News : Letter to the News & Star on 7th December on involving local people in decision making
Dear Sir,
I respect Ruth Balogh’s right not to join the West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership (letter 1st December) although I believe she could make an important contribution as a member.
This community Partnership includes organisations from across Cumbria such as local authorities, parish councillors, the Lake District National Park Authority, Churches Together in Cumbria, Cumbria Tourism and the National Farmers Union.
There are two unions on the Partnership that represent thousands of workers at Sellafield but no representatives from any companies in the nuclear sector. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) only attends as an observer.
Ruth Balogh feels it is wrong to put so much weight on public views in this process. The science and geology clearly has to be right but it is also vital that a facility like this only goes to an area where it has public support.
An independent committee of experts, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, recommended that geological disposal is the best option for managing higher activity radioactive waste in the long term.
The Partnership’s role is firstly to determine whether West Cumbria should take part in the search for somewhere to locate a geological disposal facility and in particular whether that is something local people want. It would not be appropriate for us to rerun the debate of a national committee of experts but we can come to a view about whether we are prepared to contemplate this facility coming to this area.
If West Cumbria does make a decision to take part in the search for a site the NDA would then need to look at a range of factors including geology and environmental issues to identify possible sites in this area where a repository could be safely built.
However, the voluntary process that the Government has committed itself to means that it would not be sufficient for scientists and other experts to say it could be built safely in a particular location. A repository could not go ahead unless it was also supported by local people.
No one should be in any doubt that safety would be uppermost in the minds of people in this community in making that decision.
These are complex issues and we should all think very carefully about them before any decisions are made. We are asking the Government a lot of questions, speaking to experts and commissioning research.
Contrary to Marianne Birkby’s claims about this Partnership (letter 1st December) we are doing our best to ensure people are widely informed about these issues so they can be involved in making the decisions. This has included making her leaflets available at events we have organised.
We have never suggested that any country has yet implemented geological disposal. Finland has already started constructing a geological disposal facility and a community in Sweden has volunteered to host a repository there. However that does not mean it would be right to have a repository here.
The members of this Partnership represent a wide range of organisations from across Cumbria. We understand that there are some very strong views – both for and against a repository – but we have not yet come to a view on whether geological disposal might be appropriate in West Cumbria.
Despite the fact that Ruth Balogh has decided not to join the Partnership we still want to hear her views and those of other opponents of geological disposal. We have asked, and will continue to ask, for their views on what questions we should be asking, which experts they think we should talk to and what information we need to make available.
Councillor Tim Knowles
Chairman, West Cumbria Managing Radioactive Waste Safely Partnership
You can see the letter from Ruth Balogh, which was published in the News and Star on 1st December, below and on the News and Star website. The letter from Marianne Birkby appeared in the same edition of the paper but is not available online.
Sir - Cumbrians have been invited by a partnership of local councils to discuss the question of west Cumbria becoming a home for the deep burial of the country’s higher activity nuclear waste, and to give their views at a series of drop-in sessions across the county.
People may be wondering what environmental groups have to say about this, given the reference to our views consists of just four websites in the material circulated.
The partnership has invited me to join it, and I wish to explain why I’ve declined. My reasons include the following:
(a) the partnership is dominated by the nuclear industry, so there could never be a properly balanced discussion;
(b) the fact that this process exists at all means that government can say it is working on a ‘solution’ to the problem of nuclear waste, and this is crucial for the credibility of the programme to build new plants, even though it only applies to EXISTING waste;
(c) the process puts too much weight on public acceptability when the science and geology of hosting a repository is the critical issue;
(d) the research on deep disposal is far from complete, and so it may not be the best option.
Finally, there is a perception that this will go ahead irrespective of what people really think. Otherwise why revisit an idea roundly rejected when Nirex proposed it more than a decade ago and which didn’t even include high level waste?
The main problem with this process is that there is no provision for full scientific scrutiny of proposals as in the Nirex Inquiry – and we know that we cannot rely on the nuclear industry to do this on our behalf.
If I were a team of several scientists with the right expertise to critique the industry’s proposals, I might join in, because that’s what’s really needed.
This process runs the risk of making bad scientific and engineering decisions that nonetheless seem publicly acceptable.
Even worse, if we continue to court the deep disposal idea and it turns out to be flawed and the geology remains unsuitable, then we will have wasted time better spent exploring other solutions, eg continued dry storage at the site of origin.
Nuclear waste policy has been consigned to the “too difficult” box both by successive governments and by the nuclear industry for too long.
This time, let’s get it right. A well-informed debate is essential.
Cumbrians who want to understand some of the arguments and evidence not mentioned in the current discussions should go to www.nuclearwasteadvisory. co.uk and www.no2nuclear power.org.uk
DR RUTH BALOGH
West Cumbria and North Lakes Friends of the Earth