Purpose: To present approaches to establishing the criteria for remediation of sites contaminated due to past activities of uranium mining and milling facilities. These facilities are considered today as uranium legacy.
Results: This paper presents the justified reference levels expressed in terms of annual effective dose values, which are recommended for using as remediation criteria for sites contaminated due to past activities of uranium mining and milling facilities (uranium legacy sites).
Depending on further use of the sites after remediation, these criteria range from 1 µSv/year, in case of temporary presence of the population, to 10 µSv/year, in case of permanent residence of the population and conducting economic activities.
Conclusions: In accordance with the international basic safety standards, accepted more than 10 years ago, exposure situations from radioactive material retained from previous activities refer to the existing exposure situation.
Nevertheless, neither Federal Law “On Radiation Safety of the Population” nor Radiation Safety Standards have so far introduced terms “existing exposure situation” covering exposure at nuclear and uranium legacy sites and “reference level”, which is used to assure radiation safety of the population living at legacy sites or using these sites for the purpose of the economic activities.
