To ensure environmental sustainability, all interventions are designed, implemented and monitored so as not to produce any impact, neither radiological nor conventional, on the environment.
Sogin manages a complex environmental radiological surveillance network and monitors, with continuous and programmed checks, the quality of the air, soil, groundwater and sea water, of marine sediments and those of the nearby canal, of the sand, fauna of the sea of the coastline in front of the plant, as well as of the main local agrifood products: milk, fruit and vegetables. The environmental radiological monitoring network was established at the time of construction of the nuclear plants.
Every year, Sogin systematically carries out hundreds of measurements on the food and environmental matrices that constitute the environmental monitoring network. ARPA Lazio carries out similar monitoring and surveillance activities with its own network.
The results of the analyses and the values of the discharge formulas have always confirmed radiologically insignificant environmental impacts. The monitoring results are sent to the Italian nuclear Authority and made public, also through our Sustainability Report.
In October 2011, the EIA Decree envisaged, with three specific provisions, that Sogin should also carry out conventional environmental monitoring alongside the existing radiological monitoring. Immediately after the issue of the decree, Sogin planned and supplemented the existing network to start the conventional monitoring program.
In autumn 2013, Sogin started the local area characterisation sampling programme. These initial analyses highlighted anomalous values of the concentration of vinyl chloride in three samples of surface ground water. This was immediately communicated to the Authorities and other interested bodies and, on 2 August, a press release was issued.
Sogin immediately activated a rigorous process to establish the causes and extent of the event. The values measured were not attributable to the decommissioning activities, since analytes extraneous to the production cycle of the nuclear power plant were identified. At the moment, Sogin is proceeding with further investigation and analyses, also upstream of the plant, as required by the characterisation plan approved in the Services Conference of March 2014.