FAQ: Near-surface Disposal Facilities on Land
for Solid Radioactive Wastes; Guidance on Requirements for
Authorisation
Why has the guidance been published now?
In 1997, the environment agencies jointly
published guidance on regulating the disposal of low and
intermediate level radioactive waste to specialised facilities on
land. In 2005 we decided to update this guidance because of
developments in UK policy and revised international advice and
recommendations, and also because specific guidance for
near-surface facilities was required. Moreover, the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority’s decommissioning programme will create
large amounts of radioactive waste that will need to be disposed of
in near-surface facilities, and the UK Government’s Managing
Radioactive Waste Safely Programme is now underway to develop a
geological disposal facility for higher activity wastes.
What do you hope to achieve with this
guidance?
We want to provide a clear understanding of
the principles and requirements that a developer or operator of a
radioactive waste disposal facility needs to meet, before we can
grant an authorisation for radioactive waste disposal. We
have set high environmental standards in the guidance to ensure
protection of people and the environment, both now and in the
future. We believe that properly managed disposal of
radioactive waste is consistent with our aim of creating a better
place to provide a better quality of life for people and an
enhanced environment for wildlife.
Who will use this guidance, and how
will they use them?
The documents are aimed at developers of new
radioactive waste disposal facilities and at operators of existing
facilities. The document will inform a developer’s or
operator’s approach to the process of investigating and
characterising a potential site, and also the design and
construction of a facility at the site. A developer or
operator will need to take account of the principles and
requirements that need to be met in developing an environmental
safety case for a radioactive waste disposal facility.
How have you engaged with stakeholders
during the development of the guidance?
During late 2006, we held workshops with a
range of stakeholders and consulted on the specifications for the
two documents. The views provided at the workshops helped
guide the structure and content of the guidance documents.
Subsequently during 2007 we developed the draft guidance in detail,
and held further workshops with stakeholders on our emerging
proposals. Reports of the workshops are available from us on
request. We sought a broad range of views by inviting
representatives from central and local Government, non-government
organisations and industry to our workshops. Finally, we held a
3-month public consultation on our draft guidance in summer
2008. Feedback from all these interactions has proved
invaluable in helping us to improve our guidance.
How many responses did you get to your
public consultation and how have you used the comments made to
you?
There were about 20 responses. We have
taken account of all the points raised and changes have been made
to the guidance in response to a number of the comments
received. We are preparing a consultation report, for
publication within the next month, showing how consultees’
responses are reflected in the final guidance.
Have you chosen sufficiently high
environmental standards to protect people and the environment in
the future?
Yes. The environmental standards in our
guidance take account of international and national advice on
standards for the long term protection of people and the
environment. Our environmental standards are also consistent
with those adopted in other countries with radioactive waste
disposal programmes. We have set a high standard for a developer or
operator to meet, to ensure the environmental safety of radioactive
waste disposal both during operation of a facility and in the long
term after its closure.
How different is this guidance from
the previous guidance? What changes have you
made?
We have updated the environmental standards
that were set in the previous guidance as well as the principles
and requirements within the guidance, to reflect developments
nationally and internationally and give a clearer view of our
expectations. We have also provided more information on what
we expect in an environmental safety case, and have set out the
procedure that we would want a developer to follow so we can
provide early advice and regulatory views. In the revised
guidance, we recognise the important role of dialogue with
interested parties including local communities and the wider
public. We have provided more specific technical guidance,
for example, on human intrusion. We have discussed the policy
and regulatory framework and described the process for
authorisation of radioactive waste disposal. We have used plain
English wherever possible, to make the guidance more accessible to
non-technical readers.
How often will you revise this
guidance, and how will national and international developments be
taken into account?
We expect the guidance to have a lifetime of
about 10 years – much the same as the previous document. We
may also provide supplementary guidance from time to time.
When reviewing it in future, we shall consider whether there are
sufficient grounds for revising it to take account of national and
international developments. For the current guidance, we have
considered not only policy and legislation in the UK, but also a
range of publications from the United Nations International Atomic
Energy Agency, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development Nuclear Energy Agency, and International Commission on
Radiological Protection. We have also considered European
Directives such as the Basic Safety Standards Directive and
international treaties such as the Oslo and Paris Convention
(OSPAR) and the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel
Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste
Management.
Why is HPA publishing separate
advice?
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has
produced revised advice on the radiological protection objectives
for solid radioactive waste disposal. HPA has a statutory
function to provide radiological protection advice in the UK. It is
not a regulator. We regulate disposals of radioactive waste
and our guidance informs developers and operators about what we
expect in an environmental safety case for radioactive waste
disposal facilities. Where our guidance relates to the radiological
protection of humans, our approach is informed by HPA’s
advice. We explain the relationship between our regulatory
guidance and HPA’s advice in annexes to our guidance.
Why is SEPA not the author of the
geological disposal guidance?
SEPA is not the author of the geological
disposal guidance because Scottish ministers have opted for a
policy of near site, near-surface storage of higher activity
radioactive waste, rather than geological disposal.