Standing up the National Ignition Facility radiation protection program.

: Operation of the NIF requires a large and varied number of routine and infrequent activities involving contaminated and radioactive systems, both in servicing online equipment and offline refurbishment of components. Routine radiological operations include up to several dozen entries into contaminated systems per day, multiple laboratories refurbishing radiologically impacted parts, handling of tens of curies of tritium, and (eventually) tens of workers spending most of their day working in radiation areas and handling moderately activated parts. Prior to the introduction of radioactive materials and neutron producing experiments (capable of causing activation), very few of the operating staff had any radiological qualifications or experience. To support the full NIF operating program, over 600 radiological workers needed to be trained, and a functional and large-scale radiological protection program needed to be put in place. It quickly became evident that there was a need to supplement the LLNL site radiological protection staff with additional radiological controls technicians and a radiological protection staff within NIF operations to manage day-to-day activities. This paper discusses the approach taken to stand up the radiological protection program and some lessons learned.