OSKARSHAMN SEMINAR REPORT 19-21 September 2001 COWAM Secretariat C/o Mutadis 3 rue de la Fidélité 75010 Paris France Tel. 33 (0)1 48 01 88 77 - Fax. 33 (0)1 48 01 00 13 - [email protected] 2 Oskarshamn September 2001 A street in Oskarshamn historic center COWAM Secretariat C/o Mutadis 3 rue de la Fidélité 75010 Paris France Tel. 33 (0)1 48 01 88 77 - Fax. 33 (0)1 48 01 00 13 - [email protected] Oskarshamn September 2001 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 4 FIRST CASE STUDY – SELLAFIELD, UNITED KINGDOM 7 CUMBRIA COUNTY COUNCIL’S EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITIES 7 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AND THE NIREX RCF INQUIRY 16 NIREX AND THE RCF INQUIRY 19 DISCUSSION 24 THE SWEDISH CONTEXT 31 BACKGROUND CONTEXT ON NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY IN SWEDEN 31 BACKGROUND CONTEXT ON SKB NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES 35 SECOND CASE STUDY - OSKARSHAMN 37 FEASIBILITY STUDY IN OSKARSHAMN 37 MUNICIPAL EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES 40 EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES FROM AN NGO VIEWPOINT 44 DISCUSSION 48 THIRD CASE STUDY : TIERP, SWEDEN 55 FEASIBILITY STUDIES IN TIERP 55 MUNICIPAL EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES 58 EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES FROM AN NGO VIEWPOINT 61 DISCUSSION 63 WORKING GROUPS REPORT 72 WORKING GROUP 1 72 WORKING GROUP 2 74 WORKING GROUP 3 76 WORKING GROUP 4 78 WORKING GROUP 5 80 WORKING GROUP 6 83 WORKING GROUP 7 84 WORKING GROUP 8 85 WORKING GROUP 9 86 WORKING GROUP 10 88 PANEL SESSION AND DISCUSSION WITH THE AUDIENCE 89 COWAM Secretariat C/o Mutadis 3 rue de la Fidélité 75010 Paris France Tel. 33 (0)1 48 01 88 77 - Fax. 33 (0)1 48 01 00 13 - [email protected] 4 Oskarshamn September 2001 Introduction MR. TORSTEN CARLSSON Dear Ladies and Gentlemen I am glad to host you here in Oskarshamn. The district comprises many small and middle sized villages. We have between 500 and 1,500 inhabitants in the villages. The city of Oskarshamn itself comprises about 18,000 people. The biggest employers are Scania which produces truck cabins and Oskarshamn's Nuclear Power Group and other middle sized companies. We have about 13,000 inhabitants that are employed everyday. We have a low rate of unemployment. Put in a global perspective, this is perhaps not remarkable that nuclear power and nuclear waste issues awakened strong feelings, both in our district and in other communities and districts all over the world because this peaceful drive has its origin in the military area and the power producing reactors suffered catastrophes with tragic destruction and consequences for thousands of people, for example, in Chernobyl. Because of this, there is significant lack of trust towards the industry and the decision makers, and this cannot be ignored. For us in Oskarshamn, this knowledge has been and is the base to organise our democratic work in the nuclear waste issues. It is very important for us that our organisation and our methods are credible amongst the decision makers, the authorities and the industry both locally, regionally and nationally. To be able to achieve the credibility that we want, our project management has the competence and the knowledge that is required. The ability to work in a politically sturdy organisation has to be and is the best. Without having very ample extroverted activities that target the inhabitants of the community, it is impossible to gain credibility. One of the main groups we have to reach is our youth, which will be overseeing the decisions that we take. The time factor is very important in the democratic process, especially regarding the issues of nuclear waste. In what other issue do we talk about hundreds and thousands of years with difficult terms and many unsafe and questionable issues in which methods and technique and technologies are totally untested? In what other issue do the researchers have so many different opinions, for example, regarding cracks in the mountains, on the glacier ? And will the cows really be able to graze on top of deep storage areas ? These issues have come up all the time. Will people want to live close by to such areas? The questions are many and difficult to be answered. How can we trust that what is done is being done correctly? My answer is to create credibility in the process and to allow all of those who want to express themselves to do it. All questions are important just because they are being asked. Make sure that those who answer take the questions seriously and give answers to them. Do not give up before the answers are clear and one has understood the answer. So here I declare COWAM conference open and once again warm welcome to all of you. MR. GILLES HERIARD DUBREUIL Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am Gilles Hériard Dubreuil, co-ordinator of the Cowam programme. Before starting the meeting I would like to give you some information about this project. First of all, I would like to thank the Oskarshamn city and its Mayor for hosting this meeting and to tell you that I am very happy that this meeting and this project can take place. It required a lot of efforts from many people, many partners, and I hope it will meet expectations up to the many efforts which were put into this project. First of all I would like to give you some information about the background and the different steps of preparation of this project. COWAM means Community Waste Management. The background of the programme is that in 1998-99 different experts and individuals working in the nuclear waste management field realized that this was a global problem looking for a local solution. Therefore there was a need for a sound contract between the national community and a local community. To reach such a contract there is a need for mutual trust between the national community and a local community. But in the last decades nuclear waste management was very much designed as a technical option. Gradually it was acknowledged that it was not only a technical problem but also a political, social, ethical issue with many complex dimensions. There is an increasing need to have society, and notably directly concerned local actors, COWAM Secretariat C/o Mutadis 3 rue de la Fidélité 75010 Paris France Tel. 33 (0)1 48 01 88 77 - Fax. 33 (0)1 48 01 00 13 - [email protected] Oskarshamn September 2001 5 involved in the decision-making process. In the past, when nuclear waste management was seen as a technical issue, the local communities were only involved in the last stage of the decision-making process when almost all components of the decision were already fixed. In 1999 a group composed of representatives of a local community (Oskarshamn), national authorities (HSK in Switzerland and the special advisor to the Swedish Government on nuclear waste issues), the French nuclear operator (ANDRA), and also of experts from Belgium (SK-CEN), France (Mutadis, CEPN) and UK (NRPB) prepared and proposed a project to the EC Research Directorate with the objective: to improve the decision making process in nuclear waste management at the local and regional levels. The project was accepted as a European Concerted Action. It is designed as a 3 years collective reflection process (2000-2003) developed in 4 seminars, each one being located in a local community involved in Cowam. The budget covers part of the organisation of the seminars and project management. The idea is to set up a collective learning process based on existing experiences of decision-making processes as regards nuclear waste management in Europe with a wide range of European participants, all concerned by or involved in nuclear waste management : local communities and NGOs, operators, national authorities and experts. The objective of COWAM is first of all to improve the quality of decision making at local level in nuclear waste management. I must add that all of you are involved in or concerned by waste management, but with different types of waste and technical options. The issue is not to determine which option is the best for a particular type of waste, but rather to discuss the quality of the decision-making process from the local level viewpoint. The question for Cowam is not to promote one option or another, but to consider, for instance, if and how the local community is involved in the discussion of the technical concept. The relevance of technical concepts is a matter for discussion in each country according to the national context. Once this project was validated and accepted by the European Commission, the Cowam steering committee first met in september 2000. Its members felt then that there was a real need to address the issue of decision-making processes regarding nuclear waste management directly from the local point of view. We observed a deficit of local communities' networking in nuclear waste management at the European level. Therefore, we decided to give Cowam additional goals, and to make a specific effort to give European local communities and NGOs the opportunity to represent their own views in COWAM, and to create favourable conditions for local communities to network at the European level. This is the reason why we decided to turn this workhop in a more ambitious project, a European platform of dialogue at first for local communities and NGOs involved in nuclear waste management. Delegates from many European countries attend today this seminar : participants come from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK. There is a strong participation of local communities and NGOs (75% of the audience) and a panel of national authorities, operators, experts.