[ RadSafe ] ICRP Draft Report for Consultation: Protection of the Environment under Different

[Fred BY]

ICRP

"The draft ICRP report "Protection of the Environment under Different
Exposure
Situations" is now available for public consultation. ICRP welcomes comments
from individuals and groups. The draft document can be downloaded, and
comments
submitted, through the ICRP web site.

Comments must be submitted through the ICRP web site no later than October
12,
2012.

Draft Executive Summary

In this report the Commission provides further recommendations with regard
to
the protection of the environment that have been drawn up within its
existing
overall framework of protection. The report explains how the recommendations
with regard to environmental protection are integrated into the Commission's
aims to manage radiation under all exposure situations, by way of the
introduction of an additional category of exposure, that of environmental
exposures. It also examines how these recommendations relate to the
Commission's
three key principles of justification, optimization of protection, and the
application of dose limits. The report describes the logic behind the need
to
apply a set of Derived Consideration Reference Levels for managing the
exposures
of animals and plants in existing exposure situations, plus Environmental
Reference Levels for individual sources in planned exposure situations, and
the
use of a pattern of dose rate bands selected to represent severe radiation
effects for evaluating environmental consequences in emergency exposure
situations.

The Annex to this report reviews the types of environmental protection
legislation currently in place in relation to large industrial sites and
practices, and the various forms in which wildlife are protected from
various
threats arising from such sites. The Commission's own approach to protection
of
the environment, based on various points of reference, is then discussed in
the
context of different categories of environmental exposure situations
(normal,
existing, and emergency) and how this approach may be interfaced with the
actual
situations being assessed by way of the selection of Representative
Organisms.
Because the assessment process will also, by necessity, involve an
engagement
with relevant stakeholder bodies, some outline guidance and advice is given
with
regard to how this engagement should be handled. "

http://www.icrp.org/page.asp?id=164