Westinghouse Hanford Company ALARA year-end report, Calendar Year 1994: Revision 3A, Radiological engineering and ALARA

It has long been the US Department of Energy`s (DOE`s) Policy that radiation doses should be maintained as far below the dose limits as is reasonably achievable. This policy, known as the ``ALARA Principle of radiation protection,`` maintains that radiation exposures should be maintained as low as reasonably achievable, taking into account social, technical, economic, practical, and public policy considerations. The ALARA Principle is based on the hypothesis that even very low radiation doses carry some risk. As a result, it is not enough to maintain doses at/or slightly below limits; the lower the doses, the lower the risks. Because it is not possible to reduce all doses at DOE facilities to zero, economic and social factors must be considered to determine the optimal level of radiation doses. According to the ALARA Principle, if doses are too high, resources should be well spent to reduce them. At some point, the resources being spent to maintain low doses are exactly balanced by the risks avoided. Reducing doses below this point results in a misallocation of resources; the resources could be spent elsewhere and have a greater positive impact on health and safety. The objective of the Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) ALARA/Contamination Control Improvement Project (CCIP) Program is to manage and control exposures (both individual and collective) to the work force, the general public, and the environment to levels as low as is reasonable using the aforementioned ALARA Principle.