevent affected populations from receiving and perceiving different levels of protection in adjoining areas. Local cross-border ties were reinforced as a result of this experience, and joint, local exercises are increasingly common. On a more international scale, some level of co-ordination of such things as travel and trade restrictions or alerts was seen as being in the interests of all affected and non-affected countries. Networks of national and international response organisations, tied together through modern electronic means, have been improved to facilitate such co-ordination. At the national level, lessons from international exercises have provoked many governments to improve and streamline their national decision-making processes and emergency plans. This recognition of the strategic importance of such nuclear emergency management structures, with the concomitant implications for resources, has lead to changes and improvements at the national and international levels. The Human Factor Successful crisis management does not only relate to hardware factors such as a clear formal organisation (responsibility, authority, control), updated manuals and effective data processing techniques. In fact successful emergency management and response relies on key software factors: the actual human performance and qualities from individual key people and crisis teams. It is well known that effective decision making under stressful circumstances depends strongly on the behaviour of the team leader. It is also known that successful media interactions to increase public confidence very much depend on the performance of the spokesperson. Therefore, more effort should be invested in the human factor: the selection, training en development of key people. Currently, most exercise scenarios limit this personal element to correctly following the given procedures for decision making and taking actions. Scenarios usually lack thorough attention to crucial, elementary key competencies such as analytical abilities, leadership, coping with stress, handling feed back. To improve the performance of the people involved, the human factor should be given far more attention. Based on research in the so-called soft sciences it is now known that important dimensions needing improvement are: - Knowledge management, with an accent on a balance between technical and social aspects - Competence management, exploring which personal and team competencies ( knowledge and skills in peoples minds ) are needed, and how can we actually measure these qualities. 3

4 - Learning by experience, with special attention to the learning ability of managers (using the method of key learning events ) - Team building aspects; how to perform optimally as a group or team to fulfil certain tasks and responsibilities Other International Exercises It should be noted that international organisations such as WMO, IAEA, EU etc. regularly conduct exercises and test their systems and means for communication. The EU and the IAEA conduct exercises of different levels, ECURIE level 0 to level 3 or CONVEX level 1 to level 3 respectively. Their level 3 exercises are large-scale exercises similar to the INEX exercises. In the framework of the Interagency Committee on the Response to Nuclear Accidents (IACRNA), the organisation of large scale international exercises has become structured and coordinated. As an important result of the experience with larger international exercises, the interval between those exercises should probably be not less than 18 months. Additional Focus While the experience and lessons from large-scale nuclear emergency exercises continues to be internalised, national and international strategic focus has shifted to other areas. Notably, since the terrorist attacks on the 11 th of September, significant efforts have been made to analyse potential radiological threats, dirty bombs, and to assure that existing nuclear emergency response structures and processes are sufficiently flexible to appropriately address these threats. Specifically focused training and procedures have been developed, as needed, nationally. Even before the terrorist attacks however, the radiological protection community was increasingly focusing its attention on accidents with large radiation sources, such as those used in industrial radiography, in medical cancer therapy machines, or in research institutes. Apart from the Chernobyl accident, where 31 fire fighters died from acute exposures to radiation, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of radiation exposure due to a commercial nuclear reactor accident. On the contrary, most of the serious radiological injuries and deaths that occur each year (there are 2 to 4 deaths annually and many more exposures above regulatory limits) are the result of exposures to large, uncontrolled radiation sources. These sources often come from abandoned medical clinic or industrial radiography equipment, and are often found by unsuspecting individuals who would like to sell them as valuable scrap metal. Better control of large sources, and a more efficient network for the exchange of information regarding lost sources, has been developed through the IAEA, and several major international conferences have been devoted to these issues. The new threat of terrorist attacks only heightens the need for great vigilance in the protection and control of such large and potentially dangerous sources of radiological hazard. It also bears noting that, in conjunction with concern over terrorist threats, much national attention has been devoted to the physical security of nuclear installations. Less urgent, but none-the-less important, is the desire by the nuclear emergency management community to better master response during the mid-term of a nuclear accident. This period is that which follows the urgent phase before a release and until the accident facility is brought under control and releases end. The characterisation of contamination deposition may not be fully complete at the beginning of this mid-term phase. During this period, agricultural aspects will be increasingly important, and the involvement of stakeholders in decision-making processes will be significant. Evacuees will want to return to their homes and businesses and normal lives, individuals from the affected areas will wish to know with certainty their exposures and risks, cleanup activities will begin and waste will be generated needing disposition. A multitude of practical questions will arise during this period, and policy, structural and procedural aspects of mid-term emergency planning must be in place for governments to appropriately respond. As mentioned earlier, social trust in government and its institutions and officers could well be threatened should mid-term responses not appropriately address the needs of stakeholders. For this reason, nuclear emergency management specialists are 4

5 now focusing on identifying the details of the types of issues that will arise, and on developing effective implementation processes and structures for their resolution. Future Plans for the Nuclear Emergency Management Programme at the NEA Remaining within the broad objectives of its programme of work, the NEA s Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health (CRPPH), through which the INEX exercises have been organised and analysed, is addressing some of the above-mentioned current issues through its Working Party on Nuclear Emergency Matters. Like the INEX programmes, the CRPPH is focusing its efforts on developing nuclear emergency exercises to assist response organisations to better meet the needs of their national decision makers. As such, the Working Party is currently designing the INEX 3 exercise. Although not yet finalised, this exercise will be a table-top exercise, similar to INEX 1. The scenario will begin assuming that a significant contamination footprint, arising from a realistic source that is described in the exercise documentation, has occurred. The actions and results of actions taken prior to the start of the exercise will be documented for players. The focus of INEX 3 will then be on response to agricultural issues and decision on food restrictions arising as a result of the contamination footprint. Depending upon the interests of the country playing the exercise, some urban contamination issues, again in the mid-term phase, can also be addressed. As this is a table-top format, countries can play the exercise individually, or with neighbouring countries depending upon their strategic national objectives. Current plans call for the exercise to be organised in late 2004 or early 2005, and to give interested national response organisations a window of a few months in which to play. A workshop will then be organised to present, compare and analyse national exercise summary reports, and to draw out common lessons and conclusions. It is hoped that through these efforts, national planning and preparation for the management of nuclear emergencies will continue to improve to better serve the needs of decision makers, and to allow stakeholder needs and concerns to be addressed in a fashion that builds trust and confidence in government. Conclusions For real further improvement of (nuclear) emergency management and response, not only national and international exercises such as INEX, CONVEX, JINEX etc. are needed, but more effort has to be invested to improve personal performance of key-persons involved! Structural plans to train and exercise individuals and teams should therefore be developed. References NEA 2003 NEA 2001a NEA 2001b NEA 2000a NEA 2000b NEA 2000c NEA 1998 Short-term Countermeasures in Case of a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency, OECD/NEA 2003 Experience from International Nuclear Emergency Exercises: The INEX 2 Series, OECD/NEA, 2001 Canadian Regional Exercise, OECD/NEA 2001 Finnish Regional Exercise, OECD/NEA 2000 Hungarian Regional Exercise, OECD/NEA 2000 Monitoring and Data Management Strategies for Nuclear Emergencies, OECD/NEA, 2000 Swiss Regional INEX 2 Exercise, OECD/NEA,