The need for changes in ICRP policy: some examples based on the Chernobyl experience in Ukraine

Abstract

Current ICRP policy in radiological protection (ICRP Publication 60) is based on the independent restriction of exposure and sources for practice and intervention. Such subdivision of exposure and sources leads to a number of problems and contradictions in different applications. In a recent memorandum of the ICRP, published in the Journal of Radiological Protection in 2001, and ICRP Publications 81 and 82, the directions for settling some of these problems are indicated. This paper shows that in Ukraine, after the Chernobyl accident, a number of problems and contradictions occurred as the result of strictly separated limitation of the sources and exposure. These are demonstrated through four `radiological paradoxes': (1) resettlement of inhabitants from territories radioactively contaminated after the Chernobyl accident to `clean' ones, but with anomalous high levels of radon exposure in houses; (2) necessity of summation of the Chernobyl accidental doses and doses caused by normally operating nuclear power plant (NPP) to meet the requirements of Ukrainian law, which is based on the principle of `social equity' of different sources of exposure; (3) the necessity to answer the question of primary importance: when will the Chernobyl accident finally end and when can exposure from contaminated territories be considered as exposure from old contamination? (4) the start of decommissioning of the Chernobyl NPP and transformation of the `Object Shelter' (located inside the exclusion zone) are now slowed down because of the absence of a definite ideology for dose limitation of workers involved, who are exposed to several types of source simultaneously. The authors believe that the concept of controllable dose as presented by Professor Roger H Clarke on behalf of the ICRP can resolve such paradoxes. The changes to ICRP policy need to be made carefully in order to provide an orderly transition.