Risk and Hazard Reduction and Waste Management Working Group Summary Report to West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group Meeting – February 7th 2017

Since the previous update there have been two meetings of the Risk and Hazard Reduction and Waste Management Working Group – on Wednesday September 21st 2016 and Wednesday December 21st 2016.

Summary of the 21/09/2016 R&HR&WM Working Group Meeting (Meeting #15)

Presentation 1 – Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) Update

·  Gary Snow (Head of PFCS) gave an update on PFCS.

·  Waste from the silo will be retrieved into 3m3 boxes and moved to an intermediate store.

·  In 2014 an “Early Retrieval Strategy” was adopted, with an aim to simplify the approach to silo emptying – where possible using off-the-shelf items rather than bespoke equipment.

·  Preliminary designs for the Early Retrieval Strategy were completed four months ahead of schedule.

·  The Early Retrieval Strategy has been approved by Government.

·  The manufacturing of silo door and hole cutting equipment is complete.

·  It is expected that deflector plate removal, silo door installation, and hole cutting operations will be completed in 2017.

Presentation 2 – ONR Regulation of PFCS

·  Matthew Worsley (ONR Inspector – Sellafield, Decommissioning, Fuel & Waste Programme) gave a presentation on the ONR’s regulation of PFCS.

·  The near-term risk of PFCS is ALARP due to:

o  Work done in strengthening and sealing the silo

o  Continuous argon inerting

o  Metal firefighting capability

o  Robust emergency arrangements

·  It is acknowledged there will need to be a slight increase in risk as preparations for retrievals occur – the risk will then decrease over the longer term as the hazard is removed

Summary of the 21/12/2016 R&HR&WM Working Group Meeting (Meeting #16)

Presentation – NDA Integrated Waste Management

·  David Loudon (Integrated Waste Manager, NDA) gave a presentation on Integrated Waste Management.

·  There are three IWM topics (Radioactive Waste, Liquid & Gaseous Discharges, and Non-radioactive Waste). This presentation mainly focused on Radioactive Waste.

·  Some statistics were presented, most notably:

o  HLW accounts for only 0.0024% of the total RWI volume, but 95.2% of the total activity.

o  LLW accounts for 93.5% of the total RWI volume but only 0.00007% of the total activity.

·  David explained to the group how the delivery of Strategy III commitments maps into IWM.

·  New technology which offers a potential alternative to cement encapsulation for some wastes by way of thermal treatment is being developed.

·  There are no plans to completely end cement encapsulation.

·  The Scottish Government is responsible for its own Highly Active Waste (HAW) management and has recently published an HAW implementation strategy.

·  “Exempt” is no longer a waste category. It has effectively been replaced with the term “out of scope”.

Discussion – NDA Draft Business Plan

·  Brian Hough (Socioeconomic and Stakeholder Manager, NDA) introduced the NDA Draft Business Plan.

·  The Business Plan is a rolling three-yearly document, and this is the first one since Strategy III.

·  The working group provided feedback on the NDA Draft Business Plan, which will be considered by the NDA.