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Dr John B Taylor
Head of Corporate Safety Assurance, BNFL
Chairman DTI Liability Management Group (LMG) Safety Issues Task Force
Dear Mel,
I am writing on behalf of the DTI-LMG Safety Issues Task Force (SITF) to make you aware of an issue that has been highlighted as a result of the 'SAFEGROUNDS' project being managed on behalf of the SITF by CIRIA/Environment Council/WS Atkins. This issue has potentially very significant cost and public acceptability implications to both publicly and privately owned nuclear utilities in the UK as well as those MoD sites which are subject to licencing by NII.
This issue concerns the current regulatory obscurity which surrounds the 'end-points' for site closure and delicencing. This is summarised in a joint statement (see Appendix) from the SAFEGROUNDS Project Steering Group composed of representatives from the industry, NII and EA/SEPA. This problem essentially arises because of the 'no residual danger' requirement of the Nuclear Installations Act if delicencing is sought by licencees. As there is no accepted quantification for this phrase, regulation of this issue is problematic to say the least. Unless resolved this could have major cost implications and makes socio-economic reassurance difficult.
The SAFEGROUNDS project intends to proceed to develop guidance for practitioners based on the current legislation, but SITF feels the issue should be brought to the attention of government, for resolution through 'normal channels'. The SITF would be glad to offer any assistance in this process that DTI thought fit.
Yours sincerely
Dr John B Taylor (SITF Chairman)
Head of Corporate Safety Assurance, BNFL
Work within the SAFEGROUNDS project has highlighted a practical difficulty with the current regulatory framework for radioactively contaminated land on nuclear-licensed sites. The difficulty could also arise on other sites, particularly large, non-licensed, defence sites.
As the regulatory framework stands at present, no radioactive materials (as defined in the Radioactive Substances Act and the Substances of Low Activity Exemption Order made under the Act) can be left on site without regulatory controls (either under the Nuclear Installations Act or the Radioactive Substances Act). This situation is reasonable for radioactive contamination at the land surface, where leaving the contamination in place would lead to undue risks from future use of the land and would be contrary to all modern radioactive waste management practice. It is not reasonable for radioactive contamination below the surface because it implies that all the contaminated soil (or other material) has to be removed in order to de-license a site or sell land. Removal could generate large volumes of low level radioactive waste, for which there are no disposal routes. Even if it were possible to dispose of this LLW (to landfill or to a radioactive waste disposal facility like Drigg), the long-term risks from such disposal could be no different to leaving below the surface contaminated material on site. Thus the effort, costs and worker doses incurred in removal could result in no public health or environmental benefit. From a technical point of view, it is clear that there are activity levels, greater than those in the Radioactive Substances Act and the Substances of Low Activity Exemption Order, up to which the best course of action is to leave contamination below the surface where it is. No such levels exist in the current regulatory framework.
This is not just a problem for the future, when de-licensing and land sales begin in earnest. Without knowing whether such activity levels are likely to be established, and what they might be, it is difficult to estimate contaminated land liabilities. It is also likely that effort will be wasted on short-term remediation, either because what is done now proves to be unnecessary later, or because what is done now is inadequate for the longer term.
There is a strong link between the sub-surface radioactive contamination issue and that of disposal of the large volumes of low level radioactive waste that will arise from decommissioning plant and buildings on nuclear sites. These wastes are unacceptable for landfill disposal (because of their "nuclear" origin) and there is no space for them at Drigg. Disposal on the site at which they arise would be an attractive option, provided that there was no implication that regulatory controls would have to continue after the site has been decommissioned. Note that the non-nuclear industry is allowed to dispose of large volume wastes in this way, because the wastes contain only naturally-occurring radionuclides.
The question for SAFEGROUNDS is whether to begin to address this practical difficulty with the current regulatory framework, via the stakeholder dialogue process, or whether to leave it to be resolved by other means. In either case it is in the nuclear industry's interest to raise the issue with regulators now, before any draft guidance appears that implies that the current framework cannot or will not be changed.
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