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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

i-Nuclear update: English county asks for more time to consider hosting UK's nuclear waste dump

i-NUCLEAR

English county asks for more time to consider hosting UK’s nuclear waste dump

by I-Nuclear
The three governments in Cumbria County, England that have been working with the UK government to consider hosting an underground nuclear waste repository have asked for more time to decide whether to proceed with the process.
Allerdale Borough Council, Copeland Borough Council and Cumbria County Council have issued a joint statement asking for three more months, until January 2013, to consider the matter. The councils were due to vote October 11 on whether to proceed to the next stage of the UK government’s Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) process.
The MRWS process is designed to seek a voluntary host for the UK government’s large stockpiles of waste including intermediate and high-level waste, spent nuclear fuel and plutonium.
With a voluntary host community, the government would then proceed to search for a geologically suitable site within Cumbria County, which is already home to the Sellafield chemical and nuclear waste complex.
The borough councils of Copeland and Allerdale and the cabinet committee of Cumbria County Council were scheduled to meet separately to discuss a decision on whether to proceed to the next stage, which would involve the government performing “desk-based” studies on potential sites for the underground repository.
Each of the three councils were to vote for one of three options, as follows: yes, to go forward; no, to abandon the voluntary participation, or to vote for a delay in a decision.
But on October 2, the councils opted to request more time before the scheduled votes occurred. The councils said in a press statement that they needed more time to seek further information and clarification from the national government on “a number of issues they believe are key to the issue of trust.”
“One of these issues is the right of withdrawal. The Government says the Councils would still be able to withdraw from the process up until the point when work could start on building a repository. However, the Councils want to get a better understanding of the detail and timescale involved in meeting the Government’s commitment to make this right of withdrawal legally binding,” the councils said in their statement.
“Some people have expressed concerns that the Government might not deliver on its promise to provide a package of community benefits to any area where a repository is built,” the councils said.
“One of the biggest concerns for many residents of Cumbria has been whether the geology of the area is suitable for a repository,” the councils said.
“Although a few geologists believe there is already enough evidence to show that West Cumbria’s geology is unsuitable, most of the experts agree that there is not enough definitive information available at this time,” the councils said.

I-Nuclear | October 2, 2012 at 8:33 pm | Categories: geological disposal, NDA, nuclear waste, spent fuel, UK | URL: http://wp.me/p22dAl-oj

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