1. Environmental Monitoring at the Necsa Pelindaba site
SARPA Workshop
By:
Nonkululeko Fionah Khathi
24 March 2010

2. Outline The purpose of environmental monitoring programme
Objectives of the environmental monitoring programme
Details of the environmental monitoring programme

3. The Purpose of the Monitoring Programme
Prove compliance to legislation with the aim of protecting the public from high exposure to radio

4. Objectives of the Monitoring Programme
Verification of controls
Assurance that there are no adverse long-term radiological trends
Validation of assumptions made in the analysis of risks
Identification of uncontrolled discharges
Provision of a baseline
Provision of data for the assessment of actual or potential exposure of the public

5. Pathway Monitoring Two main release pathways
The Crocodile River
The atmosphere
Dominant exposure pathways
Liquid pathway = drinking water; crop irrigation and fish consumption
Air pathway = iodine exposure in milk consumption

6. Stack Monitoring Uranium stacks – 18 Alpha activity – 7
Beta activity – 7
Iodine – 5
Noble gases – 2
Tritium - 1

7. Atmospheric Monitoring (1)
Atmospheric iodine, atmospheric particulates, deposited fallout and tritium

8. Atmospheric Monitoring (3)
Atmospheric uranium particulates (tacky sacks)

9. Water Monitoring (1)
Drinking water

10. Water Monitoring (2)
River water

11. Water Monitoring (3)
Dam water

12. Water Monitoring (4)
Boundary stream water

13. Sediment
Quarterly (7 locations on and off the Necsa site)

14. Soil
Annual soil

15. Milk, Food and Fish
Weekly
Quarterly
Semi-annually

16. Thabana Monitoring
Quarterly boreholes, vegetation and soil

17. Conclusion
Continuous environmental monitoring gives evidences that the controls are effective.
Through trend analysis of monitoring results shows that there are no adverse radiological trends.
The current monitoring allows for identification of uncontrolled discharges.
The monitoring data is available and can be used as baseline in case of emergency/accidental discharges
The monitoring allows for evaluation any impact that releases from Necsa have on the environment and is adequate to ensure that the public is exposed to dose within limit.

18. Thank You!!!