On December 14, a delegation of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine headed by the First Deputy Minister Mr Oleksandr Krasnolutskiy visited the ChNPP industrial site.
Representatives of the Ministry, the managers of the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management and Exclusion Zone enterprises laid flowers at the memorial to the victims of the Chornobyl disaster established near the Administrative building of the Chornobyl NPP.
After the ceremony of honouring the liquidators of the Chornobyl accident, Mr Krasnolutskiy and Acting Head of the SAUEZM Andrii Tymchuk personally presented departmental awards to the Chornobyl NPP personnel who were on rotation today.
At the end of November, ChNPP obtained the original copy of the license entitling the enterprise to process and store the radioactive waste which exists and results from Shelter facility transformation into an environmentally safe system.
Amendments were made to the license, and they are about extension of the implementation periods for a number of activities at New Safe Confinement-Shelter facility. Particularly, they include:
1. Extension of service life period for Shelter facility unstable building structures for another 6 years — up to 2029. Unstable building structures are the Shelter facility structures whose collapse probability is very high.
2. Development of a new design for unstable structure dismantling — to 2025.
3. Completion of unstable structure dismantling — up to October 31, 2029.
On November 30, ChNPP specialists participated in Round Table “Challenges of Fuel Containing Material Management”
For information
Fuel containing materials are the nuclear fuel of Chornobyl NPP former Power Unit 4 damaged due to the beyond-design-basis accident, fuel assemblies of Power Unit 4 spent fuel pool bundles and any other materials (pieces of reactor core, mixtures, corium, solutions, chemical compounds, dust etc.) containing the appreciable amount of nuclear fuel (i.e. its concentration is ≥ 1 of weight percent).
Fuel containing materials of Shelter facility are long-lived radioactive waste. The most famous example of fuel containing material is so called “elephant foot”.
In mid-November, two emergency drills were held at ChNPP. Two different facilities were chosen as training sites: Spent Fuel Storage Facility No. 1 and the Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant.
At the storage facility, the exercise scenario stipulated a fire occurrence on the equipment with further worsening of the radiation situation. At the plant, according to the scenario, a drum with radioactive waste fell during transportation, which led to the radioactive substances and aerosols release into the facility's interior.
The purpose of such exercises is to check the readiness of the operating personnel to interact with various ChNPP units, fire and rescue and medical services, as well as to practice personnel actions in stressful emergency situations. The drills and analysis of their results help to maintain a high level of emergency preparedness at the plant, improve the system of interaction and improve the skills of operational personnel to effectively respond to such situations in real life.
On November 22, a high-level opening event took place in virtual mode to kick off a series of activities on mental health support for operating personnel of NPPs in Ukraine.
This work is some part of the IAEA comprehensive medical programme announced by the IAEA Director General, Mr Rafael Mariano Grossi, on 26 April 2023.
The main objective of this programme is to enable that the operating personnel at NPPs in Ukraine have access to services of psychological counselling and mental health support. It will allow ensuring the continued fitness of these personnel for duty.
In addition, the programme assumes a series of trainings and workshops for regular staff psychologists of NPPs and psychologists in the towns-satellites.
On 14 November, the personnel of the Chornobyl NPP office in Slavutych participated in the special facility training. The drill involved employees following a designated route to reach radiation shelters, simulating actions in case of emergencies.
The drill aimed to practice response procedures and evaluate the coordination of evacuation personnel, including issuing evacuation commands, opening evacuation exits, and organizing staff.
Oksana Yegorenko, an officer from the ChNPP Emergency Preparedness and Response Department, commented that the training was successful providing practical experience for the staff to learn emergency procedures and address potential issues.
On November 7-8, the office of the Chornobyl NPP in Slavutych and the industrial site of the station were visited by experts from the IAEA Medical Mission.
The purpose of the visit was to assess the results of previous IAEA assistance missions and analyze the current needs of ChNPP in material, technical, and humanitarian assistance.
The delegation explored ways the IAEA could help improve working conditions for the personnel, including visits to the ChNPP office in Slavutych meeting with ChNPP management, and also the town hospital and Social-Psychological Centre both of which are considered to be partners of the IAEA in improving the physical and psychological condition of the plant personnel.
April 26, 1986 (1.23.40 a.m., Moscow time) – accident at Chornobyl NPP Unit No.4 in the course of design testing of one of the safety-related systems |
In the beginning of May, 1977 the assemblers, builders, servicemen and operational personnel of ChNPP begun precommissioning works at Unit 1 |