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GOVERNMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEES SEE NEED TO GET ON WITH THE TASK OF TREATING INTERMEDIATE LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT UK NUCLEAR SITES
Press release
27 June 2002
Two national Government advisory committees today published their joint view of the current state, and arrangements for managing, the UK's stock of intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW). The two national committees are the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) and the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC).
This waste was to have been buried in the deep underground repository that UK Nirex plc had been given responsibility for developing during the 1980s and 1990s. The company's programme collapsed in March 1997 when it failed to gain planning approval for a Rock Characterisation Facility - an underground laboratory - at Longlands Farm near Sellafield.
Government is currently considering how it will deal with the UK's solid radioactive waste in the longer-term under its "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" consultation programme. In the meantime the waste needs to be suitably processed and managed.
The Committees conclude as a result of their joint study:
- that it is now unsatisfactory that only a small proportion of ILW has been treated from its original form, particularly when much of it is now held in ageing facilities;
- there is now a need for plans and arrangements that carry forward treatment of some of the older legacy wastes held on the UK's nuclear sites more vigorously than has been the case in the past, in a manner that not only meets short-term safety needs but will also allow the waste to be appropriately managed in the longer-term;
- existing Government policy statements need to be developed to give an appropriate lead on this. There are ways in which current regulatory arrangements could also be improved to deliver such policy. The radioactive waste owners must also recognise their obligations to get on with the job;
- what needs to be done as a priority is to process the many forms of mobile waste into a passively safe storable form: the Committees believe it would be helpful to have appropriate and easily understandable indicators to help demonstrate to the public that the problem is being suitably and effectively addressed;
- the Government is in the process of setting up a Liabilities Management Authority (LMA), which will assume financial responsibility, in a year or two's time, for most of the UK's publicly-owned nuclear liabilities. The two Committees welcome this development. With a liabilities responsibility of over £40 billion, the LMA must be provided with both the capability and the appropriate policy and regulatory framework to be able to get on with its nuclear site clean-up work.
Notes for editors
1. The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) is the independent body that advises United Kingdom (UK) Government, including the Devolved Administrations for Scotland and Wales, on the technical and environmental implications of major issues concerning the developing and implementation of policy for the management of civil radioactive wastes. The Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC) advises the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and, when appropriate, Secretaries of State, on major issues affecting the safety of nuclear installations, including design, siting, operation, maintenance and decommissioning, which are referred to it or which it considers require attention. It also advises the HSC on the adequacy and balance of its nuclear safety research programme.
2. Radioactive wastes are divided into four categories according to the nature and quantity of the radioactivity they contain and its heat generating capacity. The categories are high level waste (HLW), intermediate level waste (ILW), low level waste (LLW) and very low level waste (VLLW). This ordering broadly reflects the decreasing radioactivity content of the waste. ILW covers a multitude of waste types, activities and half lives. It consists principally of materials that have been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (for example, fuel cladding and reactor components), and equipment and materials that have arisen from the reprocessing of spent reactor fuel (for example, ion exchange resins and filters). ILW requires radiation containment and/or shielding to protect the workers who deal with it.
3. The Committees agreed to undertake this study in early 2001, reflecting a common interest in the management of ILW from the point of view of both the safety of its more immediate on-site handling through to the potential impacts of its longer-term management on the wider UK environment and the public.
4. The Government announced its intention to set up a Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) to assume responsibility to managing public sector civil nuclear liabilities in November 2001. A White Paper setting out the Government's LMA proposals in greater detail is expected shortly. It is likely to be 2003/4 at the earliest before the LMA is fully in place to commence its work.
5. Copies of this RWMAC report are available from: Defra Publications, Admail 6000, London SW1A 2XX (e-mail defra@iforcegroup,com, price £10. The full text of the report will be available on the RWMAC website at www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/index.htm Press enquiries should be made (not before 27 June 2002) to the RWMAC Secretariat, 4/E4, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London SW1 6DE (telephone 0207 944 6262/62540 or the NuSAC Secretariat at 4NW Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS (telephone 0207-717-6887).
