RWMAC report on MoD radioactive waste practices

ANNEX 7
THE ATOMIC WEAPONS PROGRAMME

History

1. The Aldermaston site was established in 1950, forming part of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) until 1973, when ownership and management control of the site was transferred to MoD. The Burghfield site was originally established as a Royal Ordnance Factory for the manufacture of munitions and later became part of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in 1987.

2. Following difficulties in commissioning Trident manufacturing facilities at AWE, the Government decided to introduce modern management practices at Aldermaston and Burghfield. The Atomic Weapons Establishment Act 1991 made provision for contractorisation of the sites and a Government-Owned Contractor-Operated (GOCO) fixed term contract was let to Hunting-BRAE Limited in 1993. Under the contract, Hunting-BRAE was made responsible for management of all work activities at AWE. A holding company, AWE plc, employed all staff at the AWE sites below Board level. MoD retained ownership of the sites, all plant and equipment, and radioactive materials and wastes.

3. The Hunting-BRAE contract ran for seven years. Following publication of the Strategic Defence Review in September 1998, the Secretary of State for Defence announced that he had reviewed the options for the management of Aldermaston and Burghfield to take effect after Hunting-BRAE's contract expired in March 2000 and had decided that the sites would continue to operate in the private sector under the general GOCO arrangements described above.

4. Following a commercial tender competition held by MoD, the Secretary of State announced (December 1999) that he had selected a new contractor, AWE Management Limited (AWEML), a consortium of Serco plc, British Nuclear Fuels plc and the Lockheed Martin Corporation, to operate the sites. AWEML owns all the shares of AWE plc except for a "golden share" owned by the Secretary of State.

5. As well as the main sites of Aldermaston and Burghfield, the AWE management contract covers two other sites: Cardiff, where the site facilities are being demolished and a contract to clean-up non-severe radioactive contamination (depleted uranium and beryllium) will be let, and Blacknest, a seismic and air monitoring station, which is outside the remit of this report.

6. The implications of these developments for this latest RWMAC review of defence wastes are that, for most of the period covered, AWE was run by a management contractor, Hunting-BRAE, which is now no longer in place. At the time of preparation of this report (February 2001), the new management contractor, AWEML, had been in place for less than a year. The conclusions drawn by the Committee inevitably take account of these circumstances.

Changes in site regulation

7. Prior to commencement of the Hunting-BRAE contract on 1 April 1993, the AWE sites were operated directly by MoD and the provisions of RSA93 did not apply. EA issued Letters of Agreement for the disposal of radioactive wastes under the pseudo-RSA93 arrangements.

8. Contractorisation of the nuclear weapons programme brought the AWE sites within the ambit of RSA93 and made them subject to independent regulation by EA. The Agency now regulates the disposal of radioactive wastes, including discharges, by the granting of RSA93 authorisations. The authorisations set limits and conditions on disposals with which the contractor must legally comply.

9. The second aspect of civil regulation that has come to apply to AWE operations is the licensing of site operations by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE; the Executive's responsibilities are actually undertaken by NII) under NIA65. In the past, AWE held Crown Immunity from the provisions of the Act and nuclear activities were subject to review by MoD's Assistant Chief Scientific Adviser (Nuclear).

10. In May 1993, HSE announced that it was to carry out an extensive review of safety at the AWE sites. This review culminated in a HSE report published in October 1994. The report made 64 recommendations for improvement, one of which was that the Secretary of State for Defence should remove AWE's immunity from the provisions of NIA65. This was the position at the time of RWMAC's last visit in January 1995. The sites were granted nuclear licenses on 1 July 1997, once all but one of the HSE's recommendations (which related to provision for waste storage) had been satisfactorily addressed. NII now regulates nuclear operations at the sites, including the accumulation and storage of radioactive wastes.

11. Thus, at the present time, AWE operation falls under the scope of civil regulation under RSA93 and NIA65.

Transfer of the management contract

12. The intention to appoint AWEML as site management contractor meant that the NIA65 site licence and the RSA93 disposal authorisations, both of which were in the name of Hunting-BRAE, would effectively lapse. Neither the license nor the authorisations could simply be transferred to a new entity. In both cases, MoD decided, prior to any management contract changeover, that the license and the authorisations should for the future, subject to the views of the regulators, reside in AWE plc, in order to provide for continuity of holding. This reflected the potential difficulty that if, for some reason, AWEML ceased to exist, or was removed by the Secretary of State for Defence (as the contract allows him to do), there would no longer be a site licensee or RSA93 authorisee and that many of the activities of the sites would, as a consequence, be no longer subject to civil regulation.

13. Action to license AWE plc, and to grant the authorisations, commenced well before the transfer of the actual management contract. AWE plc submitted applications to dispose of wastes under RSA93 in February 1998. Following public consultation, EA subsequently decided to grant a new RSA93 authorisation to AWE plc in March 2000.

14. NII informed the management contract tendering process, by giving presentations and considering draft safety management prospectuses. However, the main focus of the NII's action during this period was to ensure that AWE plc was potentially licensable. New NIA65 licences were granted to AWE plc on 1 April 2000, with provision for formal reviews of safety performance after three and 12 months.

15. Subsequently a judicial review challenge to the granting of the new RSA93 authorisations was launched by a local resident and the Nuclear Awareness Group (NAG). The challenge was made on the following broad areas of argument - that (as NAG and the local resident believed to be necessary under the Euratom Treaty) the practice of manufacturing nuclear weapons had not been justified; that such activities are a breach of international law; that EA had acted unlawfully in failing to consult the Minister of Health at the proper time; that the authorisations were issued prior to Ministers' decision on "call-in" of the AWE application; and that EA had acted unlawfully in not reconsidering the authorisations because of the failure in the process.

16. The case was heard in January 2001. Judgement was given on 29 March 2001; the Judge did not find for the Plaintiffs on any of these grounds.

Key issues at AWE

17. RWMAC Members visited the AWE Aldermaston site on 16 and 17 February 2000 to receive presentations from the departing management contractor, Hunting-BRAE, and from AWE plc staff. Visits to key site facilities took place. The RWMAC group also met members of NAG. Subsequently, there were meetings with AWEML, in May 2000, and with MoD's Nuclear Weapons Integrated Project Team (NWIPT), in January 2001.

18. A number of core issues relating to the operation of the AWE sites were discussed. These included site waste management practices and waste management plans and strategies, facility management of waste arisings, both solid wastes and environmental discharges (including operation of the Pangbourne pipeline), ground contamination, liaison with the local community and management of the transition from Hunting-BRAE to AWEML. More will be said on each of these matters before comment is offered.

Waste management practices and documentation

19. Civil nuclear site licensing under NIA65 has, by its very nature, imposed demanding requirements on AWE practices and their documentation, including those relating to radioactive waste management.

20. In the period before the nuclear site licences were granted for Aldermaston and Burghfield, Hunting-BRAE Ltd was required by HSE to devote considerable effort to developing well thought out and comprehensive arrangements which would satisfy the requirements of the site licences. These arrangements have continued to be subject to critical review by NII and by the licensee, and have been developed and improved upon. Arrangements for ensuring compliance with the conditions of the site licenses are fully integrated into the AWE Safety Management System as part of its quality assurance system. All this documentation has been made available to the AWE workforce in an easily accessible form, being published on the site Intranet and distributed on CD-ROM.

21. Hunting-BRAE prepared safety cases for all major facilities on both sites with a total of 80 such cases submitted to NII. The safety cases were examined in accordance with a strategy developed at the commencement of the licensing process by the NII site inspection team. In line with the approach taken with other licensees, NII discussed, with the licence applicant, the matters to be addressed in safety cases and the principal methods used in the safety assessment process. All the nuclear, and the majority of other, facilities which pose significant hazards at Aldermaston and Burghfield now have safety cases covering their operation. There is now also an AWE Nuclear Safety Committee (NSC) to peer review, and advise on, management of safety at the sites.

22. Before it was replaced by AWEML, Hunting-BRAE had also prepared forward-looking strategies and plans for radioactive waste management and decommissioning. For both areas, the strategy set out policy principles and the plan then identified the detail of the work to be carried out.

23. The radioactive waste management strategy cited principles of waste minimisation at source, safe management and minimising disposal of waste to the environment. The radioactive waste management plan, which was a requirement of the AWE management contract and revised annually, set outputs for work to be carried out in the context of volumes of waste arisings over a 10 year period.

24. The decommissioning strategy was aimed at the decommissioning of redundant facilities to a timescale which was as early as was practical, encompassing rehabilitation and reuse where possible, and placement of facilities scheduled for decommissioning on a defined "care and maintenance" regime. The subordinate decommissioning plan provided a prioritised 10 year decommissioning programme as well as providing indicative timeframes (up to 55 years) for decommissioning of all site facilities and estimates of waste arisings. This decommissioning plan was also revised annually and issued to NII.

25. The Committee was not able to analyse these strategies and plans in detail but, on the face of it, they provided a sensible and apparently robust basis for reviewing and documenting future work against changing requirements. On taking over the AWE management contract, it was understandable that AWEML wished to review the existing radioactive waste management and decommissioning strategies in the context of its own proposals for management of the sites.

26. As a first step, AWEML committed itself to continue with Hunting-BRAE's strategies and plans until a review could be carried out. It is clear, however, that the new company has different views, in some areas, to those of its predecessor. Notably, it has produced an integrated radioactive waste management and decommissioning plan. AWEML is also believed to be seeking an extension of the management contract from 10 to 25 years to allow a longer term perspective and the injection of additional private sector funds. RWMAC understands that discussion of a possible contract extension was underway with MoD at the time of preparation of this report.

27. At first sight, RWMAC has no difficulty with the concept of an extended contract, and a greater degree of public-private partnership, provided these changes are implemented in the right way. For example, the Committee would not like to see a longer contract giving rise to longer timescales being allowed for work, particularly decommissioning.

28. RWMAC was allowed sight of the draft combined waste management and decommissioning plan prepared by AWEML.

29. The combined plan is pitched at a high level with relatively little detail. Its main thrust is the "Five year vision" statement for waste management and decommissioning at AWE, on which the Committee offers the following comments :

- as a whole, the statement has been drawn up within a sensible framework and its preparation is warmly welcomed;

- it is stated that the aim is for the lifetime cost of the decommissioning programme to be quantified and optimised by regular review on a net present value (NPV) basis. The NPV is not specified, however, and it is not clear, therefore, how optimisation will be achieved. In particular, the discount rate used in any NPV calculation is crucial to the viability of any sensibly phased decommissioning plan. This has previously been commented on by RWMAC in the context of its report on Dounreay⁴;

- there is welcome emphasis on hazard reduction through management of ILW. However, it is clear that further decisions will be required, as early as 2002, on planning for further ILW storage;

- the statement recognises the need for an improved liabilities estimation process with a consistent approach for waste, and related cost, estimates. Lack of data will, again, prejudice the chances of achieving optimisation and the proposal to develop computer-based models to produce better estimates is therefore welcomed.

30. The intention is stated to carry out an annual review of the overall strategy and costs of waste management and decommissioning, incorporating a comprehensive risk management strategy. This, again, is to be welcomed.

31. In all, the combined plan amounts, in RWMAC's view, to a credible and thoughtful piece of work. Some interesting procedures are, in particular, introduced, for example, discussion of AWE-specific waste specifications (inter alia, to maximise the capacity of containers), and to introduce hot-cutting techniques to speed-up decommissioning work and save worker dose. The plan also proposes, once the structures have been decontaminated and the radiological hazards removed, to establish "site decommissioning zones" to maximise the opportunity for conventional dismantling and optimise associated safety measures.

32. RWMAC believes that it is in the interests of both AWEML and MoD for the plan to be finalised and made public as soon as is practically possible. It would also be helpful if the ways in which the AWEML plan differs from Hunting-BRAE's forward plans for the sites could also be made clear.

33. During the course of its discussions with both Hunting-BRAE and AWEML, RWMAC was given sight of two and ten year vision statements for AWE (in addition to that for five years, now overtaken by the statement addressed above), which the Committee understands were required as part of the new contract management bidding process. The Committee feels that, in principle, such vision statements can potentially provide a powerful means of communicating to the public the progress that is intended to be made at a site such as AWE, providing they are framed in language that is understandable by the interested layperson.

Management of solid wastes

34. Radioactive waste streams from the AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield sites include solid ILW and LLW. These wastes arise from the production, servicing and decommissioning of nuclear warheads, research and development of warhead technology, and decommissioning of redundant nuclear process plant. Uranium, plutonium and tritium are the principal radionuclides in the waste streams. Small quantities of wastes containing cobalt and caesium are also produced from maintenance of AWE's HERALD research reactor, which is non-operational and awaits decommissioning.

ILW

35. During its period of tenure, Hunting-BRAE initiated a review of ILW storage on the Aldermaston site. This review is expected to be complete in 2002. There are about 13,000 drums of ILW on site which are being checked and, in some cases, repackaged. For the stores, aisle, as opposed to block, stacking is now used so that every drum can be accessed and examined within two hours. Of the 7,000 drums that had been checked at the time of the RWMAC's visit in early 2000, only four had been found to defective and the contents, therefore, to need repacking. In design terms, the life of both packaging and stores is anticipated to be 25 years, but it may be that their working life will prove to be longer.

36. The eventual aim is storage of ILW in Nirex-approved containers, a process that requires its supercompaction. AWE's work to date has indicated that of the 13,000 ILW drums, up to 4,000 may contain LLW suitable for disposal to Drigg. At the time of the visit, RWMAC took the view that this situation could have been prevented if measures had been in place for better monitoring, segregation and sentencing of solid wastes. AWEML, however, has indicated that some of the wastes were generated as early as 1965 and that instrumentation, sufficiently sensitive to discriminate between drums of LLW and ILW from a known fissile material environment, has not, until now, been available.

37. AWE has completed a new ILW store at Aldermaston to hold the Nirex containers which is expected to be in operation by the end of 2001, with the first consignments of Nirex containers made around 2006. Space on site has been earmarked for a further store if required (although the building on which it currently stands will need to be demolished). Purchase of a drum monitoring facility (including a high-resolution gamma spectrometer and an active/passive neutron monitor), to address the problem of segregating ILW and LLW, was originally recommended to MoD by Hunting-BRAE, but agreement on its acquisition was not reached. The decision now rests solely with AWEML. Space has also been allocated for the new facility.

38. A project to retrieve and immobilise radioactive waste sludges in the old waste treatment complex (WTC) was also originally initiated by Hunting-BRAE. Prior to the change of operating contractor, NII issued a number of project specifications to control the accumulation of waste to the sludge tanks. NII also specified the need for retrieval, conditioning, and packaging of the wastes for their long-term site storage. One of the first contracts placed by AWEML was for a feasibility study for the work using a vitrification process. In parallel, a contract has also been placed for the cementation of some of the sludges classified as LLW. Cementation of all the LLW sludge from one of the tanks was completed in early 2001, apparently well ahead of the schedule provided for in NII's specifications.

39. There is a review of ILW storage arrangements each year, the outcome of which is fed into AWE radioactive waste management and decommissioning plans. A study was carried out under contract to examine the scope of the Letters of Comfort required from Nirex and the process for obtaining them. In future all new projects will be assessed, among other things, in terms of the Letter of Comfort requirements for associated waste arisings.

LLW

40. It is understood that NII has commented favourably on what has been achieved at Aldermaston in recent years in the management of solid LLW, particularly minimisation of arisings. The Head of Waste Management at AWE interfaces with the waste minimisation officer in each building. Each building has a waste service agreement. Workface staff are, thereby, encouraged to think about what kinds and volumes of wastes they are producing. Low force compaction is used to reduce the volume of waste placed into drums. Vacuum packing, using pumps and HEPA filters, is also used for solid LLW, and also for ILW.

41. There are various authorised routes for the disposal of solid LLW from the Aldermaston site. These include direct disposal to Drigg, disposal to Drigg after compaction at UKAEA Winfrith, and incineration of some organic solid, and also liquid, wastes. There are special security controlled arrangement for disposal of solid explosives and other munition wastes contaminated with radioactivity.

42. LLW from other AWE sites is transferred to Aldermaston prior to disposal, but only limited amounts of LLW need to be stored on an interim basis before disposal.

43. RWMAC notes that AWEML has a Waste Management Forum to share best practice among managers and operators. All in all, RWMAC's view is that management of LLW is conducted to a good standard. Good progress has been made, in particular, with waste minimisation.

Environmental discharges

44. AWE has not been as successful in reducing the volume of discharge of liquid wastes from Aldermaston. This is due principally to the fact that rain water and surface water ingress can carry radioactive contamination into the site radioactive effluent treatment tanks, resulting in an increase in the amount of effluent that needs to be managed. RWMAC understands that AWEML has initiated a programme to tackle this problem. The initiative derived from a BPEO study for the disposal of radioactive aqueous waste that EA required should be undertaken as part of new authorisations granted to AWE plc. Among other things, the existing piped network for the collection of aqueous wastes will be progressively taken out of service and replaced by tanker collection. Other changes in the way the collected waste is treated are under active consideration.

45. Traditionally, liquid wastes containing uranium and plutonium produced at AWE have been collected in holding tanks, sampled and pumped to a liquid effluent treatment plant where they have been subject to a flocculation process designed to trap the uranium and plutonium in solid form. These wastes also contain tritium which is not removed. The treated liquid effluent has then been discharged to the River Thames near Pangbourne through a twin-pipe 18 kilometre-length dedicated bitumen-coated steel pipeline ("the Pangbourne Pipeline").

46. AWE has also been authorised to dispose of low activity tritium and uranium effluent to the Silchester sewage treatment works, from where it is eventually discharged to the Thames.

47. AWE has not, in the past, been authorised to dispose of any liquid wastes to the Aldermaston Stream, a tributary of the River Kennet. However, the presence of low levels of tritium in the stream has been known for many years, and was assumed to have originated from ground deposition of gaseous tritium discharged from the AWE stacks washed to the ground in rainfall.

48. However, it was eventually recognised that tritium was actually being discharged via the North Ponds Waste Management System introduced, in October 1998, to collect run-off water from the northern part of the Aldermaston site. The existence of tritium in surface waters at the north-west corner of the site had also been known for many years, although this contamination does not appear to have affected deeper-level drinking water sources. In 1999, EA successfully prosecuted Hunting-BRAE for releasing tritium-contaminated water from the North Ponds to the Aldermaston Stream without authorisation.

49. The revised authorisation issued by EA to AWE plc in March 2000 made a number of significant changes to these liquid radioactive waste discharge arrangements. The changes included a requirement for AWE to cease discharges of radioactive wastes via the Pangbourne Pipeline within five years, and to the Silchester sewage works within ten years. While authorising existing radioactive waste discharges from the North Ponds to the Aldermaston Stream, it required that these should be eliminated within five years.

50. To support these requirements on AWE, EA also set an objective that, within five years, management of radioactive liquid effluents from plant operations at AWE should employ a system that is BPEO, with a strong presumption that it should be based upon evaporation technology. A time limit of six months was set for delivery by AWE of a site-wide Liquid Effluent Management Strategy and a BPEO study report. These documents were delivered and published in September 2000. These studies did not consider the Pangbourne Pipeline and, to that extent, it appeared to RWMAC that not all the environmental options were actually considered as part of the EA proposal (formulated no later than mid-1999) to close the pipeline.

51. RWMAC had commented (in its response of November 1999)⁵ on these EA requirements as they were set out in the Agency's public consultation documents on the new AWE authorisations. The Committee had, in the past, also noted problems with the Pangbourne Pipeline operation including the risk of leaks and wash-out of plutonium and uranium scale into the Thames³.

52. The Committee's November 1999 response noted that a new treatment process involving evaporator technology would not remove tritium, the predominant radionuclide in the effluent, and would merely substitute an airborne tritium discharge route for that of the liquids. It would, however, remove other radionuclides such as plutonium and uranium. It would, in addition, introduce a new waste stream in the form of sludges. RWMAC also noted that the cost of replacing the pipeline with an evaporator was, in terms of critical group dose saved, estimated to be £2 million per microsievert, which appeared costly relative to the very low level of public exposure.

53. RWMAC believes, however, that uncertainty concerning the condition and operation of the Pangbourne Pipeline, and the need to alleviate understandable public worry, are clearly important factors that also need to be taken into account. Thus, whilst taking the view that the issues were relatively finely balanced, the RWMAC response indicated that the Committee's main concern was not with the proposed closure of the Pangbourne Pipeline per se, but rather the transparency of the processes employed by EA to arrive at the decision to require its closure. If the March 2000 EA decision was taken only after a full systematic analysis had been carried out, this was not apparent from the consultation documents. From the available information, it is unclear whether the doses from proposed new schemes, however minuscule, were adequately compared to the status quo of retaining the pipeline. On the face of it, much more could have been done by EA to demonstrate the need for transparency in the decision-making process.

Site contamination

54. As large industrial sites of long-standing, Aldermaston and Burghfield suffer from a number of forms of ground contamination that need to be dealt with. These include radioactive material.

55. In 1996, AWE initiated a land quality survey of the 670-acre Aldermaston site. The survey was inevitably a major undertaking and included analysis of water from streams, drains and boreholes. The initial findings of the survey were published in 1997 in the form of a public information leaflet. This highlighted a number of areas where organic solvents (trichloroethylene and oils), mercury and radionuclides, including plutonium, had been found.

56. Since that date, more survey work has been carried out and there have been further published updates. The extent and scope of the surveys have been extended, including more off-site sampling. Some remediation work has also been undertaken. To date, work has concentrated on areas where contamination is thought to be most likely, but other areas will also be covered in due course.

57. Use of tritium is an inherent feature of the manufacture and handling of nuclear warheads. For many years tritium has been known to be present in the ground and in surface waters at the north west corner of the Aldermaston site, and measurements of concentrations have been published in annual environment, safety and health reports.

58. While the radiological consequences of tritium are relatively low, knowledge of its existence as an on-site contaminant, the fact that it can run-off into watercourses and liquid waste management facilities around the site, and its inclusion within the regulatory regime for Aldermaston through authorisation of discharges from the North Ponds, all mean that its presence has become the subject of increasing attention. To date, it has proved impossible to identify the precise source(s) of the tritium contamination. The latest EA authorisation document states that it should be possible for AWE to carry out work to identify and remediate the source(s), so that levels of tritium in the groundwater at Aldermaston can, in due course, be returned to natural background values. Investigations by AWE to identify the source or sources of tritium are continuing.

59. In addition to this work, RWMAC believes that the scope for carrying out a full site-wide contaminated ground characterisation and remediation programme should be considered by AWE in line with policies adopted at other major nuclear sites.

60. In addition to AWE's land quality survey, Southampton University has been commissioned to conduct a three year radiological study of the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites. This essentially follows up a similar investigation around Greenham Common carried out by the University on behalf of West Berkshire District Council. At AWE, sampling is undertaken in three phases, gradually spreading out from the immediate vicinity of the two sites to a distance of more than 20 miles. Full independence of the work is assured by a Scientific Information Group, comprising representatives of local councils. The Group receives study data at regular intervals. All results are published. By the middle of the third year of work, no results of any radiological significance had been recorded.

Liaison with the local community

61. The previous management contractor, Hunting-BRAE, introduced a number of initiatives to extend liaison between the company and the local communities around the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites.

62. A Local Liaison Committee (LLC) was set up in October 1993. This meets three times a year, with representatives of AWE's senior management together with elected politicians and officers from neighbouring local authorities attending. EA and NII also attend.

63. An extensive AWE Website has been set up. Details of safety performance and environmental impact and an Annual Report are published. A community newspaper goes to 18,000 households in the surrounding areas.

64. In 1997, the company sought to adopt an "open door" information policy aimed at promoting the image of AWE as a good and safe neighbour that wished to play a positive role in local community life. Local groups were invited on site. Individual managers were expected to make themselves available to the public and to account for AWE's performance and safety record. A Community Committee was set up to co-ordinate support for local community interests, charitable work and school science activities.

65. Responding to criticism from local pressure groups, notably the Nuclear Awareness Group (NAG), that they cannot attend the LLC, Hunting-BRAE told RWMAC that its aim was to improve relations with these groups. RWMAC was informed that members of NAG had accepted an invitation to visit the Pangbourne pipeline, and that company staff had spoken at NAG conferences and meetings. NAG had also been given a presentation on contaminated land findings. However, having spoken to NAG representatives at the time of its site visit, it was unclear to RWMAC that this initiative has, as yet at least, been particularly successful in improving relationships. Nevertheless, RWMAC is supportive of all possible efforts maintains to open and maintain dialogue between AWE and local interest groups on all issues of interest.

66. Initial signs are that AWEML is committed to maintaining and building upon the improved public relations initiatives introduced by Hunting-BRAE. It appears that the company has endeavoured to engage the LLC more and has been looking to improve the quality of published information. It is too early to assess the ultimate impact and value of such initiatives.

Site management transition

67. It is RWMAC's impression that, not least as a result of the application of RSA93 and NIA65 regulatory procedures, there were substantial improvements in the standard of radioactive waste management at AWE during the period of Hunting-BRAE's management contract tenure. These have included the preparation, documentation and application of safety management procedures; formulation and documentation of waste management and decommissioning strategies and plans; a start to the process of site contamination characterisation; and more meaningful contacts with the local community.

68. There have also been some setbacks, a notable example being prosecution by EA for the unauthorised discharge of tritium-contaminated water from the North Ponds. There remains much for the incoming management contractor, AWEML, to do. But, from its position as an external observer, RWMAC perceives that, overall, the situation now is much better than it was prior to 1993.

69. The perception of others may, of course, be different if only because the issue of nuclear weapons manufacture will always be controversial. AWE's present management has also had to address a difficult legacy of waste problems and site contamination from earlier days, when operational standards were well below the levels of those considered acceptable, and required by the regulators, today.

70. The onus is now on the new contractor, AWEML, to maintain and, hopefully, elevate the rate of improvement and achievement in waste management. A key instrument will be the way in which the new contract impacts on this, and related, areas such as decommissioning and site environmental management.

71. Many of the new contract provisions are confidential and RWMAC has not seen the document itself. It was reasonably clear to RWMAC from its February 2000 site visit, and a subsequent meeting with AWEML three months later, that the contract is markedly different from that with Hunting-BRAE. Its declared aim is for AWEML to be able to "run the business" of weapons manufacture, decommissioning, and research into new technology without continual and frequent reference back to MoD.

72. The driver to change the arrangements derives from problems perceived to be inherent in the Hunting-BRAE contract. These included the piecemeal approach required as part of setting contractor deliverables, the need for detailed price negotiation and MoD approval, and the limited extent of risk transfer to the contractor. It was felt that the degree of MoD-contractor interface inhibited long-term strategic planning. The solution was identified in terms of a new style of contract that would provide a high incentive for good performance, with the burden of risk placed on the contractor.

73. The contract tender competition was framed, inter alia, to reflect these concerns. It seems logical to believe that the AWEML bid was chosen because, in addition to proposing an attractive contract cost for the core deliverables of weapons work, its proposals for the profit element of the contract were also preferred on grounds of both the amount of money involved (relative to the cost element) and contractor risk. In other words, the amount of profit put at risk by the contractor (i.e., subject to performance evaluation) was probably the highest in the case of the AWEML bid.

74. The contract arrangements work as follows. AWEML draws down payment for expenditure on the entire weapons programme on achievement of "payment milestones" relating to weapons work and safety. Any underspend (which might be deemed excessive profit) is shared between AWEML and MoD, and can increase the contractor's profit. However, the profit element (which is believed to be about 10 per cent of the contract bid) is paid subject both to these milestones being achieved and to performance against "performance measures" (for activities encompassing waste management, plant and site decommissioning, and environmental management). The performance measures dictate the greater level of draw-down against this profit element. (It seems to RWMAC that it is expenditure incurred against the cost element of the contract price that, in practice, probably determines most of the company's overall net income.)

75. The contract can, therefore, work either to the company's advantage or to its disadvantage, depending on performance. For example, achievement of all milestones and performance measures would result in a significant profit achievement. If, on the other hand, circumstances (such as responding to regulatory intervention) meant that it could not achieve more than a few performance measures, the profit would be small.

76. The milestones and performance measures are set each year by negotiation between MoD's NWIPT and the contractor. They are not incorporated into the contract, but the performance measures are consistent with the AWEML combined waste management and decommissioning plan for AWE. So while the measures are not themselves subject to approval by NII and EA, this combined plan (in part a response to regulatory proposals for the site) is subject to regulatory scrutiny.

77. It is clear that the first year of contract operation may be regarded as a honeymoon period in terms of the setting of performance measures - some, including those, for example, relating to the three and 12 month regulatory reviews of AWEML (referred to in paragraph 14) being essentially scene setting . The expectation is that the measures will be made more stringent after March 2001. Nevertheless, RWMAC has been given a summary of the milestones (35 in all) and the performance measures (about 70 in total) agreed between AWEML and NWIPT for the first year of the contract. Given that the first year represents, in effect, a period of acclimatisation, the Committee believes that the performance measures point forward, in a credible and realistic way, towards the development of appropriate incentives for the management of radioactive waste at the sites.

78. NWIPT itself commented to RWMAC that, for 2000-2001, AWEML has achieved all the payment milestones and is performing well against the performance measures. It is notable, however, that the company has not yet achieved the ISO14001 standard for site environmental management, but hopes now to do so by December 2001.

RWMAC comment

79. RWMAC believes that since it last reported on AWE, in December 1997, considerable progress has been made towards the effective management of radioactive waste. A start has also been made towards the characterisation of site contamination at Aldermaston. Nevertheless, there are a number of key areas where problems remain to be addressed.

80. Much of the progress must be credited to the previous management contractor, Hunting-BRAE. RWMAC also believes that the application of civil site regulation - under RSA93 in 1993 and NIA65 in 1997 - has also been a major factor.

81. The new management consortium, AWEML, has yet to prove itself in concrete terms. It is, from RWMAC's perspective, too early for any certain judgements to be made, but the Committee hopes that AWEML will be set high standards in order to maintain and, hopefully, build upon, the improvements in waste management already achieved. Application of the civil regulatory requirements is bound to support this.

82. In RWMAC's view, the new contract arrangements do, in principle, provide sufficient incentive for AWEML to achieve a high standard of management of AWE wastes. There are, nonetheless, areas of uncertainty and potential concern. The new contract is much less specific about how the contractor should allocate and prioritise its use of resources. It must be remembered that AWE's core business is nuclear weapons. And MoD's decision to refigure the contract appears to have reflected reservations about the ability of the previous arrangements to facilitate long-term strategic thinking and to shift risk to the private sector, rather than the effectiveness of waste management per se.

83. There is evidence from the past that original timescales for radioactive waste management projects at AWE - both provision of stores and processing facilities - have been allowed to slip. This may have been due to inadequate provision of resources or to the process of negotiation between MoD and the contractor.

84. Safeguards against project slippage exist, in principal, in the new management arrangements (as part of provision for incentivisation). On the face of it, the weighting given to environmental performance measures could work well. Much depends on what measures are selected and how they are applied. These arrangements will only really mature in coming years. RWMAC's main doubt is that if AWEML finds itself with problems in its core business, its focus on ancillary programmes may weaken. For all its faults, the previous contract seems to have provided some mechanism for maintaining the visibility of waste management and decommissioning, even if these were not always effective in practice. But the Committee would not wish to be prescriptive - it is simply too early to be clear. An additional issue is that, in due course, MoD needs to consider whether the current contract should be extended from 10 to 25 years, allowing the injection of private investment facilitation of "spend to save" capital schemes, including proposals for waste management and decommissioning.

85. It is understandable that, following its takeover of the AWE management contract, AWEML wanted to review the radioactive waste management and decommissioning plans formulated by Hunting-BRAE. However, with a year almost gone since management contract takeover, it is, in RWMAC's view, presentationally important for AWEML to finalise, in conjunction with MoD and the regulators, and publicise its own radioactive waste management and decommissioning plans, even if they are still subject to formal review, in order to avoid giving the impression of procrastination. It is also important that any differences from the Hunting-BRAE plans are highlighted and explained.

86. During the last two years of its tenure, Hunting-BRAE initiated steps to begin decommissioning of some of the older, and more contaminated, manufacturing and waste management buildings at Aldermaston. These are challenging tasks, involving, for example, large numbers of gloveboxes. It is important that this initiative is maintained. The extent to which the AWEML combined waste management and decommissioning plan is consistent with Hunting-BRAE's annual plans and strategies is not certain. Attention, both by MoD and the regulators, might be given to identifying any potential problems in areas of ongoing work inherited by AWEML from Hunting-BRAE.

87. Significant progress has also been made towards improving the packaging and storage of ILW at Aldermaston. AWE liaison with Nirex, which was the subject of some criticism at the time of the last RWMAC visit in January 1995, has also been substantially improved. But this is, nevertheless, an example of where the current lack of any Government policy for the long-term management of radioactive waste is making life difficult for operators. At present, waste is being repacked into containers and stores with a 25-year life. A future project is to repackage the wastes in containers that Nirex deem will ultimately be suitable for disposal. But not only is there no clear Government policy on long-term radioactive waste management, including the possibility of deep underground storage or disposal, the current hiatus prevents effective consideration by regulators and operators of timeframes (for example those for packaging and storage) and ancillary issues such as conditioning and the passive safety of wastes.

88. For the moment, dealing with LLW at AWE appears to cause relatively few problems, although the Committee notes that a large number of legacy drums originally treated as ILW may, once new technology assay equipment is available, be shown to be appropriate for disposal as LLW to Drigg.

89. A start has now been made with characterisation of ground contamination of the AWE site. RWMAC accepts that this is a process that could, in theory, consume significant resources very rapidly. Thus, while progress must clearly continue, there is a need for a suitable balance to be achieved with other waste management priorities. The Committee believes that the issue of tritium could generate real problems. The March 2000 EA discharge authorisation suggested that it would be possible for AWE to locate one, or several, discrete sources that could then be remediated in order to "reduce radioactive discharges from AWE to the River Thames to zero when levels of tritium in groundwater at Aldermaston return to background values". RWMAC does not share EA's optimism that this will be achievable particularly if some of the tritium comes from rain washout of stack discharges. Nor will the possible future use of evaporation technology remove tritium from such discharges. With this in mind, the Committee has also questioned the achievability of the objective of the Government's proposed UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020² that "by 2010 total beta/gamma discharges from nuclear weapons production at AWE (including tritium) are expected to reduce to zero".

90. RWMAC notes that outstanding issues of the integrity and operation of the Pangbourne Pipeline have now effectively been resolved by the decision for its closure by 2005. The issues raised by this decision are set out at an earlier point in this Annex. The major concerns, in RWMAC's view, do not relate to the management of AWE liquid wastes per se, but to the processes which EA adopted, or did not adopt, in arriving at its authorisation decision. It was not clear to the Committee that the was based on a full and appropriate technical analysis.

91. Nevertheless, closure of the pipeline and the introduction of alternative technology to reduce discharges represent a major challenge for AWE over the coming years. One issue that will need to be decided by AWML concerns the future of the Radioactive Liquid Effluent Treatment Plant (RALETP) which has not been taken into operation because of technical difficulties.

92. Lastly, RWMAC believes that AWEML must also maintain Hunting-BRAE's commitment to maintaining good communication with the local community, recognising that this may sometimes lead to difficulties that must be overcome. The Committee strongly supports the need for openness and transparency in radioactive waste management. The last RWMAC report concluded that "AWE needed to take steps which would lead to greater public understanding of its work, and public confidence in its management of radioactive materials". Major progress has already been made towards meeting the needs of the public and this must be maintained.