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THE
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Safety Manual
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 Alara
ALARA is an acronym
meaning As Low As Reasonably Achievable. It is a requirement
in the law, meaning all facilities possessing radioactive materials
licenses must have a formal ALARA program. It may be defined as a
professional standard of excellence, and is practiced by keeping all
doses, releases, contamination and other risks as low as reasonably
achievable. The regulatory guideline and our license requires managing
programs and procedures to achieve ¾ 10% of applicable legal limits,
such as air and water release limits, exposure limits or contamination
limits for radiation use facilities.
Michigan State
University has not needed to change its management practices significantly
with the implementation of this new law, since ALARA was written
into the license previously and has been practiced here for many
years. MSU has attempted to incur no exposures, releases or contamination,
but since this is not feasible or practical in radiation use facilities,
they are kept beneath 10% of the legal limits.
It is not a
violation of the law to exceed an ALARA guideline; however, these
occurrences alert radiation safety staff and radioactive materials
users to situations which need to be reviewed to determine whether
the practices may be modified to better reflect ALARA management
practices. Practical measures to incorporate ALARA into work practices
are included in this manual to assist radiation workers. Some simple
concepts and easy precautions may prevent contamination, exposures
and releases.
Maximum
Permissible Exposure
Radiation
Safety Manual Table of Contents
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