[en] This Part describes activities not directly concerned with daily routine, but which are nevertheless important as they ensure constant quality and steady progress in radiation protection at CERN. New projects, another non-routine activity, require in most cases profound studies to prove their feasibility with respect to radiation protection requirements. All these activities are documented in Divisional Reports, Internal Reports and Technical Memoranda, and are listed in this report

[en] The Annual Report of the Radiation Protection Group is intended to inform the Host State Authorities, as well as the CERN Management and staff, about the radiological situation at CERN during the year 1997. The structure of the present report follows that of previous years and has five sections. It presents the results of environmental radiation monitoring, gives information about the radiation control on the sites of the Organization, describes the radiation protection activities around the CERN accelerators, reports on personnel dosimetry, calibration and instrumentation, and briefly comments on the non-routine activities of the Radiation Protection Group

[en] The Site Section of the Radiation Protection Group is in charge of general radiation protection activities related to the two CERN sites. During 1997 these activities were: - stray radiation monitoring, - radioactive waste management, - storage of radioactive items, - radioactive source control, - radioactive transport, - control of non-ionizing radiation, - thermoluminescence dosimetry, - radioactivity measurements. A summary of these activities is presented in this part

[en] The two tasks of the Dosimetry and Calibration Section at CERN are the Individual Dosimetry Service which assures the personal monitoring of about 5000 persons potentially exposed to ionizing radiation at CERN, and the Calibration Laboratory which verifies all the instruments and monitors. This equipment is used by the sections of the RP Group for assuring radiation protection around CERN's accelerators, and by the Environmental Section of TISTE. In addition, nearly 250 electronic and 300 quartz fibre dosimeters, employed in operational dosimetry, are calibrated at least once a year. The Individual Dosimetry Service uses an extended database (INDOS) which contains information about all the individual doses ever received at CERN. For most of 1997 it was operated without the support of a database administrator as the technician who had assured this work retired. The Software Support Section of TIS-TE took over the technical responsibility of the database, but in view of the many other tasks of this Section and the lack of personnel, only a few interventions for solving immediate problems were possible

[en] In 1997 the physics programme of the SPS and LEP was seriously affected by a fire in one of the surface building of the SPS; the incident caused a delay in the LEP start-up, an interruption of several weeks in the SPS fixed-target programme, and the cancellation of the lead ion run for 1997. The consequences for the experiments were, nevertheless, kept to a minimum thanks to the excellent performance of the accelerators. The neutrino experiments even accumulated a record intensity. Experiments at the ISOLDE facility benefited from 315 shifts instead of 200 as originally scheduled, and new experiments started measuring the properties of unstable elements which play a crucial role in the stars. LEP also reached record energy and luminosity in 1997. Measurements of synchrotron radiation in the LEP tunnel were repeated at the new energy value of 92 GeV, to comply with the demands of the INB procedure. Following the end of operation of ACOL and LEAR in December 1996, decommissioning of the Antiproton Accumulator and transformation of the Antiproton Collector into the Antiproton Decelerator started. Experiments in the South Hall were dismantled during the year and the hall will be used partly as a storage area for radioactive components and partly as a test area

[en] As a consequence of changes in the administrative structure of TIS Division in 1996 and 1997, the Environmental Section was integrated into the TIS Technical Services and Environment Group that also looks after the non-radiation parameters in the CERN releases and environment. However, it remains the duty of the Radiation Protection Group to define the environmental programme for radiation and radioactivity, and to report its results both inside and outside CERN. In 1997, the environmental programme was slightly modified after discussions with the Sektion zur Ueberwachung der Radioaktivitaet (SUeR) in Fribourg. Gamma spectroscopy analyses of moss and water plants collected once per year in the rivers l'Allondon, Le Lion, Le Nant d'Avril and La Versoix were added. Moss and water plants were chosen as they are sensitive indicators of the presence of natural and man-made radioactivity in the environment. Part I of this Annual Report describes the results of measurements which are relevant for assessing the radiological impact of CERN's activities on the environment and the population living in the vicinity of the CERN sites. Measurements of radioactivity released into the atmosphere and into water, as well as measurements of stray radiation at or near the CERN site boundaries, are reported