| RWMAC Press Release - 27 June 2002 - Radioactive Waste - "Consultation is right way forward but earl | | Print | |
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Government advisors - the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC)- have published their response to Government proposals for developing a policy for the long-term management of the UK's solid radioactive waste. Previous attempts to develop a means of disposing of some of the more active waste deep underground have faltered. With its "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" consultation document, to which RWMAC is responding, the Government has essentially gone back to saying that it will evaluate and decide upon the options for long-term management of this waste on the basis of a wide and informed public debate, involving as many people and groups as possible. Professor Charles Curtis, the RWMAC Chairman, said: "Radioactive waste is a national problem that needs to be solved. Total agreement on what to do with this waste will never be achieved, but an open and properly informed national debate, offers the best chance of arriving at a solution that is widely accepted. It will also give all groups the opportunity to have their say. We need to consider all the options for its long-term management, of all the waste, and to evaluate them on the basis of a set of agreed criteria that suitably reflect all the public's worries and concerns about radioactive waste issues. There will always be some uncertainty and risk whatever approach is taken. What we must do is to identify the best option, and be assured that the levels of uncertainty and risk associated with it are acceptable. Finally, we must focus on what we can do to solve the problem rather than difficulties that may or may not exist, if we are to be able to move forward so as to safeguard suitably the interests of future generations". The RWMAC response supports the Government's proposal for a strong, authoritative and independent body to help with the formulation of future policy. It calls for the early setting up of a well-resourced "overseeing body" to "to design and oversee the overall process of formulating policy up to the point at which a long-term management option can be recommended". The new body should be established at one step removed from Government if it is to be accepted as being capable of upholding the wider public interest. Its role would include managing the use of pubic engagement techniques to encourage public involvement in the policy formulation debate, drawing on expert inputs and research as necessary. It needs to be a body with a membership that is able to secure public trust. The report also makes the point, that while it may take several years to decide longer-term policy and many more to implement, there remain other policy decisions on shorter-term management of the waste that either need to be taken or updated. These need to cover the way in which waste is treated in the shorter-term to get it into a passively safer storable form, the standards to which radioactively contaminated land should be cleaned up and the way in which radioactive discharges are controlled. The Committee believes that existing policy statements are either out of date or have insufficient detail to explain how they will function in practice. Radioactive waste needs to be managed over the short, intermediate and long-term. RWMAC believes that policy guidance of this kind will be essential to guide the new Liabilities Management Authority (LMA), that the Government has said it will be setting up in a year's or two's time to take responsibility for most of the UK's public sector civil nuclear liabilities. Decisions on the long-term management of the UK's solid radioactive wastes, being considered under the "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" initiative, will need to be suitably dovetailed with the more immediate decisions that the LMA will have to take in tidying up and processing the waste. Notes for editors RWMAC is an independent expert body established to advise the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations for Scotland and Wales on policy and practices for the management of civil radioactive waste. This report makes public RWMAC's formal response to the Government publication "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" (November 2000), which is designed to initiate a debate leading to, and going beyond, a decision on policy for the management, over the long-term, of UK solid radioactive waste. The Government has also announced its intention to establish the LMA as a body to manage most of the UK's public sector nuclear liabilities. A White Paper setting out the proposals in greater detail is expected shortly. RWMAC's initial views on the proposals are included in its response. RWMAC takes the view that factors such as the collapse, in 1997, of the Nirex programme for the disposal of some solid radioactive wastes, the UK's obligations under internationally binding agreements for the protection of the marine environment, and the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely and LMA initiatives, mean that there is no longer any comprehensive statement of policy for radioactive waste. http://www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/interwaste/index.htm |
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