TRAININGS AND EXERCISES

The tasks of raising the level of TCC personnel skill, improving hardware and software systems and maintaining a high level of TCC emergency preparedness in everyday activity mode are primarily resolved through the exercises and training. TCC IBRAE RAN is an active participant of emergency response exercises which are regularly held at the facilities of "Rosenergoatom" and are organized by the State Corporation "Rosatom" and EMERCOM of Russia. The regional crisis centers are also involved in these activities. The TCC experts annually participate in preparation and conduct of 3-4 trainings of facility, departmental and regional levels, develop the technological and radiological scenarios of emergencies at NRHF, specialized simulation software, and train personnel. Directly in the exercise course, TCC provides assessment of the source of radioactive release, forecasting of radiological consequences of hypothetical accident and develops the recommendations on protection of population and environment.

Joint emergency response exercises and training are the area of broad international cooperation. Among the important examples of such cooperation, it should be mentioned IBRAE participation in national exercises at research reactors "Becquerel-1996" and "Saclay-2000" within the partnership with the IRSN (France), international exercise "Aragats-99" at the Armenian NPP, joint exercises with the Department of Energy of the United States at Bilibino (2002), at NIIAR BOR-60 reactor (2003, 2015), training in mitigation of the consequences of hypothetic accidents during SNF overloading on nuclear icebreaker at "Atomflot" (2005, 2015 ) and FSUE "" Zvezdochka "(2008).

TCC experts are actively involved in preparing and conducting the exercises with territorial subsystems of RERS. Starting from 2007, the comprehensive emergency and tabletop exercises are held annually in the different regions of our country. “Novovoronezh-2011”, "Arctic-2011, 2012" and "Kursk 2012" were the most large-scale exercises.

Exercises

Regular exercises of personnel of crisis centers began in 1999, when it become possible to use the Internet for interaction. During the exercises, the messages were by fax in addition to information exchange via the Internet. To date, communications between the emergency response participants at the facility, municipal, regional and federal levels is organized by following information channels: video conferencing, ftp-server, fax, phone, e-mail (see Fig. 1).

This system allows the participants work in a single information space at all stages of emergency exercise, including the preparatory stages and summarizing.

The intensity of such training and exercises has remained rather stable, ranging from a few to a dozen in a calendar year. articipants work in a single information space at all stages of emergency exercise, including the preparatory stages and summarizing.

In recent years, special attention is given to training of personnel of various departments in the interaction with mass media. The special centers are established for public communication in the crisis centers of the agencies, regions, and nuclear facilities.Exercises in public communication

The following tasks are solving during such emergency exercises:

Informing the public through mass media about the radiation consequences of hypothetical accident, victims, the progress of localization and mitigation of consequences of the accident (preparation of press releases, reflection of information attacks);
Collection and analysis of the comments and suggestions; development of additional measures to improve the emergency preparedness readiness based on these data.

Fig.1. Communications between exercise participants

Combined exercises

The exercises conducted to date can be divided by departmental belonging:

Tabletop emergency response exercises of OPAS group and personnel of NPP of Rosenergoatom Concern;
Tabletop emergency response exercises to work out the decision-making mechanisms in radiation emergencies which conducted by EMERCOM of Russia or the State Corporation “Rosatom";
International exercises to practise in interaction in the event of major radiation accident.

In recent years, about four dozen different exercises involving different national services were carried out.

The drills and exercises allow:

identifying the causes of the discrepancies in assessments and identifying the ways to harmonize the attitudes of representatives of the local governments, mass media, scientists and experts, public and local communities in the field of population protection and remediation of the areas affected by radioactive contamination;
comparing the domestic and foreign methodical, organizational and technical levels of information support for decision-making in the event of an accident, including expert equipment;
assessing the necessity and sufficiency of information available for reliable forecast of radiation consequences of possible accidents at NRHF, as well as assessing the effectiveness of planned countermeasures to protect the population.

In addition, all participants and observers from various departments acquire valuable experience in various fields from the exercise and trainings.

1) The regional authorities:

improve the process of decision-making on population protection in the event of radiation accidents;
gain methodological experience in conducting the drills and exercises;
discuss the adopted dose limits for additional exposure due to radioactive contamination of the territory, regarding the prospects for their approach with the internationally accepted levels of intervention;
develop a strategy and tactics of protective actions necessary to address the problems associated with contamination of the territory in the area of the accident at NPP or NRHS.

2) The scientists and experts gain experience in the following areas:

use of information technology, databases, computer codes, geoinformation and other software tools developed under information and system-analytical support programs for mitigation of accident consequences;
comparison of methods for examination and evaluation of the effectiveness of their approaches to information support of local authorities.

Also, an important aspect is to arrange interaction between various crisis centers and to gain access to timely information of the partners. Over the last year on-line data exchange are organized between the TSC of IBRAE RAN, FSUE "SCC of Rosatom" and the National Emergency Management Center of EMERCOM of Russia.

Thus, the system to achieve and maintain a high skill of personnel of nuclear facilities created and maintained in Russia to date. Particular attention is given to the system of continuous training in emergency response and actions for the prevention and elimination of radiation emergencies. Theoretical knowledge and skills of managers and experts of nuclear facilities are strengthened through regular exercises and training.

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