Society News Archive
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for public comment draft regulatory guide DG-8030 "Instructions for Recording and Reporting Occupational Radiation Dose Data." The proposed guide has been revised to incorporate additional information identified since revision 2 of Reg Guide 8.7 was issued. The proposed revision describes methods that the NRC staff considers acceptable for licensees to use for preparation, retention, and reporting of occupational dose records.
The proposed guide includes changes in the process a licensee needs to follow to determine monitoring for occupational exposure, determine prior doses, record monitoring results, and report the results. The revision also references revised versions of NRC Form 4 "Cumulative Occupational Dose History" and Form 5 "Occupational Dose Record for a Monitoring Period," as well as detailed instructions for completing the forms.
The closure date for submitting comments is 27 October 2015. Comments may be submitted on the Regulations.gov website by searching for Docket ID NRC-2015-0203.
The basis of the proposed changes is as follows:
Previously, the definition of the total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) was the sum of the deep dose equivalent (DDE) to account for external exposure and the committee effective dose equivalent (CEDE) to account for internal exposure. Under the revised rule, the TEDE was redefined by replacing DDE with the effective dose equivalent for external exposure (EDEX).
As a result of the definition change to the TEDE, there is a contradiction with the current regulatory guidance. The revised TEDE definition also affected the content of NRC Forms 4 and 5 in that the EDEX is now a quantity to be recorded when monitoring external dose. The term "total organ dose equivalent" (TODE) has been added in the forms to denote the sum of DDE and committed dose equivalent (CDE) to the organ receiving the highest dose, to be consistent with regulations described in 10 CFR20.2016(a)(6).
The NRC staff has estimated that NRC Forms 4 and 5 will become effective in January 2016.
