Chapelcross

Located within four miles of the Solway Estuary, Chapelcross is a four-reactor station with eight 30MW turbines. Site operator, Magnox Electric is now overseeing ,its decommission, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA):

• Operation of the reactors stopped in 2004
• The tritium production plant (CXPP) stopped in 2007
• The cooling towers were demolished in 2007
• The pipeline is being remediated to prevent further particles being discharged

Chapelcross has a multi-media certificate of authorisation for all the disposals on-site.

Variation

In December 2010 Magnox Limited discussed with SEPA the disposal of large volume metal waste items from the site to the Low Level Waste Repository operator at Drigg. The items were ready for disposal, however the volume of waste that can be disposed as set in the 1995 authorisation was not sufficient for the waste requiring disposal.

Magnox Limited have applied for a revised authorisation appropriate for the decommissioning of their nuclear site at Chapelcross. The application included an increase in the volume of low level solid waste that could be disposed to the Low Level Waste Repository operators at Drigg. The application has been subject to public and discretionary consultation.

The determination of the application is not yet complete. In order that waste is promptly disposed of, where disposal routes exist and to minimise the accumulation of waste on the site, SEPA has exercised its powers of variation to increase the limit in the volume of low level radioactive waste that can be disposed to the low level waste repository operator in line with the predictions given in the decommissioning application.

The variation notice was issued in March 2011. Please see the variation document and the variation notice for more information.