As things stand, safe decommissioning can only be achieved by retrieval
On the report of the "Panorama"
magazine on the Asse mine that aired on 5 July 2012, the BfS states:
- In 2009, the BfS was given the task of safely decommissioning the Asse mine in compliance with the requirements of nuclear law. According to the present state of knowledge, this can only be achieved by retrieving the waste from the Asse mine. It is currently being investigated in the trial phase whether this can be achieved. This situation has not changed.
- Until recently, Michael Siemann, in a managerial capacity, also actively supported the results relating to the Asse mine. Surprisingly, he has publicly distanced himself now.
- The people living in the region around the Asse mine, whose trust was betrayed over decades, are entitled to the best possible solution under the difficult prevailing conditions for the legally prescribed safe decommissioning of the Asse mine.
Background to the so-called Memorandum of November 2011
The Head of Department who was then responsible for the Asse project, wrote the "Memorandum on risks in the implementation of retrieval"
on 14 November 2011, which was repeatedly mentioned in the media. The Memorandum recommends to make preparations for a task of the "Retrieval" project. At the same day, Michael Siemann, as Head of Department, forwarded the letter to the BfS management, pointing out explicitly that he "shared the content entirely". In the previous held weekly steering committee meetings on the Asse mine Michael Siemann had not mentioned this positioning, the same applies to the steering committee meeting of the same day, 14 November 2011.
In the Memorandum the known problems associated with the mine were addressed and it was said that it had been recognised in the preparatory works carried out so far that more time would be required for the fact-finding than had been estimated in the context of the comparison of options. In the Memorandum, the problems had not been evaluated in a professionally grounded way; no remedial measures and no acceleration options had been pointed out. Without having this checked and justified further, it was rather argued in favour of giving up completely the previous procedure.
Based on a Management decision, the evaluation of the situation and the debate of options to solve the problem and accelerate the procedure was made up for in an external expert workshop on 18/19 January 2012. Following an invitation of the BfS, about 100 experts discussed about how the process of retrieving the wastes from the Asse mine could be accelerated. Michael Siemann, then Head of Department, presented the results of the workshop. Until completion of the workshop, he emphasised, among others:
"If you asked me about my personal conclusion right now, I could tell you: When this workshop started I was sceptical. I leave the workshop, very positively surprised. I am positively surprised because of the mood we could enjoy here in the last one and a half days. We invited to this workshop, many have come, some not, but many have come. And those who have come have shown that they are prepared to help us solve problems and to support us. And a very constructive working atmosphere prevailed in the working groups, that could be called: What is the problem, and how can we solve it, and who can contribute to this?"
The BfS cannot confirm the allegation presented in the Panorama programme, Michael Siemann left the BfS because of the Asse mine. Michael Siemann did not hand in his notice but requested leave of absence.