Risk Analysis and Communication for a Disposal Site of Radioactive Sludges: An Efficient Strategy. Christian Kunze, Managing Partner, B.P.S. Engineering GmbH, Reinsdorfer Str. 29, D-08066, Zwickau, Germany, telephone +49-375-3600-100, fax +49-375-3600-102, e-mail bpszwickau@t-online.de; and Gunter Kiessig, Head, Water Treatment Group, WISMUT GmbH, Engineering Department T 1.2, Jagdschänkenstr. 29, D-09117 Chemnitz, Germany
Remediation of the decommissioned Uranium mining and milling facilities in Eastern Germany, carried out by the company WISMUT, requires the extensive use of quantitative risk analysis and decision making tools. A peculiarity is the long time horizon of some 100-1000 years to be covered by the environmental and health risk analysis.
Apart from the purely numerical risk and cost figures, the permitting procedure for each single project depends sensitively but also on the way the risk figures are presented and communicated.
The time required to obtain a permit has become a crucial factor to reduce costs. Therefore, a strategy to ease the permitting procedure was strongly requested by WISMUT.
Our paper demonstrates, how classical quantitative risk analysis is integrated into a two-step strategy of risk communication between WISMUT, authorities and the public. The first step is a thorough and credible quantitative risk analysis which confirms, in most cases, the ranking of options with respect to their long-term risk (and associated costs) as perceived by authorities and the public ("reassurance"). It creates common ground for understanding the issue. In the second step, the absolute risks of each option are discussed and compared to risks at other WISMUT sites or everyday hazards.
It is just this combination of a transparent analysis of environmental and health risks and their realistic comparison to other hazards which greatly accelerates permitting procedures, provided the risks involved are actually small but attract great public concern (as is mostly the case).
As an example, the siting of a disposal facility for 40,000 m³ solidified radioactive and toxic mine water treatment sludges is considered. Regulators had initially preferred expensive underground storage over a much cheaper site on a waste rock pile. Applying our two-step strategy, approval for the cheaper waste rock pile site was obtained within unexpectedly short time.
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