RWMAC's Annual Report for 2000-2001

Chapter 3

Current Policy for Radioactive Waste Management in the UK

The current state of UK radioactive waste management policy

3.1 The last comprehensive statement of UK Government policy for the management of radioactive waste was Cm 2919 - `Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy: Final Conclusions' ¹ - issued in July 1995. This covered policy for the management of both solid radioactive waste and radioactive discharges (liquid and gaseous).

3.2 The Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA93) governs the management of radioactive wastes, through accumulation to eventual disposal, including radioactive discharges. The Nuclear Installations Act 1965 (NIA65), which governs the safe operation of licensed nuclear sites, makes specific provision for on-site storage of radioactive wastes. The environment agencies - the Environment Agency (EA) in England and Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) - and the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE's) Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) are empowered to carry out the regulation associated with RSA93 and NIA65, respectively.

3.3 The 1995 policy statement has been overtaken by various events which leave current UK radioactive waste management waste policy - in respect of both solid wastes and discharges - uncertain. In particular, it is difficult for anyone outside Government to be clear on which particular elements of Cm 2919 continue to apply and which do not. This policy deficit, in RWMAC's view, can lead to ineffective and inconsistent regulatory decisions, prejudice the ability of users of radioactive materials and owners of radioactive wastes to plan and undertake their work effectively and, as a consequence, risk wasteful use of resources.

3.4 In respect of solid wastes, the most notable development has been the collapse of the Nirex repository programme for the underground disposal of intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) and some low level radioactive waste (LLW) (see footnote ^*). This has thrown into uncertainty the future arrangements for ILW. Although Nirex has no responsibility for high level radioactive waste (HLW), the failure to develop an ILW facility has significant implications for the deep disposal concept as a whole and it is questionable whether the Cm 2919 policy of disposal of HLW in geological formations is still extant.

3.5 For a number of years, RWMAC has been pointing out that the principles behind the control of radioactive discharges are not sufficiently well defined to support consistent and effective regulation. The Committee's 'Principles Document' advice, published in July 1998 ², suggested the means by which this could be rectified. However, uncertainty was added by the UK's agreement, at a conference of parties to the OSPAR Convention held in Sintra in Portugal in July 1998, to reduce the discharge of contaminants, including radioactivity, to the marine environment of the North-east Atlantic. This has strongly influenced the need for a review of UK policy.

3.6 RWMAC accepts that, these developments aside, management of the UK's radioactive wastes, like any policy area, will be subject to regular Governmental review. The Committee also acknowledges that the present Government has various initiatives in hand to remedy the policy deficits. These are discussed in the following sections of this chapter. In particular, however, the Committee is concerned at the generally slow pace with which such work has proceeded in the past few years.

Solid radioactive waste management policy

3.7 As a result of the collapse of the Nirex programme, the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology was prompted to conduct an enquiry into the management of nuclear waste in the UK.

3.8 The Select Committee's study was really mistitled. This is because the term "nuclear waste" is generally taken to cover waste from licensed nuclear sites, whereas, in reality, radioactive wastes are also produced by various non-nuclear users. In practice, the Select Committee's report, published in March 1999 ³, looked at policy for the long-term management of all radioactive wastes. At the time of its response to the report, in October 1999, the Government stated that it would carry out a detailed and wide-ranging public consultation beginning in early 2000. The consultation paper - Managing Radioactive Waste Safely' ⁴ - was issued in September 2001.

3.9 Given the history of controversy and past failure in this area, a key question relating to the development of future policy is how the Government should go about constructing a policy for the long-term management of solid radioactive waste that commands sufficient public support to enable it to be implemented successfully. The House of Lords Select Committee concluded that future radioactive waste management policy must be the subject of wide-ranging consultation. In its response to the Select Committee's report ⁵, the Government supported this conclusion, adding that it was also considering other ways of encouraging greater public involvement.

3.10 RWMAC has also been developing its ideas on this issue, and supplying them to Ministers, for several years. This process began with the Committee's advice on the establishment of scientific consensus on the interpretation and significance of the results of science programmes into radioactive waste disposal, published in April 1999 ⁶. This identified the need to link the construction of scientific consensus with the development of a wider social consensus on the appropriate way forward. Publication of this report was followed by further work, and two letters of advice to Ministers, all of which is discussed in chapter 3 of the Committee's last Annual Report ⁷, titled `Building Consensus on Future Radioactive Waste Management Policy'. This work, led by RWMAC's Consensus Working Group, chaired by Professor Andrew Blowers (see Annex 2), culminated, in September 2001, with publication of the Committee's advice to Ministers on `The Process for Formulation of Future Policy for the Long Term Management of UK Solid Radioactive Waste' ⁸. This advice has been referred to in the Government's Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation document ⁴.

3.11 RWMAC's advice to Ministers has been based throughout on the concept of wide-ranging consultation, and full and open discussion of the issues, to decide future policy. This process must be based on the use of techniques for identifying and exploring public views. The advice provided by the Committee in September 2001 may be summarised as follows:

• "do nothing" or "decide-announce-defend" approaches to policy formulation are inappropriate; what is now needed is a consensus-building approach involving full and open discussion of the issues. Such an approach offers the best chance of identifying a policy that can ultimately be delivered;
• the policy formulation process must be founded on a set of clear guiding principles. These are: openness and transparency; early involvement of the public and other stakeholders; a deliberative and accessible process of decision-making; commitment to appropriate peer review of scientific and other expert input; and the provision of adequate time for exploration and resolution of complex issues. The issue of equity, that is the extent to which both the process for deciding policy, and the policy itself, are generally perceived and accepted to be fair, will also need to be explored;
• the process should provide for all the practicable options for the long-term management of the UK's radioactive waste to be assessed against a set of common evaluation criteria. Both the list of practicable options, and the criteria against which they are evaluated, should be developed through a process of open discussion and agreement;
• to command credibility, proposals for future policy must be seen to flow logically from the process. This indicates the need for a carefully structured and phased approach to the identification and evaluation of options;
• both the public and other stakeholder groups should be fully involved in the process from the outset. There will be a need for use of a range of consultation techniques which seek to engage the public, and provide them with accurate and objective information concerning the issues involved;
• expert advice will need to be available throughout the process. In essence, this should provide for assembly of all types of relevant information: the science base, risk assessments relating to different management options, and assessments of social and economic impacts;
• there will be an important educative element to the work throughout. It is essential that those participating have available to them information on the hazard that radioactive waste represents, and the requirements for the protection of people and the environment now and into the far future. Presenting information in an objective and easily understandable manner will be a major challenge;
• the policy formulation process should be overseen by an independent or, at least, balanced-interest, body that is widely accepted as being capable of representing the broader public interest. The remit of this body should, in the first instance, be limited to overseeing the process and transparently drawing together its findings in the form of policy recommendations to Government. The overseeing body must be adequately resourced for the inevitably demanding work programme that it will be required to undertake and/or manage. Appropriate timescales for the work must be set and adhered to;
• the Government's consultation should be used effectively to explore the detail of the necessary arrangements for consultation, option evaluation and policy proposals formulation, and the manner in which the work is to be overseen.

Annex 2 of the RWMAC advice goes on to discuss in more detail the Committee's views of the process needed for future policy formulation. This includes the way in which the options considered to be practicable would be evaluated against an openly debated and agreed set of criteria, on the basis of appropriate expert input. It also reviews various consultation techniques and their potential use as part of the policy formulation process.

3.12 In submitting its advice to Ministers, RWMAC has made the point that use of the process advocated is no guarantee of delivering a policy that will be either universally accepted or easily implemented. Whilst using the term "consensus-building" in this context, the Committee makes the point that ultimate unanimity of view is an impossible goal. Rather, it takes the term "consensus" to be "the achievement of a sufficient concurrence of view at various stages to legitimise a decision to proceed with a particular course of action". In the Committee's view, such an approach now offers the best chance of identifying policy solutions that can ultimately be delivered.

Policy for control of radioactive discharges

3.13 During the course of 2000, the Government released two consultation documents on radioactive discharges policy - the draft UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020 ⁹ and draft Statutory Guidance on the Regulation of Radioactive Discharges into the Environment from Nuclear Licensed Sites ¹⁰. These documents aim to reflect the objectives for reduction of radioactive discharges to the marine environment agreed at the OSPAR meeting in Sintra in July 1998. RWMAC has welcomed both initiatives as a means of ultimately helping to clarify the principles behind the control of radioactive discharges.

3.14 Nevertheless, RWMAC made known, in its responses to both the Discharge Strategy and Statutory Guidance proposals, a range of comments, both of substance and detail. The Committee's observations on the UK Discharge Strategy proposals were discussed in Chapter 10 of the RWMAC 20^th Annual Report ⁷, with the full text of its response given in Annex 8.

3.15 The full text of RWMAC's response to the Statutory Guidance proposals, submitted in January 2001, is given in Annex 5 to this Annual Report. Four major points were made. First, RWMAC believes that there must be a common approach to the control of discharges across all sites from which they occur, not just licensed nuclear sites. Second, there must be appropriate reconciliation of dose-reduction and activity-reduction criteria to ensure that the health benefits, measured in terms of radiation dose savings, are of a sufficient magnitude to justify the additional expenditure incurred in reducing the amount of activity discharged. Third, greater clarity is needed on how precisely doses to workers and doses to members of the public are to be weighed against one another. Lastly, an efficient and effective mechanism for judging the justification of radiological practices under the 1996 EU Basic Safety Standards Directive, a requirement that inevitably impinges on the discharge authorisation process, needs to be constructed and set in place.

3.16 The RWMAC response also talked of some of the difficulties that would be encountered if the provisions proposed in the consultation document for nuclear licensed sites were to be applied to non-nuclear users of radioactivity e.g., hospitals. It also provided observations on a range of other points arising from the proposals. The Committee hopes that the Discharge Strategy and Statutory Guidance initiatives can now be brought to fruition relatively rapidly.

The need for a holistic approach to radioactive waste policy

3.17 It will be apparent, therefore, that current work by Government to formulate policy on radioactive waste management, including exploration of public views, is being pursued through several different consultation exercises. In particular, issues relating to radioactive discharges are being dealt with separately from those involving the management of solid radioactive wastes.

3.18 However, RWMAC believes that, ultimately, it is important for Government to ensure that all aspects of its radioactive waste management policy - including that for both the handling of solid wastes and the control of discharges - are based on a clear and consistent set of principles that themselves have been suitably exposed to public debate and endorsement.

3.19 These principles should for, example, relate to the health effects of radiation, the consequent risks and their tolerability (see footnote ^*), as well as to the trade off between public and worker dose in selecting particular radioactive waste management options. They should apply, as far as is appropriate and reasonable, to both Small Users of radioactivity (hospitals, educational establishments etc) as well as licensed nuclear sites. It should also be clear how they apply in the shorter-term to day-to-day operations and, over the longer-term, to potential releases from stores and disposal facilities. Applicability to incident and accident situations, which are likely to be of particular concern to members of the public, should also be clear.

3.20 RWMAC's view is that the UK radioactive waste policy needs to be founded on this kind of holistic approach.

References

¹ Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy - Final Conclusions, HMSO, July 1995.

² The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee's Advice on Issues Which Need to be Addressed in the Guidance to be Given to the Environment Agencies on the Principles for Determining Radioactive Waste Discharge Authorisations - the `Principles Document', Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, July 1998.

³ Management of Nuclear Waste, Report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, The Stationery Office, March 1999.

⁴ Managing Radioactive Waste Safely : Proposals for Developing a Policy for Managing Solid Radioactive Waste in the UK, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs et al, September 2001.

⁵ The Government Response to the House of Lords Select Committee Report on the Management of Nuclear Waste, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, October 1999.

⁶ The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee's Advice to Ministers on the Establishment of Scientific Consensus on the Interpretation and Significance of the Results of Science Programmes into Radioactive Waste Disposal, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, April 1999.

⁷ Twentieth Annual Report of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, November 2000.

⁸ The Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee's Advice to Ministers on the Process for Formulation of Future Policy for the Long Term Management of UK Solid Radioactive Waste, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, September 2001.

⁹ UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020, Consultation Document, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions et al, June 2000.

¹⁰ Statutory Guidance on the Regulation of Radioactive Discharges into the Environment from Nuclear Licensed Sites : a Consultation Paper, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, October 2000.

* On 17 March 1997, John Gummer, then Secretary of State for the Environment, dismissed an appeal by UK Nirex Limited against refusal by Cumbria County Council to grant planning permission for a Rock Characterisation Facility (underground laboratory) to investigate the geological and hydrogeological conditions in the vicinity of Longlands Farm, near the Sellafield nuclear site.

* Tolerability of risk is a concept formulated by the HSE which recognises that there is an upper limit of risk, beyond which risk is always intolerable, and a lower level below which it is, in the context of day-to-day life, negligible. Between the two, there is a region in which the risk is only tolerable if it can be made "as low as reasonably practicable", i.e., to reduce it further would involve disproportionately high cost.