Transcript Presentation title

Low Level Waste facilities
and proposals in Cumbria
NuLeAF seminar 22 March 2011
Richard Evans
Cumbria County Council
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Keekle Head planning
application
A facility for the disposal of 1 million
cubic metres of Low Level and Very
Low Level radioactive waste.
.
Planning application ref no. 4/10/9010 on CCC
website.
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Keekle Head
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20,000 tonnes / year waste (plus packing
materials) over a 50 year period.
9 cells with a series of engineered layers.
designed to provide a robust structure with
a proposed life of 300 years.
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Planning application proposals at LLWR.
To be submitted May 2011.
• The approved temporary higher stacking in
Vault 8, plus additional, to be permanent.
• New higher stacking in Vault 9.
• Vault 9 to be for disposal not storage.
• New Vaults 10 to 14 – estimated life to 2080.
• Higher permanent cap over the whole site.
• Environmental Safety Case to be submitted to
Environment Agency (post-closure safety case).
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LLWR background
• 1957 unconditional planning permission for
storage of Windscale radioactive wastes at former
Ordnance factory, granted by Millom Rural District
Council.
• Tumble tipping in 7 trenches, followed in late
1980’s by disposal into a 4ha concrete box – Vault
8.
• County Council gave a formal opinion that this
did not require planning permission –
incomprehensible to us now.
• Planning permission for a landscaped cap.
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LLWR background
• 1995 suddenly described as the national facility in
a Cmnd Paper.
• 2000 Planning permission for plutonium
contaminated materials removal project from old
magazines.
• Vault 8 nearly full, 2006 planning permission for
temporary higher stacking of ISO containers.
• Vault 9 planning permission 2008 for storage, for
10 years, of 110,000 m3 - 5500 half height ISO
containers, operational July 2010.
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County and Borough Councils’
Policy
For LLW and its sub-category of VLLW
from decommissioning.
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Low Level Decommissioning Waste
policy
• Waste should be managed on the site where it
arises, and only if rigorous assessment shows
that is not practicable, then
• land adjacent to that site should be rigorously
assessed, and only if that is shown to be
impracticable, should
• more dispersed sites be considered.
Policy has not been through the MWDF process.
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Why does Cumbria have or
need this policy?
It’s because of our social and economic
circumstances.
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Cumbria’s economy
• We have done much better since that first
Community Strategy, but still need to grow
faster than anywhere else just to catch up.
• West Cumbria is dependent on the nuclear
industry, and has the threat of thousands of job
losses at Sellafield. Need to diversify.
• Perceptions about any radioactive wastes lead
to adverse social and economic impacts.
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Policy justification
• The stakes are too high to let our prospects, for
economic diversification, growth and
regeneration, to be prejudiced by dispersing
decommissioning waste management/disposal
facilities away from Sellafield and the LLWR.
• This has been the cause of major disagreement
between the Cumbria local authorities and the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, also concerns about
Environment Agency approach re social and economic
impacts.
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Example of impacts
• Proposed development of 12ha for B1,2 and 8
and other commercial uses, next to Lillyhall.
• £35M scheme, 1100 jobs.
• “will be severely affected by any proposals for
the disposal of LLW, however defined – due to
the perception such a facility would have upon
potential occupiers, investors and
entrepeneurs – the ability to market the
opportunities would be severely constrained.”
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Local Development Framework
• Cumbria is one of very few authorities to
have its Minerals and Waste Development
Framework in place.
• The Core Strategy, Development Control
Policies, Site Allocations Policies, Proposals
Map have all been through Examination and
have been formally adopted, but a last
minute legal challenge to Site Allocations.
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MWDF Core Strategy Policy 3
Community benefits packages will be
expected for large national or regional waste
management facilities, particularly for the
nuclear industry.
(Copeland Community Fund - £10M plus £1.5M/year
secured in connection with the Low Level Waste
Repository).
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MWDF Core Strategy Policy 12
• Provides for the Low Level Waste Repository,
(LLWR) near Drigg, to continue to fulfil a role as
a component of the UK’s radioactive waste
management capability.
• Acceptance of disposal at LLWR will be subject
to considerations of sea level rise, coastal
erosion, radiological capacity and waste
hierarchy issues.
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MWDF Site Allocations Policy 6
Low Level Radioactive Waste.
• First preference sites – The LLWR and land within
Sellafield.
• Site Allocations text- “Identifying new sites is
premature due to the uncertainties about the volumes
of decommissioning wastes; when they will arise; the
potential for driving some of them up the hierarchy
and the type of facilities that may be needed.”
We had tried but failed, in the Examination process,
to include an additional site and a policy for VLLW.
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Core Strategy Review
The MWDF Core Strategy Examination
process required the County Council to
commit to a timely review of the radioactive
waste policies once the detailed
implementation of national policies became
clearer. Programmed to start now.
(other policies need review as well)
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Conclusion
• For too long, too many people have regarded
radioactive waste as a Cumbria problem.
• That’s not true, it’s everybody’s.
• Everywhere produces LLW and needs LDF
policies for its management.
• All areas with nuclear facilities need LDF
policies for decommissioning wastes.
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