Run-up to drilling into the first Asse chamber
Staff conclude two-week convention / BfS has further accelerated procedure / Safety for residents and staff must be ensured at all times
The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) is in the final stages of the marathon to the completion of all documents needed to drill into the first emplacement chamber in the Asse repository. "All staff show exceptional dedication
", a BfS spokesperson said. Each step needs to be documented beforehand to ensure nuclear and mining safety during the drilling process. Before the drill may turn, 1,600 pages with necessary instructions in terms of occupational safety and radiation protection as well as measuring and inspection instructions need to be completed. Just getting the permit to drill into the first emplacement chamber by the Lower Saxon Environment Ministry required the elaboration of application documents comprising about 1,000 pages.
Up to 40 experts from the BfS, Asse-GmbH and the service provider DMT retreated to a two-week workshop in Goslar in order to concentrate on establishing the necessary documents from the morning till late in the evening. They were not supposed to deal with their other tasks. "Thus we have achieved to accelerate the procedure further.
" Only four out of eighty documents that had still been open when the workshop started need to be completed. Since mid March there has been a ban on holidays for all affected BfS staff.
With drilling into and opening of two emplacement chambers and the test-wise recovery of waste the BfS wants to find out whether it will be possible to retrieve all the waste. According to current knowledge, retrieval of the waste is the only option to close the repository for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste safely according to the standards of the Atomic Energy Act.