Risk Management for Verification-Related Field Missions
Experience Gained From a Simulated CTBT Inspection
Gregor Malich
Arms control agreements and disarmament arrangements continue to play a key role in international efforts to reducing the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Yet, they depend on the effectiveness of specifically devised and incorporated verification regimes. A common feature of many such efforts is their reliance on field missions, in one form or another, stand-alone or in combination with other means, in order to monitor compliance with the relevant provisions. The success of such field missions is therefore crucial and so is, in turn, their safe conduct, being the ultimate prerequisite to achieving the stated mission objective. Accordingly, risk management tailored to the relevant field mission must be the functional process to address all pertinent administrative, technical, organisational, and personnel issues. It ought to be driven by a commitment manifesting the philosophy of health and safety and should provide adequate mechanisms to eliminate hazards or to reduce the severity and/or likelihood of an undesired consequence that may result from exposure of a subject to a hazard.
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) bans nuclear weapon test explosions anywhere in order to constrain the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and the development of advanced new types of these weapons. Preparations for the effective implementation of the Treaty are carried out by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna. After the Treaty enters into force, compliance with the CTBT will be monitored by a global verification regime.
This global verification regime is currently being established and mainly comprises an International Monitoring System (IMS), an International Data Centre (IDC), and on-site inspection (OSI) capabilities. The IMS monitors the Earth for evidence of nuclear explosions and will eventually comprise 321 seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide stations as well as 16 radionuclide laboratories. Data generated at these stations are being transmitted to the IDC in Vienna, where they are processed, reviewed, and transmitted to the States Signatories. In the event that a suspected nuclear explosion is detected after the Treaty enters into force either by one of the stations of the IMS or by national technical means, any State Party can request an OSI.
An OSI would be regarded as a final verification measure. It may be launched by the CTBTO upon the request of any State Party and subsequent approval by the Executive Council. Once an OSI is approved, up to 40 inspectors and inspection assistants would deploy to the field and utilize approved inspection equipment in an inspection area of up to 1000 km2, abiding by a very short time schedule with a launching period of just six days. The purpose of an OSI would be to clarify whether a nuclear explosion has been carried out in violation of the Treaty and to gather any information which might assist in identifying the potential violator.
Challenges to Risk Management for Field Missions
Risk management is a systematic decision-making process to develop, analyze and compare options and ultimately select optimal responses for safety from a hazard. While generic approaches for risk management in the context of human health and safety exist, field missions represent a particular challenge to risk management processes as they pose a variety of health and safety concerns which are not only consequences of tasks being performed by the team but also a function of the dynamic nature of the mission. For instance, unique conditions of sites where CTBT OSIs are likely to be conducted are associated with phenomena of an ambiguous event that might or might not be a nuclear explosion and are therefore of considerable concern for the health and safety of the team. These conditions relate, inter alia, to the potential for ionizing radiation, radioactive debris, explosive ordnance, tectonic activity, and caving-in, and reflect unique features of a CTBT OSI if compared with other verification-related field missions. Additional challenges relate to those hazards that are associated with the possible conduct of a field mission at a remote site, in a foreign environment and under unidentified site conditions:
(a) Remote sites imply hazards due to poor logistics and infrastructures that are to be expected. Aspects such as aviation and road safety, travel, transportation, site accessibility and site control, communication, amenities and personal hygiene, emergency medical support, evacuation, and food and water supply therefore need to be addressed.
(b) Foreign environments, if not adapted to, might result in severe adverse consequences for members of field missions. For instance, heat stress or exposure to cold might be induced by the local climate, the local flora and wildlife may cause contagious diseases, poisoning or injury, and endemic diseases can be lethal.
(c) Unidentified site conditions of various characteristics may impede the safety of the team. For instance, geological features such as uneven terrain, steep grades or holes present a multitude of hazards. Also, potential consequences of past or present land use such as site contamination with unidentified chemical or biological substances are possible site-specific hazards. Finally, challenges to risk management processes also relate to the security at the site of a field mission since the level of security often can not be verified in advance. In this context, it is important for team members to respect local societal settings in order to avoid resentments against the mission and the team.
Health and safety programmes for field missions must ensure that, at any time during a field mission and whatever the location of the mission may be,
- the team is able to perform its activities in a manner that will not expose its personnel or any other person to hazards that constitute a level of risk beyond acceptable limits;
- in the case of an illness, accident, or incident adversely affecting any member of the team, appropriate resources and arrangements are readily available for timely treatment and/or corrective action.
Risk management should be the hallmark of health and safety programmes for field missions, even more so if these missions must adhere to tight timelines and/or are called for on short notice.
2002 OSI Field Experiment
Currently, the achievement of operational readiness for the efficient conduct of inspections is one of the priorities of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission. For this, the Commission arranged in 2002 for a field experiment (FE02) to simulate most aspects of the initial phase of a CTBT OSI. Within its overall objective, FE02 included an examination of specific health and safety provisions that had been drawn up in view of the various concerns referred to above. FE02 was designed to simulate in realistic field conditions a 50% scale of the initial phase of an OSI, including its launch, conduct, and support. After the Republic of Kazakhstan had offered the use of the territory of the National Nuclear Center, the former Semipalatinsk test site, for the field phase of FE02, an area of approximately 550 km2 was identified as surrogate inspection area. A miner’s camp about 20 km from this area served as a Base Camp for the 27 members of the surrogate inspection team. The FE02 scenario saw a 12.5 ton chemical explosion in a borehole within the inspection area, initiated 50 seconds after a 4 ton industrial explosion at the Kara Zhira coal mine, as the triggering event for an inspection request. The experiment was conducted between 14 September and 13 October 2002, including a 12-day stay at the former nuclear test site.
FE02 Health and Safety Guidelines
In view of the complex health and safety concerns posed by an OSI, Health and Safety Guidelines (Guidelines) were prepared specifically for FE02 to ensure its safe conduct. Addressing virtually all aspects of OSI health and safety in form of precautionary and protective measures, the Guidelines were used on an experimental basis. They were given to all FE02 participants in advance. However, for the inspection team to adopt a precautionary attitude that is realistic for an OSI regardless of the real scenario during the field experiment, details of the location and other information on the inspection area were not made available to team members beforehand. This restriction was an integral strategy of the experiment.
Implementation of Health and Safety Provisions
Any individual participating at a field mission must take all reasonable steps to ensure his/her own health and safety in the field. He/she must be constantly aware of his/her personal environment and be alert to the activities of others in the immediate area. Despite this, the team leader is responsible for the health and safety of the team during the field mission. It is therefore recommended that any team deploying to the field comprises health and safety experts to advise the team leader and all other team members on safety related issues.
This approach was adopted for FE02 where a health and safety subteam was formed consisting of an experienced risk assessor who was involved in the preparation of the Guidelines and a medical doctor. Upon deployment of the team, the risk assessor reviewed and monitored site conditions and recommended adjustments to requirements set out in the Guidelines, as needed. For instance, during the initial phase of FE02, team members were required to use filtering half masks during the emplacement of seismometers in order to prevent the inhalation of potentially contaminated dust. After radiation surveys during such activities indicated that risks for airborne contaminants were negligible, however, this requirement was trimmed down. Similarly, the risk assessor reviewed local health and safety regulations with a view to advising the team on how best to accommodate them. He also was given the authority to stop field activities if any operation was to threaten human health or safety beyond acceptable limits and to coordinate emergency response. This authority, however, did not need to be put into effect during FE02. The medical doctor supported the risk assessor by focusing on medical issues, hygiene, decontamination and personal protective equipment. By unobtrusive observation, he looked for indicators of non-fitness of team members for fieldwork and monitored them for signs of stress, such as cold exposure, heat stress, or fatigue. Other measures such as the provision of en route health and safety training as well as maintenance/stockpiling of safety equipment for daily field missions also contributed to the Guidelines being implemented and adhered to during FE02.
Illustrative Findings from FE02
FE02 presented a realistic setting for CTBT OSIs so that the experience gained helps shaping a health and safety programme that will prepare the team for the challenges to risk management for field missions. Illustrative examples of key findings are listed below.
Guidelines and training: The Guidelines, which aimed at preventing undesired consequences from hazards to which FE02 participants might be exposed, were successfully implemented. To increase the effectiveness of implementation efforts, however, refresher briefings during field missions should emphasize those risks that are specific to the nature of the field mission. In the context of CTBT OSI, this would mean to focus on radiation hazards, contamination monitoring, decontamination, etc.
Health and safety sub-team: The risk assessor and the medical doctor complemented each other effectively to comprehensively cover both safety and health issues. A professional medical specialist proved to be important during FE02, not only because of the confidence that his presence instilled in the team but also as a trusted counselor to team members. In view of this and given the OSI specifics with regard to the size of a team and the scope and duration of its activities in the field, at least one medical specialist should be part of a team to ensure availability of at least trusted emergency medical treatment. If possible, such capabilities should be supplemented by arranging for additional local medical support.
Local health and safety regulations: Field missions that might occur where there are local hazards (e.g., military sites, chemical plants, former test sites, etc). are likely to be subject to local safety regulations or laws which the local authorities may want to see respected by the deployed team. However, the team may perceive the implications of those regulations and laws as being too restrictive for achieving the stated mission objectives. For instance, because local safety regulations limited the maximum duration of stay within potentially contaminated sites at the former Semipalatinsk test site to 6.5 hours per day – with a view to protect individuals who regularly work in those areas – FE02 team members felt that their operations were hindered or delayed. Then again, scenarios are conceivable where the team may perceive local safety regulations as being not sufficient in view of remaining levels of risk. It should be considered that local regulations are most likely aimed at a different audience than members of field missions, or may even have been promulgated for local concerns about legal liability. Therefore, members of field missions should be allowed to operate in the field according to their own agreed standards and procedures provided that they do not compromise the safety of locals or infringe the right of a State to protect national or site confidentiality. This approach would facilitate reaching an agreement between the team and a State on how to perform field activities.
Self-support: Teams deployed to the field ought to be as self-sufficient as possible with regard to essentially all logistical aspects since reliance on support by locals may result in compromise solutions that may pose unwarranted risks. For instance, both the Guidelines and local safety regulations required that FE02 participants have a decontamination facility ready for use at the Base Camp before field activities began at the former Semipalatinsk test site. However, the deployed equipment for FE02 did not include decontamination capabilities and since the team did not request local support in time it had to devise a make-shift facility.
Radiation protection regime: Dosimetry during FE02 at the former Semipalatinsk test site has shown that team members were not exposed to ionizing radiation beyond typical background levels. However, a potential for exposure to ionizing radiation is specific for CTBT OSIs if compared to other inspection regimes such as those according to conventional arms control treaties. Accordingly, a radiation protection regime is needed for OSIs that allows the team to operate within potentially contaminated areas. Based on recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, for example, national and widely accepted international standards usually distinguish between normal practices, such as the use of radioactive substances for medical purposes, and intervention situations, such as emergencies. Also, those standards often refer to different categories of exposed individuals, namely the general public, workers, and intervention personnel. It should be taken into account that the exposure situation during field missions is not known in advance as various site contamination scenarios are conceivable. Similarities to emergency response operations are evident and should therefore be considered in enumerating health and safety standards for exposure levels to ionizing radiation. Of course, in addition to having standards for exposure levels, it is important that medical surveillance and training programmes be available, as well as defined procedures for monitoring and emergency response in a potentially radiological environment.
Conclusions
The conduct of FE02 at the former Semipalatinsk test site presented a realistic setting for field missions in general and for CTBT OSIs in particular: the inspection area was located in a remote place, with challenging, but not extreme, environmental conditions, and with site conditions unknown to the team in advance which in fact put considerable psychological stress on many team members. Leading to a number of findings illustrated above, this realism of FE02 confirmed that comprehensive health and safety provisions must be available during any field mission without delay as time is a critical factor for the success of the mission. The framework for such provisions should be a set of standards and procedures specific to the type of the mission, centered around the systematic process of risk management which will enable a team to quickly react to any occurrences in the field.
The Guidelines designed for FE02 were judged to be a good basis for further development of an overall OSI health and safety programme but might also present the groundwork for a comprehensive health and safety handbook that addresses many scenarios conceivable for verification related field missions. Details of the Guidelines and the operational experiences gained from FE02 can be obtained from the author.
