[This revised report replaces the report of
11/5/03]
By Lou Brandon, CRCPD representative to the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Committee (FRMAC) Assessment Workgroup, E-6 Subcommittee advisor
Lou Brandon, E-6 Subcommittee advisor, attended the Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) Assessment Workgroup Meeting held October 28th through the 30th. The new FRMAC Assessment Manuals have been released this past summer and efforts are underway to prepare more individuals to function as assessors in a FRMAC response.
Future training needs to be rigorous enough that graduates are fully qualified with an in depth working knowledge of the FRMAC Assessment Manuals and procedures. Three levels of training were discussed and will be incorporated into a submittal for future funding. The levels include full competency training, support personnel training, and awareness training for individuals who may integrate or interface with the FRMAC.
A five day training is to be proposed that will include an evaluated drill. The training will be structured to address needs at the proficiency level, the functional level, and the awareness levels (possibly within the same class) depending on participant interest, performance, and funding availability. Follow up training could be provided by exercise participation.
Fully qualified individuals should have participated in two drills or exercises before being placed on a FRMAC assessor call out list. It was recognized that state personnel exposure to this type of training could be invaluable in providing an effective FRMAC-state interface during a real incident.
This tentative training is intended to be open at all levels to federal agency and state personnel, although the priority will be to train individuals at the proficiency level who are capable of responding immediately to national or international incidents. What we refer to as a FRMAC response nationally corresponds to a consequence management (CM) response internationally for this same group.
The TOPOFF2 exercise provided a valuable multi day experience for FRMAC participants. Workshop Day 2 focused on potential FRMAC improvements. A solution to shift changes that resulted in poorly informed replacement staff will be to stagger 12 hour, 2 person, shifts by 6 hours. Other topics addressed included news monitoring, map color schemes, map context and supporting documentation, a routine schedule of release for basic products, eventual secure website access to FRMAC products, and identification of confidence levels based on the amount of current sample data available. NARAC, http://narac.llnl.gov/, continues to develop as a valuable modeling and mapping component of FRMAC. Quality control and approved release procedures for FRMAC products will be firmed up. A need was identified to develop default WMD scenario trigger limits that are based on protective action guidelines (PAGs) and defined in terms of what responders are likely to measure. For example, what is the mR/h level at a meter for Cs-137 deposition that would correspond to a 2 rem/first year, relocation PAG? If states have these types of guidelines already in place, send a copy to Arthur Shanks, ashanks@sandia.gov who is spearheading the effort. (Noteworthy assessors may end up in demand for participation in the upcoming FRMAC assessor training.) Many improvements are in progress as a result of the workshop.
The effort to automate the FRMAC Assessment Manuals is underway and the beta testing of Turbo FRMAC has begun. The third day provided a demonstration of Turbo FRMAC in its current state. Those present had a well founded working knowledge of the Assessment Manuals, but many struggled with its orientation and results. Since many of the procedures in Volume 1 would be applied to various scenarios in Volume 3, one of the big challenges remains how to structure the flow of Turbo FRMAC. Although this program has great potential, at present, the software is not very user friendly or intuitive. A few bugs are being worked out of the latest version and many issues need to be resolved before it will be ready. States are not currently allowed to download the program or participate as beta testers due to a legal aspect of its development.
Lori Thomas, USDA, has been exploring the NRC RASCAL model along with Geographical Information System (GIS) possibilities. She has extended an offer to all states that are interested. If states are willing to provide Lori, lori.thomas@fsis.usda.gov, with specific statistics concerning the location of water intakes, dairy farms and/or similar relevant agricultural data around nuclear power plants (or possibly other sites), she will have it incorporated into GIS maps for future use by state and federal decision makers. Contact Lori if you have further questions.