The Government of Canada’s Programs for Radioactive Waste Cleanup and Long-Term Management

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave McCauley ◽  
Douglas Metcalfe ◽  
Marcia Blanchette ◽  
Tom Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Uranium Mine ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Term Management

The Government of Canada’s 1996 Policy Framework for Radioactive Waste Management establishes that waste owners are responsible for the management of their radioactive wastes. This includes the planning, funding, and implementation of long-term waste management initiatives. Within this context, the Government has established three separate programs aimed at addressing the long-term management of radioactive waste for which it has accepted responsibility. The largest of these programs is the Nuclear Legacy Liabilities Program (NLLP). The objective of the NLLP is to address radioactive waste and decommissioning liabilities resulting from 60 years of nuclear research and development at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) sites in Canada. In 2005, the Government increased the value of this liability in its Public Accounts based on a new, 70-year long-term strategy and, in 2006, it implemented a $520 million 5-year work plan to initiate the strategy. The cost of implementing the full strategy is estimated at about $7 billion (current-day dollars). Canada’s Historic Waste Program is a second program that is designed to address low-level radioactive wastes across Canada that are not managed in an appropriate manner for the long-term and for which the current owner can not reasonably be held responsible. These wastes mainly emanate from the refining and use of radium in the 1930s and the very early days of the nuclear industry in Canada when radioactive ores were mined and transported long distances for processing. While the Historic Waste Program has been in place since 1982, the Government of Canada launched the Port Hope Area Initiative in 2001 to deal with the bulk of the waste. Finally, the Government of Canada has entered into two agreements with Canadian provincial governments on roles and responsibilities relating to the decommissioning of uranium mine and mill tailings sites. These agreements, one with the Province of Ontario and one with the Province of Saskatchewan, establish the responsibilities of each level of government to address circumstances where further decommissioning work is required and the producer can no longer be held responsible. The paper will provide an overview of these environmental remediation programs for radioactive waste and will describe recent progress and future challenges.

Long-Term Issues for Indefinite Surface Storage of Intermediate and Some Low Level Radioactive Waste in the UK

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha King
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Management Option ◽  
Radioactive Waste Management ◽  
Scoping Study ◽  
Low Level ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Term Management

Nirex is the organisation responsible for long-term radioactive waste management in the UK. Our mission is to provide the UK with safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable options for the long-term management of radioactive materials. Nirex is therefore researching various options for the long-term management of radioactive wastes/materials in order to identify the relevant issues with regard to the feasibility of options, and the research, development and stakeholder dialogue necessary to address these issues. The UK policy for the long-term management of solid radioactive waste is currently undergoing review. In September 2001, the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Devolved Administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland launched a public consultation on ‘Managing Radioactive Waste Safely’ (MRWS) [1]. The aim of this consultation was to start a process that will ultimately lead to the implementation of a publicly acceptable radioactive waste management policy. The MRWS programme of action proposed by Government includes a “stakeholder” programme of public debate backed by research to examine the different radioactive waste management options, and to recommend the preferred option, or combination of options. The options of storage above ground and underground are expected to be among the options examined. In the UK, radioactive wastes are currently held in surface stores, at over 30 locations in the UK, pending a decision on their long-term management. These stores were originally designed to have lifetimes of up to 50 years, but due to uncertainty regarding the longer term management of such wastes, extending the life of stores to 100 years is now being considered. This paper describes a preliminary scoping study to identify the long-term issues associated with surface storage of intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW), and certain low-level waste (LLW) indefinitely in the UK. These wastes contain radionuclides with half lives that can range up to a million years or more, it was therefore assumed, for the purposes of this scoping study, that wastes would need to be managed over a period of at least one million years. An indefinite surface storage concept will require institutional stability and encompasses the principle of guardianship. It is based on a rolling present where each generation is required to monitor and, as necessary, repackage the waste and refurbish/replace storage buildings over a period of at least one million years. Each generation will also need to decide whether to continue with surface storage or implement another long-term management option. The aims of the scoping study were to: i) Investigate the implications of indefinite surface storage of waste packages through consideration of the facility specification, design and assessment. This framework is common to all Nirex radioactive waste management option studies, and provides a common basis for comparison. ii) Identify the social and ethical issues related to indefinite storage, including the principles and values that some stakeholders believe are met by the surface storage option.

Legitimacy as the Key: The Long-Term Management of Radioactive Waste in the UK

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Murray ◽  
David Wild ◽  
Ann McCall ◽  
John Mathieson ◽  
Ben Russell
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Public Acceptance ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Radioactive Waste Management ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Term Management

This paper provides an overview of the current status of radioactive waste management in the UK from the point of view of Nirex, the organisation responsible for providing safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable options for the long-term management of radioactive materials. Essentially, it argues that: • the waste exists and must be dealt with in an ethical manner; • legitimacy is the key to public acceptance of any attempt to solve the waste issue; and • credible options and a new political will allow, and indeed, compel this generation to deal with it. In doing this, the paper takes account of a number of recent announcements and ongoing developments in the UK nuclear industry, in particular: • the recent announcement that Nirex is to be made independent of industry; • the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Devolved Administrations’ Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation exercise; • the creation of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management to oversee the consultation; • the creation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to manage the civil nuclear site clean-up programme; • proposals for improved regulation of Intermediate Level Waste conditioning and packaging; and • proposals by the European Commission for a new radioactive waste Directive. These institutional and policy changes amount to an evolution of the back-end of the fuel cycle that represents the most radical transformation in the UK nuclear industry for many years. In a large part, this is a transformation made necessary by past failures in trying to impose a solution on the general public. Therefore, in order for these changes to result in a successful long-term radioactive waste management programme, it is necessary to pay as much attention to political and social concerns as scientific and technical ones. Primarily it is crucial that all parties involved act in an open and transparent manner so that the decisions made achieve a high degree of legitimacy and thus public acceptance. Crucially too, the problem must be framed in the correct term — that the waste exists irrespective of the future of nuclear power and that this is an issue that must be addressed now. Thus there is a legitimacy of purpose and scope in moving forward that addresses the ethical imperative of this generation dealing with the waste. Put together with the action the government is taking to create the necessary institutional framework, Nirex believes that for the first time in a generation the UK has the building blocks in place to find a publicly acceptable, long-term solution for radioactive waste.

Current Status of the Radioactive Waste Management Programme in Spain

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Lang-Lenton Leo´n ◽  
Emilio Garcia Neri
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Management Programme ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Radioactive Waste Management ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Intermediate Storage ◽  
Term Management

Since 1984, ENRESA is responsible of the radioactive waste management and the decommissioning of nuclear installations in Spain. The major recent challenge has been the approval of the Sixth General Radioactive Waste Plan (GRWP) as “master plan” of the activities to be performed by ENRESA. Regarding the LILW programme, the El Cabril LILW disposal facility will be described highlighting the most relevant events especially focused on optimizing the existing capacity and the start-up of a purpose–built disposal area for VLLW. Concerning the HLW programme, two aspects may be distinguished in the direct management of spent fuel: temporary storage and long-term management. In this regards, a major challenge has been the decision adopted by the Spanish Government to set up a Interministerial Committee for the establishment of the criteria that must be met by the site of the Centralized Intermediate Storage (CTS) facility as the first and necessary step for the process. Also the developments of the long-term management programme will be presented in the frame of the ENRESA’s R&D programme. Finally, in the field of decommissioning they will be presented the PIMIC project at the CIEMAT centre and the activities in course for the decommissioning of Jose´ Cabrera NPP.

The Potential Impact of Oil and Other Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (NAPLs) on the Long-Term Management of Radioactive Wastes

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Askarieh ◽  
A. W. Harris ◽  
S. J. Wisbey
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Aqueous Phase ◽  
Organic Materials ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Management

The presence of non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) in radioactive wastes has the potential to adversely affect their long-term management. The buoyancy of light NAPLs can represent a separate pathway for their migration from a waste management facility, such as a deep repository, to the accessible environment. Their inherent toxicity and potential burden of radionuclides need to be addressed. Nirex is currently developing an understanding of the behaviour of NAPLs and exploring the means of mitigating any adverse impact. NAPLs such as oils and solvents are present in existing wastes, but NAPLs can also be generated by degradation of some solid organic materials, such as plastics. Wastes arising in the United Kingdom that may contain NAPLs include liquids and sludges contaminated with oils, and waste items containing trapped oil, for example gearboxes and pumps. The reference inventory being assessed by Nirex also contains significant quantities of organic materials which can be considered to be potential precursors to the generation of NAPLs. A programme of work has been instigated by Nirex to develop a better understanding of the behaviour of NAPLs. The programme includes the following aspects: understanding the mechanisms by which NAPLs might be produced and existing NAPLs degraded and destroyed: • consideration of the containment that could be offered by packaging of wastes containing NAPLs; • investigating the extent to which radionuclides may be entrained in NAPLs; • understanding the migration of NAPLs in the near-field and in geological systems; • the impact of NAPLs on the surface properties of repository backfill and the geosphere; • development of assessment tools to quantify the potential risk due to NAPLs. This paper will describe the scope of this programme of work, and will provide examples from the ongoing programme to demonstrate that suitable long-term waste management solutions can be developed for NAPL containing wastes.

Development of Joint Regulatory Guidance on the Management of Higher Activity Radioactive Wastes on Nuclear Licensed Sites

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mick Bacon ◽  
Doug Ilett ◽  
Andy Whittall
Keyword(s):  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Dissemination And Implementation ◽  
Radioactive Waste Management ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Better Regulation ◽  
Interim Storage

In 2006 the UK Governments response to recommendations by its Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) established, in England and Wales, that geological disposal, supported by safe and secure interim storage, is the preferred route for the long-term management of higher-activity radioactive waste (i.e. that which is not suitable for near-surface disposal). It also gave the responsibility for delivering the programme for a deep geological repository to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The Scottish Government has a policy of long term, near site, near surface safe and secure interim storage. To support the open and transparent approach promised by Government, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) are developing joint guidance on the management of higher-activity radioactive waste to explain regulatory objectives in securing safe and secure interim storage and the associated management of radioactive wastes. The guidance comes in two parts: • Guidance on the regulatory process; • Technical guidance modules. The guidance promotes a cradle to grave approach to radioactive waste management and by aligning the regulatory interests of environmental and safety regulators it delivers one of the Government’s “Better Regulation” objectives. This paper describes the process by which the joint guidance was produced with particular emphasis on stakeholder engagement. It describes the key features of the guidance, including the concept of the radioactive waste management case (RWMC). Finally the problems encountered with dissemination and implementation are discussed together with measures taken by the regulators to improve these aspects.

Practical Implementation of National Clearance Levels at Dounreay

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul McClelland ◽  
Frank Dennis ◽  
Mark Liddiard
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Radioactive Waste ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Radioactive Wastes ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Radioactive Waste Disposal ◽  
Radioactive Material ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Nuclear Site ◽  
Regulatory Controls

Clearance is a very important part of any effective waste management strategy for both operating and decommissioning nuclear facilities. Radioactive waste disposal capacity is becoming an increasingly valuable resource and costs for disposal of radioactive wastes continue to dramatically rise. Considerable cost savings may be realised by efficient segregation of essentially non-radioactive material from radioactive wastes. The release of these materials from licensed nuclear sites for disposal, reuse or recycle without further regulatory controls is commonly referred to by the nuclear industry as “clearance”. Although much effort has been directed at establishing national clearance levels, below which, materials may be released without further regulatory controls, there is little practical guidance regarding implementation into local waste management programmes. Compliance with regulatory clearance limits is a relatively straightforward technical exercise involving appropriate management control and monitoring of the material. Whilst this is sufficient to avoid prosecution for breach of regulatory requirements, it is not sufficient to avoid a myriad of political and public relations land mines. When material is unconditionally released, unless additional attention is given to management of its future destination off-site, it may end up anywhere. The worst nightmare for a waste manager at a nuclear site is headlines in local and national newspapers such as, “RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSED IN LOCAL MUNICIPAL LANDFILL,” or, “RADIOACTIVE WASTE USED AS CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL FOR CHILDRENS PLAYGROUND,” etc. Even if the material were released legally, the cost of recovering from such a situation is potentially very large, and such public relations disasters could threaten to end the clearance programme at the given site, if not nationally. This paper describes how national regulatory clearance levels have been implemented for the decommissioning of the Dounreay nuclear site in the far north of Scotland. It specifically focuses on the management of public relations aspects of clearance in order to limit the exposure to non-regulatory pressures and liabilities associated with clearance programmes from nuclear sites. The issues are put into context for uncontaminated wastes, trace contaminated wastes and management of contaminated land.

Port Hope Area Initiative

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brown ◽  
David McCauley
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Environmental Remediation ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Local Participation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Term Management

The Port Hope Area Initiative involves a process that will lead to the cleanup of low-level radioactive wastes in two communities in Southern Ontario and the construction of three new long-term waste management facilities in those communities. The history of the Initiative provides important insights into local participation and the successes and failures of siting efforts. The wastes resulted from the operations of an industrial process in Port Hope that began in the 1930s. Initially, wastes (contaminated with radium, uranium, and arsenic) from radium processing were deposited in a relatively uncontrolled manner at various locations within the town. By the 1940s, uranium processing wastes were deposited at nearby purpose-built radioactive waste management facilities. The problem of contamination was first recognized in 1974 and the worst cases quickly cleaned up. However, large volumes of contamination remained in the community. There were three successive efforts to develop an approach to deal with the area’s contamination. In the early to mid 1980s, a standard approach was employed; i.e. indentifying the most technically appropriate local site for a disposal facility, proceeding to evaluate that site, and communicating the benefits of the chosen approach to the local community. That approach was resoundingly rejected by local citizens and government representatives. The second effort, an innovative and consultative voluntary siting effort carried out during the late-1980s and early to mid-1990s involved the solicitation of other municipalities to volunteer to host a facility for the disposal of the Port Hope areas wastes. That effort resulted in the identification of a single volunteer community. However, negotiations between the federal government and the municipality were unable to reach an acceptable agreement establishing the conditions for the community to host the waste management facility. The third effort, a community-driven approach, was undertaken in the late-1990s and resulted in an agreement in 2001 between the Government of Canada and the local communities that sets in motion a process for the cleanup of the local wastes and long-term management in new local waste management facilities. This paper provides insights into the history of the problem, the efforts of the federal government over the last two decades to deal with the issue, how local participation and decision-making processes affected the successes of the various siting approaches, and lessons learned that might be of interest to others who must deal with environmental remediation situations that involve siting long-term management facilities.

Planning for the Recreational End Use of a Future LLR Waste Mound in Canada: Leaving an Honourable Legacy

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. R. Kleb ◽  
R. L. Zelmer
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Landscape Planning ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
End Use

The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office was established in 1982 to carry out the federal government’s responsibilities for low-level radioactive (LLR) waste management in Canada. In this capacity, the Office operates programs to characterize, delineate, decontaminate and consolidate historic LLR waste for interim and long-term storage. The Office is currently the proponent of the Port Hope Area Initiative; a program directed at the development and implementation of a safe, local long-term management solution for historic LLR waste in the Port Hope area. A legal agreement between the Government of Canada and the host community provides the framework for the implementation of the Port Hope Project. Specifically, the agreement requires that the surface of the long-term LLR waste management facility be “conducive to passive and active recreational uses such as soccer fields and baseball diamonds.” However, there are currently no examples of licensed LLR waste management facilities in Canada that permit recreational use. Such an end use presents challenges with respect to engineering and design, health and safety and landscape planning. This paper presents the cover system design, the environmental effects assessment and the landscape planning processes that were undertaken in support of the recreational end use of the Port Hope long-term LLR waste management facility.

Medical Waste Management during COVID-19 Situation: Perspective Towards Safe Environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
MANOJ KUMAR JINDAL ◽  
Dr. Santosh Kumar Sar
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
Safe Environment ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Number Of Patients ◽  
Open Dumping ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second Wave

The situation in the world of pandemics is rapidly changing, and the second wave of COVID-19 has put a lot of pressure on the government and private sector, which are primarily responsible for controlling the situation. COVID-19 positive cases have increased in recent months relative to last year, and the number of patients admitted to hospitals has also increased, despite the fact that few of them were denied admission due to shortage of beds. Normal people who experience any symptoms immediately isolate themselves and begin taking the COVID medications prescribed by medical personnel and their team. During these times, all domestic people tossed the wrappers and boxes of medicines into the regular trash can, and the waste was handed over to the waste collector, who treated it like any other domestic waste and disposed of it using open dumping or other methods. The goal of this perspective is to suggest the collections of these types of waste from domestics, and protect the natural resources like water, soil, and even living beings like animals from pollution (from the effect of SARS-CoV-2). The main challenge for environmental waste management agencies is determining who has COVID positive and which houses generate these types of waste; thus, proposed strategy may be beneficial to the long-term sustainability of natural resources and animals.

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