Enviromental Impact Assessment for Rovno

Within the framework of the G-7/EU Action Plan, the European Commission agreed to provide Ukraine assistance in the completion of the Rovno-4 and Khmelnitsky-2 units.

To be able to decide on the support on completion of the unfinished units the European Commission and the EBRD, the potential financier, required, inter alia, an environmental assessment, covering radiological and other aspects, demonstrating that the potential effects of completing the new units are compatible with the European Union standards and practices in respect to the environment and public protection. Additionally, evidence was required that protection of workers is compatible with current best practice, in particular what regards radiological protection.

To comply with Ukrainian regulations, the NPPs in the licensing process have to issue an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The preparation of that document is the responsibility of Kievenergoproject (KIEP) and assistance to the effort was given within another TACIS project. The assessment document produced in the current project was used as input to the EIR, which was scheduled to be completed by the end of 1998.

The Partner Organisation of this TACIS project was Goskomatom. The TOR for the project presumed subcontracting in order to make the best use of locally available capacities and to realise a transfer of know-how in the project related fields. In the TOR, KIEP was mentioned as one possible subcontractor to collect data. However, a subcontract on collection of the data, which is needed in environmental impact assessment, was signed already earlier between the PMG [1] and KIEP within the project to support the NPP owner in the project management related to the completion of the two NPP units. These data were available to SRTI. Instead of subcontracting organisations, SRTI directly hired three local experts to its team to deal with tasks concerning exploration of the existing situation in the country.

[1] The Project Management Group, PMG, is an association between Goskomatom and three European Utilities (EDF, IVO, Tractebel).

The main objective of this project was to produce an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that will assess the potential effect of completing the new units of Rovno 4 and Khmelnitsky 2 and to evaluate their compatibility with the European Union standards and practices in respect of the environment and public protection; this EIA will consider both normal operating conditions and emergency situations.

Another objective was to provide an environmental assessment of the “most favourable option” other than nuclear, that could offset the loss of electrical generating capacity resulting from closure of Chernobyl 1 & 3.

In detail the following deliverables were expected:

An environmental impact assessment report containing:
• report on responsibilities in managing radioactive effluent releases and radiological protection policies;
• report on radiological releases policies and characteristics;
• report on staff radiological protection;
• report on research of geographical, geological, environmental and demographic data;
• report on non-radiological impact assessment of Rovno-4 and Khmelnitsky-2 activities;
• report on general assessment of radiological and non-radiological impact in comparison with internationally recognised objectives;
• environmental impact assessment of the most favourable non-nuclear alternative option;
• a scoping report on the contribution from the public;
• a proposal for support to the Ukrainian authorities in a public participation process.

Some qualitative and quantitative difficulties existed in gathering the input data during the implementation of the project. An extension period of three months was applied for in order to generate revised and corrected input data to the project. The EC signed the extension on 21 February 1997. The extension was well justified while the input data for the project was not available in schedule.
The following is a summary of the main events related to the project:

In June 1996 PMG subcontracted KIEP to collect basic data needed for implementation of environmental impact assessment;
• the EC signed a seven month contract with SRTI System on 30 July 1996;
• on 13 August 1996 the Contractor representatives first time met the management of the Ukrainian Nuclear Regulatory Administration;
• three Ukrainian experts were hired to the Contractor’s team already before the kick-off meeting allowing their involvement in the project from the very beginning;
• the project started officially with a kick-off meeting on 2 September 1996;
• the first visits to the two NPP sites were organised on 3 - 5 September 1996;
• a meeting to wrap-up the results of the first site visits was organised in Kiev on 6 September 1996;
• the first drafts for the EIA reports, dated 9 November 1996, were submitted to the EC on 12 November 1996;
• the inception report on the project was issued on 7 December 1996 (covering the project period 19 August - 7 December 1996);
• the second drafts for the EIA reports were submitted to the EC on 16 December 1996;
• three scoping meetings related to the public participation were organised: on 6 November in Kiev, on 3 December in Netishin (Khmelnitsky NPP) and on 5 December in Rovno. In addition a special meeting was organised in Kiev in December 1996;
• a draft scoping report was submitted to the EC on 10 January 1997;
• the scoping process was approved and completed in a project coordination meeting in Brussels on 29 January 1997;
• meetings to perform the Corrective Action Plan for generation revised and corrected input data to the project were conducted from 17 to 26 February 1997;
• a three month extension to the project period was accepted by the EC on 21 February 1997;
• a final version of the scoping report was submitted to the EC on 6 March 1997;
• the project results were discussed between the EC, the Contractor and the Partner Organisation in Kiev on 23 April 1997;
• presentation of the project final report to the EC and the EBRD is planned to take place in Brussels before the end of May 1997.
The specific objectives of the project as listed before have been achieved on a reasonable quality level, but with 2 limitations.

The two shortcomings of the performed assessment, were:
• the incompleteness of the assessment concerning the source term from the beyond design basis accidents and
• the absence of the comparison with the impact of a non-nuclear alternative.

4. Comments
For Rovno-4 and Khmelnitsky-2 there are separate final reports, the main difference being in details related to the location.
The reports are well formulated technical final reports on the environmental impact assessment study.

The reports contain topics defined in the TOR:
• policy framework,
• baseline data on environment and plant units,
• radiological protection arrangements,
• routine discharges,
• environmental impact of normal operation and environmental impact of accident sequences.

The most serious shortcomings of the reports are the incompleteness of the assessment concerning the source term from the beyond design basis accidents and the absence of the comparison with the impact of a non-nuclear alternative.