BfS remediates gallery below 750-m level as a precaution
Measure expected to have only low impact on operation
For safety reasons the Asse-GmbH has to remediate the road leading to the area below the 750-m level. The rock pressure might otherwise pose risks to the workers in the so-called spiral drift. That was the result of a report commissioned by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS). To be able to access the levels below 750 metres also in the future, the Asse-GmbH will backfill the damaged area with concrete in the months to come and newly construct the required galleries. Project important for retrieval, such as the fact-finding, can be continued despite of ongoing works.
The damages detected by the BfS in the spiral drift between 750 and 800 metres, do currently not pose any acute risk to the miners. However, the remediation works need to be carried out in time so that the workers will not be at risk in the future either.
Since the galleries below the 750-m level that have to be remediated now are working area that are not used very frequently, restrictions to the current operation are clearly not so rigid as in the last spiral drift remediation in 2012/2013. On that occasion a strongly frequented area had been remediated over many months. Restrictions concentrate on works below the 750-m level, such as stabilisation measures in a depth of 800 metres or some control operations.