RWMAC home |
Terms of Reference |
Membership |
Reports & Publications |
RSA93 Consultations |
Press Releases |
Contacting RWMAC

Defra: Radioactivity |
Defra Home Page

WATCHDOG RECOMMENDS CLOSER MINISTRY OF DEFENCE FOCUS ON ITS RADIOACTIVE WASTES

Press release
24 July 2001

Most of these wastes are produced by defence contractor work on the maintenance of the UK’s nuclear-powered submarines and the development and decommissioning of nuclear weapons. Other defence wastes arise from MoD’s own activities, including the use of a wide variety of equipment, often small in scale, at a range of armed forces bases.

Professor Charles Curtis, the Chairman of RWMAC, said :

"We found that defence wastes are managed to standards comparable with those in the civil nuclear industry, although we recommend that improvements are necessary in certain areas.

The key messages of our report are two-fold. MoD needs to finalise, and publicise, a management strategy for defence wastes in order to explain the basis for its individual waste practices. It also needs to put in place better overview arrangements for all defence wastes since its ownership responsibilities, no matter how the wastes are managed, are inescapable. We believe that many areas of best practice are already in place, but an overall system is needed."

Professor Curtis explained that defence wastes produced by private sector contractors are regulated in the same way as in civil industry – by the environment agencies and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. This has delivered important benefits, and should increase public confidence. The Committee’s view is that there should be a presumption of the application of civil provisions to MoD activities. Some exceptions can be justified, notably the operation of submarine reactors, but the reasons for doing so need to be clearly set down.

Wastes produced by MoD itself are regulated in a number of, mainly non-statutory, ways. While these generally work well, MoD needs to be able to assure itself that in cases where defence wastes are not subject to civil provisions, its commitment to controls that are, as far as reasonably practicable, "at least as good", is being achieved in practice.* RWMAC’s report endorses the formation of MoD’s Naval Nuclear Regulatory Panel which takes an overview of nuclear submarine work and is in a position to provide the Ministry with "assurance" in relation to the resulting wastes. It recommends that arrangements should be made to deliver the same function across the whole range of defence wastes, including the Atomic Weapons Programme, where no such arrangements exist at present.

The report makes 38 individual recommendations, not only on regulatory and assurance mechanisms for defence wastes, but also relating to a wide range of specific practices at the larger waste producing sites, such as the privatised naval dockyard at Devonport, and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) - to which a new sector private management contractor was appointed in April 2000.

The recommendations include the need for semi-solid defence wastes, such as those produced during the decontamination of submarine reactor coolant circuits, to be immobilised, packaged and transferred to purpose-built stores. Similarly, the AWE contractor needs to continue to reduce the amount of unconditioned semi-solid and liquid wastes held at the Aldermaston site. Characterisation of radioactive contamination at the site is an urgent task.

RWMAC has reason to believe that submission of data on defence wastes to the UK Radioactive Waste Inventory may be neither comprehensive nor completely accurate and recommends that responsibility for putting this right should be allocated clearly within MoD. The Committee also criticised MoD’s failure to detect the existence of carbon-14, a long-lived radioisotope, in submarine wastes, which could pose serious problems for its waste storage strategy. Although major aspects of the problem have been resolved, RWMAC believes that MoD now needs to re-establish its credibility as a waste consignor.

Notes for editors

RWMAC is the independent body that gives advice to the UK Government, including the devolved administrations for Scotland and Wales, on policy and practices relating to the management of radioactive wastes. Its formal terms of reference apply only the management of civil wastes. This report was undertaken at the request of MoD. A RWMAC report on MoD’s arrangements for dealing with its radioactively contaminated land was published in August 2000.

* From a statement by the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoffrey Hoon MP, on 7 July 2000.

The text of the report can be found on the RWMAC website on www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/index.htm. Copies of the report can be purchased from : Defra Publications, ADMAIL 6000, London SW1A 2XX (08459 556000).

Press Enquiries : 0207 944 6260/6254 (RWMAC Secretariat – from 9.00 am on 23 July 2001).