REGIONAL RADIOLOGICAL SECURITY PARTNERSHIP IN SOUTHEAST ASIA - INCREASING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF SECURITY SYSTEMS AT THE SITE-LEVEL BY USING A MODEL FACILITY APPROACH.

In 2004, Australia, through the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, created the Regional Security of Radioactive Sources project and partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative and the International Atomic Energy Agency to form the Southeast Asian Regional Radiological Security Partnership (RRSP). The intent of the RRSP is to cooperate with countries in Southeast Asia to improve the security of their radioactive sources. This Southeast Asian Partnership seeks to improve the security of high risk radioactive sources by raising awareness of the need and developing national programs to protect and control such materials, improve the security of such materials, and recover and condition the materials no longer in use. The RRSP has used many tools to meet those objectives including: provision of physical protection upgrades, awareness training, physical protection training, regulatory development, locating and recovering orphan sources, and most recently - development of model security procedures at a model facility. This paper discusses the benefits of establishing a model facility, the methods employed by the RRSP, and three of the expected outcomes of the Model Facility approach. First, is to increase compliance with source security guidance materials and national regulations by adding context to those materials, and illustrating their impact on a facility. Second, the effectiveness of each of the tools above is increased by making them part of an integrated system. Third, the methods used to develop the model procedures establishes a sustainable process that can ultimately be transferred to all facilities beyond the model. Overall, the RRSP has used the Model Facility approach as an important tool to increase the security of radioactive sources and to position facilities and countries for the long term secure management of those sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]