Abu Dhabi: The Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) has warned a Dubai-based industrial radiography company for not complying with safety regulations.
"While allowing it to store or export radiological sources, FANR banned the company from using them," FANR said in a statement.
Exotherm Technical Testing Laboratory (Dubai) applied for a licence on 29 June 2010 to use radioactive sources for the purpose of industrial radiography, as mandated by the UAE's Federal Law by Decree No 6 of 2009.
"However, during the assessment of the application, FANR found substantial cause for concern that the company's radiation protection arrangements did not meet the authority's requirements. In particular, the arrangements for assessing the doses of workers were severely deficient and it could not be established that no worker has received dangerous doses of ionising radiation."
FANR said in these circumstances, it has issued a licence to the company that allows it only to store and export the radioactive sources, but prohibited it from conducting any other activity with them.
"Following several unannounced inspections to Exotherm during the past weeks, FANR radiation safety inspectors delivered last Thursday official correspondence from the regulatory authority in this regard. They also placed notices in multiple languages on Exotherm premises that severe legal penalties may be applied to any person using those radioactive sources. FANR inspectors were joined by officers from the Dubai Municipality who supported the action," it added.
FANR also informed the company that its initial licence application was still under investigation by the authority as there appears to be some irregularities with the documents submitted.
John Loy, FANR's Director of Radiation Safety, in the statement, said any entity that did not meet regulatory safety standards would face similar actions.
"Radiation sources are essential tools for many industrial applications," he added. "But we are here to protect the workers and the public from possible hazards of radioactivity and will exert all possible authority given to us by the Federal Laws."
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