(495.4888) NENIG - This is the main decision of the Ministerial Meeting of the OSPAR Convention held in Portugal from 20-24 July, concerning the nuclear industry. Participating parties in the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the North East Atlantic are: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the European Union.
While some environmental groups hailed the decisions as an historic breakthrough and "the beginning of the end of the nuclear reprocessing industry", the UK and French governments and their reprocessing companies seem relatively happy with the deal - considering it might have been worse. Sellafield operators, BNFL, and the UK Government described the new restrictions as demanding, challenging, but achievable and so safeguarding the 8,000 jobs at Sellafield.
However, the new regulations will mean the likely closure of the UK's eight remaining Magnox nuclear reactors between 2007 and 2009. Built in the 1950s the eight stations have had their expected operating life of 25 years extended by regulators after safety appraisals. The old reactors earn substantial cash for BNFL and it had been hoped that at least some of the them would continuing operating, assuming their safety was approved, for more than another 10 years. Closure of the reactors by 2009 would allow Sellafield to reprocess all remaining Magnox fuel before the 2020 "near zero" deadline. While technetium-99 is stored as waste in the reprocessing of other type of fuel, Sellafield discharges it into the sea when working with Magnox fuel and this is what is expected to mean the end to Magnox reactors. Sellafield faces a challenge, however, in reducing technetium-99 discharges. It has an application to discharge presently before the Environment Agency - which may be 'called-in' for review by ministers who gave specific commitments at the OSPAR meeting that Irish and Nordic concerns over Tc-99 "will be addressed in their forthcoming decisions concerning the discharge authorisations for Sellafield".
The Nordic and Irish governments came away from the meeting with commitments to almost immediate reductions in discharges leading to "close to zero" in 22 years and they will be looking to commitments given by the UK on reducing discharges of technetium-99. There are sure to be long arguments in the future over the "technical feasibility" of discharge reduction methods and possibilities and Greenpeace sees the OSPAR targets as almost impossible for the reprocessing industry to meet, either technically or economically, and that is the reason for its optimistic statements about an end to reprocessing.
The Nordic and Irish governments went into the meeting calling for discharges from Sellafield to be reduce to zero or close to zero, without any mention of what might, or might not be technically feasible which would have effectively closed the plant. The UK was determined the plant remained opened and insisted the negotiations were about reducing discharges as much as technically possible and as quickly as possible. The French government had already told its reprocessing plant at Cap la Hague to produce plans to reduce discharges to close to zero and it was the French evironment minister, Dominique Voynet, who proposed the compromise wording which was eventually adopted.
The Ministerial Statement agrees to "progressive and substantial reductions of discharges" with the aim of "near background values for naturally occurring radioactive substances and close to zero for artificial radioactive substances". But this aim must take into account three issues: "legitimate uses of the seas, technical feasibility' radiological impacts to man and biota". "We shall ensure that discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances are reduced by the year 2020 to levels where the additional concentrations in the marine environment above historic levels, resulting from such discharges, emissions and losses, are close to zero."
In the strategy agreed by ministers there is a commitment that:
"...by the year 2000 the [OSPAR] Commission will, for the whole maritime area, work towards achieving further substantial reductions or elimination of discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances; [and] by the year 2020...the Commission will ensure that discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances are reduced to levels where the additional concentrations in the marine environment above historic levels, resulting from such discharges, emissions and losses, are close to zero."
Also "effective action is to be taken by Contracting Parties concerned, when there are reasonable grounds for concern that radioactive substances introduced into the marine environment, or which reach or could reach the marine environment, may bring about hazards to human health, harm living resources and marine ecosystems, damage amenities or interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea, even when there is no conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between inputs and effects."
Source: N-Base Briefing 141, 27 July 1998
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