Survey Team Manpower Considerations

6.5Survey Team Manpower Considerations

Manpower for the survey teams to perform Plume Exposure Rate Verification Monitoring and Emergency Worker Radiation Exposure Monitoring should come from the surrounding communities, preferably within a radius of approximately 20 miles from the reactor site. Local and/or State government employees, such as firemen, highway engineers or inspectors, health department personnel, teachers, or possibly local civil defense volunteers should be considered as one source for providing the manpower. (All voluntary personnel must have extensive instrumentation and emergency monitoring procedures training and this training must be maintained by routine refresher training sessions.) Staff from the reactor facility or from the utility company who have no radiological emergency assignments are also another possible source for monitoring teams. However, primary monitoring personnel should be individuals from health department radiation control sections who are adequately trained and able to maintain the required preparedness capabilities on a full time basis. Personnel from the State or local police organization should not generally be assigned to a survey team for Plume Exposure Rate Verification measurements, since they will be needed for other functions, such as setting up road blocks, warning the population to take protective actions, escorting emergency vehicles and directing traffic. However, they should be considered as Emergency Workers and be provided with training and radiological equipment to use for their self protection.

States which have primary responsibility for all emergency response monitoring should establish emergency response teams in the locale of reactor sites. This provision should be made, especially if emergency response teams located at State headquarters cannot respond in a timely manner. Local monitoring teams could be made up of personnel from local government agencies and/or from the utility. All personnel should be properly trained in the characteristics of ionizing radiation and its hazards, use of the instrumentation, monitoring plans and procedures, data documentation, sampling techniques, and other relevant procedures. The technical quality of training should be at the highest practical level and should be taught by qualified technical personnel from the nuclear facility staff and involved State governmental agencies. Such training will require an extensive effort, therefore, personnel selected for training should be those who will likely remain in the community for a long period of time. The training should be continuously updated with hands-on practice in the use of the monitoring systems and with refresher training courses.

6.6Deployment and Operating Procedures for Survey Teams

No set guidance can be provided to develop an effective survey team deployment plan. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that subsequent deployment to assess the long-term consequences is a matter of separate concern and will involve considerations not included in the scope of this report.

Emergency plans should be designed to respond to accidents as discussed in detail in NUREG-03962 which recommends adequate flexibility to allow response to the most serious accidents. Thus, the flexibility principle advocated by NUREG-0396^lxxx should be useful for the development of a survey team deployment plan.

Deployment plans for obtaining information for the Plume Exposure Rate Verification System should contain the flexibility to encounter unexpectedly high radiation levels with the objective of minimizing the radiation exposure to survey personnel. When high radiation conditions exist, protective actions for the general public can be taken without extensive measurement. For example, dose projections based on plant status should be the basis for a protective action, such as evacuation, rather than waiting on field monitoring measurements before making the initial protective action decision.

It should be emphasized that a large number of field monitoring measurements are not required within areas in which an evacuation has been completed. The field monitoring efforts should be concentrated at the edges of the evacuated areas, because a primary responsibility of field monitoring is to determine that the evacuated area is large enough. However, since centerline measurements are required in order to make downwind dose projections, some centerline measurements may be required in an evacuated area.

In addition there are a number of site specific considerations which may need to be evaluated in the development of a deployment plan. Some of these are: (1) the terrain in the area potentially affected, (2) access to the affected area, (3) population concentration, and (4) the remoteness of the site. Some of these considerations can be reflected directly in the plan. For example, if the plume is passing over a remote area with no inhabitants, then there would be less need to assess the plume dose for protective action purposes. However, some deployment is necessary to assure that changes in local meteorology have not caused a change in plume direction toward inhabited locations.

There are a number of points to consider in making decisions as to the number and size of survey teams required for Plume Exposure Rate Verification Monitoring and Emergency Worker Exposure Rate Monitoring. A typical plan to perform the monitoring might call for 5 to 10 teams (a combination of utility teams, State teams, and local teams) of two members each. Actual deployment should be along the direction of plume travel with teams directed to take measurements at points determined by the field team coordinator at the EOC (see Section 4.5 for guidance on selection of survey points). Field monitoring teams should be given tasks to perform rather than just specific locations to report from. For example, a team should be assigned the task of defining the center line of the plume and the plume boundaries at a given distance, e.g., 2 miles, from the site. Reverification may be required whenever meteorological conditions, release rates, or release composition changes significantly. Two-member teams are recommended to assure that measurements are taken and reported in the most timely and efficient manner possible. A 100 percent replacement of survey team personnel should be available as backup in case the release lasts longer than 12 hours. A release duration of at least 18 hours must be considered for planning the required monitoring team personnel resources.

Factors that might impact on the necessary number and size of survey teams are:

1. 
   The geography of the area. The geography and size of the area to be monitored is the most important factor in determining the number of teams needed to adequately perform this function. For example, if a nuclear plant is located at a coastal site where more than half of the area covered by the EPZ is uninhabited open water or swamp land, the number of teams needed to perform offsite monitoring should be significantly smaller than for a site surrounded by populated areas. Other topographical features to be considered include rivers or mountain ranges in the EPZ with a limited number of bridges or crossings requiring long driving distances to get across these barriers. Also meteorological characteristics such as high wind variability and weather conditions that impede vehicle movement should be considered. The demographics of the area must also be considered in determining the need for greater or less accuracy by requiring more or fewer measurements.
   
2. 
   Phased Deployment. The plan should provide for phased survey team deployment in order to obtain measurements at approximately the same time or at desired time sequences.
   
3. 
   The number of preselected monitoring points for which measurements are to be made and the type of measurements to be made at each preselected point.
   
4. 
   The type and number of instruments available. The availability of instruments will determine the number of teams which can be gainfully deployed.⁴ Inadequate instrumentation could severely curtail the effectiveness of the Plume Exposure Rate Verification Monitoring System.
   
5. 
   The availability of trained survey team members.
   
6. 
   The time required for survey team members to arrive at the assigned location and to prepare for and conduct monitoring activities.
   
7. 
   The length of time that the release is expected to continue (resurvey will be necessary for releases lasting over several hours).
   

Figure 4 illustrates an example of how monitoring teams might be deployed to measure and verify an offsite release. The figure shows three monitoring assembly points (MAPs) from which the teams have been deployed. All the survey routes are along roads, streets and highways in the geographical area. The deployment is based on the assumption that the plume is within a three-sector wide area to the south of the site and covers a downwind distance of about nine miles from the site boundary. Two gamma isodose rate lines resulting from the contribution of radioiodines and noble gases in the airborne plume are portrayed within the area. The x's along the survey routes are to illustrate the preselected monitoring points where each team is to take measurements. It should be noted that the two teams (1-2 and 2-2) which were assigned routes near the reactor site on the downwind side have turned back because the radiation readings (greater than 1-5 R/h) encountered exceeded their operating limits. (The high exposure rate in this case is due to the high-level inhalation exposure from radioiodine, approximately 20 pCi/cm³, which gives a projected thyroid dose of more than 5 rem after a one hour exposure. Also, it should be noted that the preselected monitoring points are closer together near the site and around the small town located to the south of the site where more definition of the exposure rate variations is desired.

Figure 4. Example of Deployment of Monitoring Teams

• 
  M. Hunt, Ed., Emergency Monitoring Procedures; University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada (August 3, 1970).
  
• 
  Radiological Emergency Operations, USAEC TID-24919, Students Manual (July 1968).
  
• 
  Nuclear Accident Contamination Control, Department of Army Field Manual FM3-15 (November 1975).