West Cumbria not ruled out as nuclear waste dump

In a week that saw the European Commission approve underground burial as a way to dispose of high-level nuclear waste, Defra published a geological report on the suitability of West Cumbria for this kind of geological disposal.

The study looks at the Copeland and Allerdale areas, where Allerdale, Copeland and Cumbria County Councils have set up the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership to ensure that people living in the area are involved in making an informed decision about whether or not to proceed with a facility siting process.

This area is the only one in the country to have come forward as a candidate for taking nuclear waste.

The study's conclusions are ambiguous, not ruling out the suitability of the area, but advocating further investigation. It rules out parts of the West of Cumbria, but raises the possibility that part of the Lake District could be a potential store.

This was condemned by local activists against the dump. Senior energy campaigner Ben Ayliffe said the report meant “almost anywhere” in the Lake District could become a dump for the UK’s radioactive waste.

The MRWS Partnership said they needed more detailed investigations before there could be any “real idea" of where the site could be located, if anywhere.

Minister of State for Energy Charles Hendry said: “We must progress implementation of geological disposal, the long-term sustainable solution for dealing with radioactive waste.

“The report, commissioned from the British Geological Survey, is a step forward. The geological disposal facility site selection process is based on voluntarism and partnership and these results do not present any reason why West Cumbria cannot continue to consider whether or not to participate in that process.”

The exclusion criteria, defined by two independent groups of experts, mainly examine whether there is any risk of the security of the dump being compromised in the future by anyone seeking to extract resources or the need to protect the quality of exploitable groundwater.

If the Partnership chose to proceed further, increasingly detailed geological and other criteria assessment would have to be undertaken.


Keekle Head, a 70 hectare former opencast coal mine near Whitehaven, Cumbria, which Endecom, a company owned by SITA UK, has bought to use for the disposal of low and very low level radioactive construction and demolition waste.

Don't let them relax uranium transport rules!

About 20 million packages of all sizes containing radioactive materials are transported around the world annually on public road, railways and ships.

With the comeback of nuclear power, there is an increasing demand for transportation of radioactive materials.

Wisely, regulations have been in place to strictly control their movement. But the industry is now complaining of bottlenecks and delays.

This is compounded by the fact that, sensibly, fewer and fewer transporters want to deal with the hazardous materials. Moeller Maersk, the world's largest container shipping line measured on vessel capacity, adopted a policy of not shipping radioactive materials in April 2007.

"It is a very complex problem," said Bernard Monot, external relations vice president at the logistics department of the world's biggest maker of nuclear reactors, Areva.

"The shippers complain about the port authorities, who in turn hold the shipping lines responsible and everybody accuses heavy regulations," he says.

So they want the rules cut.

For example in Holland, "It takes around six weeks to receive a permit," according to Pyter Hiemstra, spokesman for SenterNovem, the agency handling permits on behalf of the Dutch Department of Spatial Planning, Housing and Environment.

He said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had asked countries to speed this up.

"What we would be looking for is for radioactive to be accepted for transit permission normally with 24 to 48 hours notice," said John Leach, General Manager for Dangerous Cargo, Special Cargo Management at Moeller Maersk.

The Low Carbon Kid argues hat the last thing we need is a relaxing of rule around the transport of radioactive materials. The world is a dangerous enough place as it is.

It is governments and local authorities and port authorities who control these rules. Write to your MP and ask them not to let these rules be relaxed.

Government proposals on managing radioactive waste 'incoherent and opaque'

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have attacked the government's proposals for the next phase of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) programme.

In July 2006 the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) recommended geological disposal of the UK's radioactive waste.

CoRWM also recommended the setting-up of an independent body to oversee the MRWS programme-echoing a recommendation made by the Science and Technology Committee as far back as 1999.

The government have accepted the use of geological disposal but currently propose merely to set up an advisory group, rather than a truly independent overseeing body.

• The Lords Committee therefore recommend that the government should establish a statutory body, independent of day to day government control and accountable to Parliament, to oversee the implementation of the geological disposal programme.
• The Committee also criticise the institutional framework for the implementation stage of the MRWS programme. They label the government's plans 'incoherent and opaque' and urge the government to establish independent expert scrutiny and clear lines of accountability for the next stage of the MRWS programme.

The Committee also raise concerns about the government's approach to site selection for geographical disposal for radioactive waste.

The Committee emphasise the importance of transparency and impartiality, and recommend that the government begin by 'screening out' geologically unsuitable areas, before looking at socio-economic criteria and inviting interested local communities to come forward with offers of participation.

This phased approach is vital to avoid suspicion that site selection is politically driven, and to ensure that partnership with local communities is maintained.

Other recommendations the Committee make include:

• Progress in radioactive waste management should be steady and measured. So far we have had 'years of procrastination followed by ... unseemly haste'.
• The government should delay the publication of their forthcoming consultation document on MRWS, until an independent body has been put in place to scrutinise the programme>

Commenting Lord Broers, Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, said:

"We have serious concerns about the way the government are moving forward with the MRWS programme. The decisions we take now on radioactive waste will affect future generations for thousands of years.

"The government's stop-start approach creates the impression that these decisions are being driven by short-term energy policy goals, rather than by careful and impartial consideration of the scientific and practical realities.

"The proposals they have announced so far have been incoherent and confusing.

"If the government want people to be confident about the safety of nuclear energy and the disposal of nuclear waste it is now time to appoint a truly independent, democratically accountable body to oversee the whole process.

"People don't have enough confidence in politicians or the government to support any scheme on nuclear waste that is controlled from Whitehall. Only an independent, accountable and expert body will be able to convince people nationally and locally to sign up to the programme."

> The report