Finnish radwaste dump decision

The following article of 29th May 2001 about the Finnish Parliament's decision on a high-level spent fuel nuclear waste repository is from Harri Lammi of Greenpeace Nordic (Kaisaniemenkatu 1 G 173 00100 Helsinki, Finland. tel: +358 9 684 37 540 fax: +358 9 684 37 541 www.greenpeace.fi)

The Finnish parlamentary decision was a so-called 'decision-in-principle', NOT a decision to actually start building a high level nuclear waste repository.

This means that the government and parliament thought that it is in principle in the interests of the nation to go forward with plans to bury waste in Finland. In practise this is a permission for the nuclear waste company Posiva to build a Rock Characterisation Facility, a test shaft in Olkiluoto in the depth of 500 meters. This decision was made before safety of the plan was demonstrated.

The state nuclear safety agency STUK stated that a lot of safety testing and further development of the plan must be made before the building permit could be given. According to the Finnish nuclear law decision-in-principle can be made without safety of the plan to be demonstrated, and this decision starts the tests. Posiva is planning to demonstrate the safety with RCF. The parliamentary hearings were very short and onesided, out of 23 organisations heared, 2 were ENGOs. No other parties or persons critical to the plan were heard. Each NGO was heard approximately 30 minutes. (Compared to UK case, which took three months, and in the end the government refused to give a permit to NIREX for a similar plan in 1997.)

We managed to create some media bringing critical researchers to Finland, but I think the parlamentarians refused to listen. Even the Greens had made up their mind already in 1999, when nobody was campaigning about it in Finland. Two of the three MP:s that voted against the decision in principle will be punished by their party groups for voting against the government decision, agreed by the parties in the government.

Posiva plans to make RCF tests till 2010 and then build the facility and start using it in 2020. The building of the facility will need a building permit from the government in 2010 and a utilisation permit in 2020. Building permit requires that the safety of the facility must be demonstrated. The parlamentarians who were critical to plans wanted to point out that this will be a very crucial phase. This safety and building decision in 2010 is however made by the goverment only. Our campaign to let the parlamentarians have the final say have failed so far.

Eurajoki municipality in the west coast of Finland is the first ever to accept nuclear waste into their area, and the parliament decision makes Finland (to my knowledge) the first country in the world which has chosen a location for nuclear waste dump for civil n- waste. The attitudes in Eurajoki are very divided. A lot of people are critical of the plan, but the few vocal antinuclear people are critisised fiercly by municipality civil cervants and harrassed by local rednecks. So in the end most people don't want to stand up and no real movement has ever been created. Majority of the people and municipal council is for the plan, partly because of idological reasons, partly because it brings them financial aid worth millions of Finnish marks from waste company Posiva. This aid is legal, but nevertheless immoral.

The site of Olkiluoto in Eurajoki municipality was not the geologically best option. The company admits that Olkiluoto has a very complex geology and more salty groundwater. According to their own research report this makes the location worse than other options. Posiva actually denied that in the parlamentary hearings, and was never forced to answer (our question of) how can it ignore its own analysis. We we argumenting among other things that choosing Olkiluoto is against the Euratom laws, which requires to maximise the radiological protection to public. Posiva admits that Olkiluoto was chosen because of sociological reasons. Olkiluoto was the only location which did not have a antinuclear movement. It has already two operating nuclear reactors which are major employers in the otherwise small municipality. Posiva also claims that Olkiluoto reduces the need for transport of waste, but actually it is planning to ship waste from other nuclear power plant in south of Finland through Finnish archipelago.

The building of a Rock Characterisation Facility is a very dubious way of "making tests" as it would be the first part of a final facility. The excavations change the properties of the rock in a way that Posiva must be able to anticipate and predict. Unless Posiva knows the natural development of the bedrock well enough before it starts to change it by excavation the safety analysis will be virtually impossible later on. This means that by building a RCF Posiva would in effect be destroying the evidence.

Similar critisism by GP in the UK Nirex case in Sellafield stopped the plans. In Finland, despite the media we managed to create, the parlamentarians refused to listen. Posiva admitted that our critisism is partly justified and now has a program of couple of new boreholes and more groundwater flow tests that have already started. They expect to be able to start excavating in 2003-2004. This modeling is a very difficult task which has not been achieved anywhere in the world, and this task is very likely to be underestimated by Posiva. The modelling is made even more difficult by the complex bedrock and groundwater chemistry in Olkiluoto. It is very likely that the Posiva model wil be inadequate and Posiva still wants to start to excavate. In their statement about the decision-in-principle the parliamentary environmental committee acknowledges some of our worries and states that Posiva should make a model of the "basic state" or development of the bedrock and "these results should be throughoutly and openly analysed before company starts to excavate."