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.