The Belgian radiation protection authority (Federal Agency for Nuclear Control – FANC) has published in March 2013 a decree regulating the acceptance of NORM residues by non-radioactive waste treatment facilities. This regulation is based on the concept of “work activities involving natural radiation sources” in the sense of article 40 of the 96/29/EURATOM directive. The disposal or processing facilities which accept NORM residues with an activity concentration above a generic exemption level will be considered as “work activities” and submitted to declaration according to the Belgian radiation protection regulations. On basis of this declaration, specific acceptance criteria for the different types of processing/disposal of the residues (disposal on landfill, recycling into building materials, etc.) are imposed. FANC has drafted guidelines for these acceptance criteria. A methodological guide for the operators of the concerned facilities was also published. Moreover, sites where significant quantities of NORM residues are or have been disposed, are subjected to an environmental monitoring in the framework of the national program of radiological surveillance of FANC.
FANC also introduced in its regulations the concept of anthropogenic radon-prone areas: e.g. former phosphogypsum stacks have been defined as anthropogenic radon-prone areas, which allows some form of regulatory control of these sites.
