Publication Laka-library:
Eighteenth Annual Report of Radioactive Waste Managament Advisory Commission (1998)
| Author | RWMAC |
| Date | July 1998 |
| Classification | 2.05.4.10/52 (UNITED KINGDOM - WASTE - NIREX/NDA DECOMMISIONING) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
Chapter 1 Review of the RWMAC's Work Programme Introduction 1.1 Each year since 1978, the date of its establishment, the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) has submitted a report to Government describing the work that it has undertaken in the 12 months prior to publication and outlining its planned work programme for the forthcoming year. This, the RWMAC's Eighteenth Annual Report, focuses mainly on the period from 1 June 1997 to 31 May 1998. The Committee's terms of reference and a list of its current Members are given in Annex 1. As in previous reports, a statement of expenditure incurred by the Committee and a declaration and register of Members' interests are included - as Annex 2 and Annex 3 respectively. Work in 1997-98 1.2 Because the current Government had not fully formulated its views on the outcome of the Financial Management and Policy Review of the RWMAC initiated by the previous administration in October 1996 (see paragraph 2.1 ), it did not commission the Committee to undertake a new work programme until the end of January 1998. Hence, up until that point, RWMAC's activities were largely driven by the Committee itself. Since January 1998, the main focus of the RWMAC's work has been the commissioned programme (see Chapter 3). Several items of this programme have already been completed and advice submitted to Ministers; the Committee's conclusions are, in each case, set out in this Annual Report. 1.3 The RWMAC's work prior to receipt of the new Ministerial work programme was dominated by consideration of two substantial issues. These were the long-term management of the United Kingdom's (UK's) intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) following the failure of UK Nirex Ltd (Nirex) to secure planning permission for a Rock Characterisation Facility (RCF) at Longlands Farm near the Sellafield nuclear site, and the proposals formulated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) for the long-term management of the so-called 'ILW Disposal Shaft' at the Dounreay nuclear site in Caithness, Scotland. Output from the first of these was incorporated in the Committee's written evidence submitted to the enquiry currently being undertaken by the House of Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology into the Management of Nuclear Waste1• The RWMAC also undertook a study of radioactive waste management practices in Spain in October 1997. It has also responded to a number of consultations on proposals to vary authorisations for the disposal of radioactive waste carried out by the Environment Agencies both prior to, and after, January 1998. Nirex 1.4 In its Seventeenth Annual Report2, the RWMAC gave an account of the background to the dismissal, on 17 March 1997, by the then Secretary of State for the Environment, of the appeal by Nirex against Cumbria County Council's refusal to grant planning permission for the company's proposed RCF. The Report (paragraph 2.34) went on to note the RWMAC's intention to consider the issues raised by this decision in relation to radioactive waste management in the UK.
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