Re: Realistic training (info) -Reply

[Kenneth Prendergast <KMP@nrc.gov>]

Charles, I am not sure I can agree with your position.  From the commercial world the NRC requires Emergency Plans for necessary facilities and requires routine  EP exercises to test each licensees response.  These exercises usually test response to a release of material via plume or explosion, and  involve affected state, local, and federal agencies.  We attempted to test all aspects of emergency response.  The exercise include the response from state, local, and federal agencies and included communications, interfaces with state and local, facilities, dose assessment, command and control, coordination, and etc.  I do not specifically remember any psychological impact being tested, but such factors would be included and examined in the critiques following the exercises. I also participated in FEMA exercises which attempted to involve a total response from EPA, FDA, Law Enforcement, NRC, and NRC.  These were week long exercises conducted in conjunction with the annual exercise which are not biannual and these exercises included the areas below.  Are we ready for a major catastrophe?  I would say that from the nuclear power plant side we were and probably are.   I also know that some Emergency Operations Facilities, are routinely used to respond to actual emergencies such as forest fires and floods and that the capabilities for interagency communication and cooperation exist.  Are we ready for a chemical catastrophe and can state and local agencies handle the problem.  Based on a limited knowledge of emergency preparedness near refineries in the bay area.  I would state that I don't think so.  Has the oil and chemical industries expended adequate resources, I don't think so. Consequently, I think EPA exercises similar to NRC exercises would be beneficial. .   

>>> CHARLES BLUE <BLUE.CHARLES@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV> 03/10/98 04:41pm >>>
Excellent point and a major reason that EPA wishes to discuss these types of accidents and the lessons learned from the consequences to develop an overall picture of the post-emergency issues involved from a major release of radioactive material that directly impacts the public health and the environment.  Such issues includes:

í	Post-Emergency Management
í	Regulatory Issues
í	Agriculture and Land Use Issues
í	Clean-up Levels
í	Protective Action Guidance
í	Political, Social, Psychological and Economic Impacts on Affected Communities
í	Financial Resources and Funding Mechanisms;
í	Public Outreach Issues
í	Technical Issues
í	Post-Emergency Responses to Actual Events/Exercises/Lessons Learned
í	Public Health Issues

The United States has a lot of policy, procedures, and plans in place to respond to major accidents/incidents, but we don't have the experience of dealing with these issues like our overseas counterparts unfortunately have.  Just review the plans (Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan, Federal Response Plan, Stafford Act, Price-Anderson Act, National Contingency Plan) and you will see for yourself the depth of detail the US plans and policy goes into to address disaster emergency issues.  They just have not been applied to a real major radiological release, therefore; the US does not have the experience in dealing with the issues involved with a major release of radioactive material.  The only event that comes close is TMI.  TMI did not involve a "real" release of radioactive material, but look at the impact it had on the Nation.  So, EPA is sponsoring an International Radiological Post-Emergency Issues Conference on September 9 - 11, 1998 in Washington, D.C. to generat!
!
e discussion on this topic.  Registration is free and it is open to the general public.  For more information, please review our web site at www.epa.gov/radiation/rert/confpage.html.

Charles Blue
Health Physicist/Co-Chair
blue.charles@epamail.epa.gov

the opinions expressed above are my own and not that of EPA or anyone else.


>>> "J. J. Rozental" <josrozen@netmedia.net.il> 03/10/98 02:10pm >>>
At 12:23 PM 3/9/98 -0600, you wrote:
>In my Emergency Preparedness inspections (back in the good old days) , I
recall >some licensees using coleman lantern mantles placed on simulated
patients to add >realism and test capabilities for surveys.  I think you can
still purchase >latern mantles that contain thorium.  I also recall some
facilities that >contracted with a hospital to provide
>99mto04 which is a routinely used short-lived radionuclide.  The technetium was
>diluted and used to simulate area contamination.

>The ususal disclaimers.  KMP@NRC.COM  
>
>

Dear Mr Prendergast and Radsafers, 

       When I sent my message emphasizing that the  training needs to have a
more realistic scenario, I was not considering only the lessons learned as
cause and consequences of the TMI accident, but also and more to the causes
and consequences of the two most serious  nuclear and radiological accidents
to have occurred  to date,  April 86 and September 87. The Chernobyl and
Goiania accidents have resulted in the reexamination of many emergencies
planning principles and practices. The training should not to be addressed
to simulate only a contaminated area, but the capacity to involve all
integrated planning conception that must be activated  in  the
Infrastructure and Functional elements of the Plan. Who among us, have been
trained before in the following legacies of both accidents:
The Legacy of Chernobyl: transboundary consequences; sarcophagus; conflict
of information; contradictory value of release; contradictory value of
consequences; high migration and contamination of soil and structures;
accident not previously predicted in any scenario; fire fighting not well
prepared; psychological impact; human impact.
The Legacy of Goiania: Singular accident that happened in the Center of a
City of more than one million inhabitant;  migration and contamination of
soil; 3,500 cubic meter of Waste, now in a Repository 20 Km from Goiania;
accident not previously predicted in any scenario; total ignorance on the
fundamental of radioactivity by the population; psychological impact, human
impact; 

Many common legacies, including the media misinform and lack of Safety Culture.

I do believe that in your Emergency Preparedness inspections (back in the
good old days), as you mentioned, training for Mitigation, Communication and
Psychological Impact was not  so complex.

J. J. Rozental <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>
Israel