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Home > Management Activities > Best Practicable Means (BPM) Assessment

As part of the new Radioactive Substances Act Multi Media Authorisation for the Sellafield site, the Environment Agency has placed more emphasis on Best Practicable Means (BPM) assessments for significant operations. These assessments consider how the radioactive discharges and disposals arising from current operations are minimised and where necessary identify practicable improvements.

The BPM assessment for contaminated land at Sellafield was issued in April 2007.  This treated  contaminated land at Sellafield as a waste store (the “Contaminated Land store”) and the application of BPM to that store was assessed. The aim has been to identify the day to day measures that can be undertaken to minimise the introduction of further contamination to the store and the assessment considers how the transfer of the contents of the store (into the surrounding environment or by excavation or from surface contamination) can be reduced. Where present, the controls already in place that aid the demonstration of BPM have been described. Where controls are not considered to be in place, or the level of control provided is considered to be insufficient, recommendations have been made for further improvements. 

In undertaking the BPM assessment for the Contaminated Land store the following areas have been considered:

• The management structure in place for the management of the Contaminated Land store;
• The site procedures in place for managing the Contaminated Land store;
• The groundwater monitoring programme;
• The air sampling programme; and,
• The leak detection strategies, including a baseline audit of the high risk plants.

An assessment of the Best Available Techniques (BAT) has also been made and where required recommendations for further improvement have been made.

The BPM assessment identified 19 recommendations to improve the management of the Contaminated Land store.  These recommendations include improvements in leak detection, interactions between the Contaminated Land department and other plants and further developments in the groundwater monitoring programme.

The recommendations have all been implemented.