RESPONSE TO NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING AUTHORITY CONSULTATION DRAFT BUSINESS PLAN 2009/2012
SUMMARY The Environment Agency welcomes this plan and supports the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA’s) principal objectives for 2009-12. We are keen to see the NDA deliver progress in reducing the hazard and environmental risk posed by civil nuclear liabilities across England and Wales. We also want NDA to be responsible for a robust and comprehensive radioactive waste management infrastructure that is capable of supporting current and foreseeable nuclear and non-nuclear sector needs as well as ensuring proper protection of the public and the environment. In support of this NDA should clarify its decommissioning and clean-up strategy, and develop a national programme of key decommissioning and clean-up milestones to demonstrate what NDA seeks to achieve over the next few years and against which progress can be measured. NDA’s ability to deliver the geological disposal facility is crucial to ongoing work within both the nuclear and non-nuclear sectors. Detailed plans for this are needed to secure appropriate funding and give confidence about the commitment to the ongoing programme. 1.0 1.1 MAIN POINTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY’S RESPONSE The Environment Agency wants to see the NDA deliver progress in reducing the hazard and environmental risk posed by civil nuclear liabilities across England and Wales. We work closely with the NDA in supporting its development of strategy, and we are a statutory consultee to the NDA under the Energy Act 2004. We welcome this three-year rolling business plan and support the NDA’s principal objectives for 2009-12. These focus on delivering progress in hazard and risk reduction whilst encouraging the highest standards in health, safety, security and environmental performance. The NDA has made substantial progress in getting to grips with the estate that it has inherited. However, confidence that the core strategy is robust will come only from being able to demonstrate progress in delivering decommissioning and clean-up of the estate. NDA has yet to describe its strategy for decommissioning and clean-up. Instead, it is committed to “develop a business case for accelerating the decommissioning of Magnox (and other) reactor sites”. Last year considerable work took place at the Magnox sites to consider the merits of a ‘safe
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and secure’ strategy. It is not clear how this will be taken forward. We urge NDA to clarify its decommissioning and clean-up strategy as a matter of priority. 1.4 NDA’s proposal to reduce the period of public consultation on future draft Business Plans may limit the opportunity for stakeholders to understand and comment on the NDA’s draft plans, particularly if they are timed to run over the Christmas holiday period. NDA should monitor the implementation of any such proposal carefully to ensure that consultation remains effective. SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENT AGENCY COMMENTS Overview 2.1 The NDA describes a range of primary and secondary objectives, derived from Government objectives. NDA should indicate the relative priority of these objectives. For comparison, the USA Department of Energy (DoE) has set out clearly its relative priority of objectives1 for nuclear decommissioning. Such clarification is particularly important for the NDA when the scope of the plans being prepared by site operators is at, or well above, the level of available funding allocated by Government. NDA’s plan to improve its performance management framework is welcome. One improvement might include production of a national programme of milestones tackling NDA’s decommissioning and clean-up priorities. This would provide a transparent means of measuring and reporting on progress. The level of detail in the plan is low and some of the objectives are rather ambiguous. It is difficult to see how individual site objectives contribute to the overall NDA and life-time plan objectives. The level of detail in the individual site plans needs to be made more consistent and should reflect the relative priority and costs of the sites. A performance management framework should help ensure that the NDA is able to track progress against existing commitments, for example, those made in the previous Business Plan (2008/11). These include commitments for 2008-9 to develop a more sophisticated prioritisation system, provide longer-term expenditure plans and produce technical notes describing how the NDA Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs) will be measured. It is not clear to us that these have been delivered. The NDA has developed the Value Framework to support decisions on allocating funds across its estate. We welcome the plan to use a common methodology for business cases, and encourage NDA to include environmental considerations (including climate and landscape change) as part of this, alongside factors such
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FY 2009 Congressional Budget Request Volume 5 DOE/CF-028 Volume 5 Environmental Management Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal
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as available technology, skills and knowledge. It will be important that the NDA uses this methodology to deliver a transparent description of the pros and cons of options, including options on hazard and risk reduction profiles, and the overall impact of delivering the options themselves. Whilst decision-making methodologies can be informed by tools that place a value on environmental and other impacts, care should be taken to avoid creating a ‘black-box’ approach, limiting the ability of others to understand and engage in the process. NDA Strategy 2.6 The NDA is developing its strategy management system in support of a strategy review in 2010. The process of strategy development will tackle 27 topic strategies, and work on some of these is already underway. One topic strategy addresses decommissioning and clean-up, while others include land quality management, end states and different waste streams. It is not yet clear how these 27 strategies will be integrated to avoid conflict between different areas of interest. This is important if the NDA is to undertake a meaningful review of its overall strategy in 2010. NDA plans to inform its strategy review by a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Our response to the NDA’s SEA scoping report consultation in 2008 emphasised the significance of SEA in development and review of strategy. Plans for carrying out the SEA, including the link with topic strategy development and the timing of public consultation, are not clear. The SEA process needs to be delivered in time to inform the NDA’s Low Level Waste (LLW) Strategy. We recognise the importance of effective partnership arrangements if decommissioning and clean-up of the nuclear legacy is to be achieved in a timely and efficient manner. We place considerable importance on our work with the NDA. It allows us to give timely support and advice in helping the NDA to deliver its mission in ways that take proper account of environmental protection. Since the NDA was established, the ways in which we work together have changed considerably and it would be useful to establish the lessons learnt from this to ensure that we continue to deliver an effective partnership. Objectives 2.9 We welcome the NDA’s commitment to encouraging the highest standards in health, safety, security and environmental (HSSE) performance and its ongoing support to our own Nuclear Sector Plan2. We encourage the NDA to set out clearly its objectives for HSSE performance to provide a framework for measuring and reporting on HSSE performance, and for establishing Performance Based Incentives that will support its HSSE objectives. We suggest that work to develop
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See our latest performance report: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/sectors/39789.aspx
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a suite of leading safety indicators should be broadened to incorporate leading environmental indicators. Deliver Hazard and Risk Reduction 2.10 The hazard baseline is a significant tool which has helped with our understanding of the distribution of hazards and risks across the NDA estate. It will be valuable in helping demonstrate progress in managing these hazards and risks. However, the scope is currently limited to intermediate and high level radioactive wastes and omits low level radioactive wastes, in particular those associated with contaminated land and ground waters at NDA sites. This information is available from the Safety and Environmental Detriment (SED) scores at each site. We suggest that the scope of the baseline be extended to include low level wastes, and non-radioactive wastes. Progress – decommissioning and clean-up 2.11 We want the NDA to deliver prompt decommissioning and clean-up across its sites, particularly where the hazards and risks to the environment are high. The lack of funding and some technical constraints can hamper the NDA’s ability to deliver this in all areas. We will continue work with the NDA and site operators to explore radioactive waste disposal solutions that support early site clearance where possible. Ensure safe and secure management of radioactive waste and materials 2.12 The NDA has a pivotal role in providing an infrastructure for radioactive waste management in the UK. This includes responsibility for the development of a robust strategy for UK nuclear Low Level Waste (LLW), in addition to owning key facilities for the treatment and disposal of wastes from the nuclear and nonnuclear industry. The NDA is also responsible for the implementation of a programme for geological disposal of higher-activity wastes. This means that NDA plans in this area are significant not only for the decommissioning and clean-up of NDA sites themselves, but also to the continued operation of other nuclear and non-nuclear businesses. We are concerned about the lack of information on delivery of the geological disposal programme. The delivery of this programme is vital to ensuring that nuclear legacy issues can be resolved in due course, and that any plans for new nuclear build do not contribute to further problems in this area. The Plan provides no detail on the timescales and milestones that are envisaged, other than the initial development of a ‘prospective SLC’ by December 2009. More detailed plans are needed to help secure appropriate funding and give confidence about the commitment to the programme. We want NDA to be responsible for a robust and comprehensive radioactive waste management infrastructure that is capable of supporting current and
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foreseeable nuclear and non-nuclear sector needs as well as ensuring proper protection of the public and the environment. We encourage the NDA to consider this as part of its development of a coherent and robust national integrated waste strategy (IWS). Site Licence Company Summaries 2.15 Expenditure details are provided for 2009/10 and 2010/11. It is not clear what expenditure is planned for 2011/12.
FURTHER INFORMATION For further information please contact Dr Juliet Long, Radioactive Substances Regulation Policy, either by e-mail at juliet.long@environment-agency.gov.uk or by telephone on 0117 914 2978. January 2009
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