Radioactive Material

Radioactive Material

Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) waste

NORM Waste Regulation in the UK

NORM waste is a specific term used in legislation and includes wastes from NORM industrial activities and NORM wastes from the remediation of land contaminated with NORM. Some of the industrial activities generate, or have the potential for generating, NORM wastes. Different process steps give rise to different volumes and activity concentrations of NORM waste.

The main environmental legislation used to control NORM wastes in the UK is the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 (EPR 10) in England and Wales and the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA 93) in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Although the legislation is different, the regulatory systems are very similar in practice across the UK.

There is a mature regulatory framework for most NORM industrial activities. However, for some industries, e.g. unconventional gas generation, the regulatory framework is developing to facilitate better coordination of interested parties. For unconventional gas, the regulatory regime is in place for exploration, and the regulatory regime for production is unlikely to vary much, if at all from conventional regulation.

The legislation requires that NORM containing wastes originating from specified industries are subject to regulation if the concentration of NORM exceeds specified values. If the concentration of NORM in waste is less than the specified values, or the waste arises from an industry not specified in the legislation, the radioactive substances legislation does not apply. This is because government has concluded it would be disproportionate to apply radioactive substances controls to these wastes. Waste not captured by the radioactive substances legislation is known as “out of scope”. The provisions of other waste legislation apply to out of scope waste. The government has the power to amend the specified NORM industrial activities and the “out of scope” values if necessary.

A graded approach has been implemented for the regulation of NORM wastes above out of scope values. The management (accumulation and disposal) of some NORM wastes can be carried out under the provisions of an exemption. Exemptions are set out in legislation (often referred to as the exemption regime) and allow prescribed NORM waste practices to be carried out without the requirement to have a permit .

For NORM wastes not captured by the exemption regime or where the waste manager cannot comply with the exemption conditions, a permit will be required from the appropriate environment agency.

The out of scope values and conditional exemption values for NORM are derived from a dose (risk) of 300 μSv per year. In contrast the values for man-made radionuclides they are derived from a dose (risk) of 10 μSv/y. This approach is in keeping with the standards proposed by the European Commission referred to in the European legal encyclopedia (Basic Safety Standards Directive (Euratom BSS)).

Further information on wastes that fall within the scope of the radioactive substances legislation and the rationale for this is available in the government guidance. The government guidance also provides further detail on the exemption regime. Full guidance on the exemption regime has been produced by the environment agencies.

Land contaminated with radioactivity is of concern if it presents a threat to the environment or if it poses risks to users of the land. Where the risk associated with contamination is above levels specified in the relevant contaminated land regulations, those responsible for the land are required to mitigate the health and environmental impacts. Below these thresholds, the planning system can require remediation if appropriate for the proposed land use as a condition of granting planning permission.

Regulatory Role of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE)

The Health & Safety Executive is the government agency responsible for enforcing regulations and legislation on health and safety, which extends to some environmental matters e.g. transport of dangerous goods, chemical hazards, toxic substances and prevention of accidents. The Radioactive Materials Transport Programme of the Office for Nuclear Regulation is responsible for regulating the transport of radioactive materials and waste by road and rail in the UK. NORM waste generated as part of the nuclear fuel cycle is regulated by ONR under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965.

The Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 are also relevant to NORM waste. The main aim of the Regulations and the supporting Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) is to establish a framework for ensuring that exposure to ionising radiation arising from work activities is kept as low as reasonably practicable and does not exceed dose limits specified for individuals. This applies to exposure, whether from anthropogenic or natural radiation and from external radiation (e.g. X-ray set) or internal radiation (e.g. inhalation of a radioactive substance). The regulations therefore apply to NORM.

Regulation of Offshore Oil and Gas Industry

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is the UK government department with responsibility for regulating the offshore oil and gas industry. Oil and gas activities sit within the Energy Development Unit (EDU) with two separate units managing the licensing and environmental aspects of offshore oil and gas activities – Licensing Exploration and Development (EDU-LED), and offshore Oil and Gas Environment & Decommissioning (EDU-OGED).

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has regulatory responsibility for environmental protection from the low water mark out across the UK continental shelf and are the principal regulator for the offshore oil and gas industry for every stage of activity from licensing, to exploration, through new projects and operations to decommissioning.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change is responsible for the Petroleum Act 1998 and the Pollution, Prevention and Control Act 1999. The introduction of the Marine and Coastal Access Act (MCAA) 2009 has introduced a marine licensing system to cover those offshore energy activities that are the responsibility of DECC, and which are not excluded from the MCAA licensing provisions. The licensable activities are principally related to decommissioning operations, including activities such as disturbance of the seabed, the depositing and removal of materials and the use of explosives.

The vast majority of offshore energy activities relating to oil and gas exploration and production, gas unloading and storage, and carbon dioxide storage operations are controlled under the Petroleum Act 1998 or the Energy Act 2008, and specifically excluded from the marine licensing provisions under Part 4, section 77 of the MCAA. Therefore, operations that can be controlled under the Petroleum Act 1998 or the Energy Act 2008; or are exempted under the Marine Licensing (Exempted Activities) Order 2011, do not require a MCAA licence.

NORM Waste and Land Use Planning

Introductory comments

Land use planning in the UK is a devolved matter and separate planning policies and guidance frameworks are in place.

The planning system in the UK has traditionally not placed a significant emphasis on planning for radioactive wastes, including NORM. This has been as a result of low awareness of the issue and the paucity of clear strategic evidence. This draft strategy provides evidence that NORM waste generating industries are distributed across the UK, although they tend to be concentrated in certain areas where specific industrial sectors are located. There is a need to accommodate both operational and decommissioning arisings of NORM waste so that decisions can be made on a sustainable basis.

Planning helps shape the places in which people live and work and offers local communities real opportunities to influence how they want their area to develop. It operates through a system of plan preparation and control over the development and use of land. The statutory framework for forward planning differs in detail across the UK and is set out below, but there is a requirement that those preparing plans should take into account the waste management needs of their area, including for LLW. Together with national policy, regional and local plans where available are material to decisions on individual planning applications and when they form part of the statutory development plan have added weight. We consider that planning authorities should work with the environment agencies, the non-nuclear industry radioactive waste producers and operators of disposal facilities in shaping planning strategies that ensure the provision of suitable opportunities for the management and disposal of non-nuclear industry LLW and VLLW.

The planning system may play a pivotal role in the adequate provision of properly located waste facilities to meet national needs and move waste management up the waste hierarchy. A key role of this strategy is to provide information to support this process. The remit of waste planning authorities through planning legislation and relevant national planning policy is to ensure that land proposed for a particular waste management activity is suitable for that activity. A new or expanded waste facility cannot be operated without first obtaining both planning permission and an environmental permit (and any other relevant consents).

Land Use Planning: England

National waste planning policy is contained in Planning Policy Statement 10 Planning for Sustainable Waste Management (PPS10) which is currently the subject of review. This provides a positive framework to enable local authorities to prepare local plans that deliver sufficient opportunities for new waste management facilities in their areas. PPS10 and local plans contribute towards forming a wider national waste management plan to meet the requirements of the revised EU Waste Framework Directive.

PPS 10 restates the ‘plan led’ approach to planning for sustainable waste management. This, through the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), places the local plan as the keystone of the planning system and against which all individual planning applications will be judged. In formulating local plans, waste planning authorities take account of total waste arisings against current capacity, and therefore have an interest in the waste streams that may be consigned to particular waste facilities in their area.

The National Policy Statement for Hazardous Waste provides a framework for planning decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects. Facilities which are mainly for the purpose of the final disposal or recovery of radioactive waste are not within scope. However, proposals for the development of hazardous waste facilities that might handle a relatively small proportion of low level radioactive waste alongside hazardous waste are within the scope where they also meet the definition of a nationally significant infrastructure project.

Many current waste plans currently focus primarily, but not exclusively, on Local Authority Collected and Commercial and Industrial wastes. Waste planning authorities are nonetheless expected to plan for the sustainable management of waste in their areas, including waste streams such as low level radioactive waste, as are set out in DCLG “Guidance for local planning authorities on implementing planning requirements of the European Union Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC)”. Typically, older style local waste plans have not explicitly addressed radioactive waste. This has been for a variety of reasons, perhaps most significantly the lack of a nationally definitive statement or evidence on strategic needs. This situation is changing through the production of new, or the updating of existing, local waste plans by waste planning authorities.

Strategic matters were formally addressed in the planning system by regional plans, with PPS10 encouraging regional planning bodies to consider evidence on strategic waste arisings and capacity requirements as collaged by the Regional Technical Advisory Boards. The Localism Act 2011 made provision for the abolition of regional strategies and introduced the requirement for the Duty To Co-Operate in relation to planning of “strategic”, cross-local authority boundary, planning matters. Waste has been identified as a strategic matter in the National Planning Policy Framework. The evidence presented in this document will be an important part of setting out the scale of the issue to be addressed by the Duty to Co-Operate. This means that LLW may need to be considered at a greater than local level. While this is not a “duty to agree”, it is a fundamental requirement of plan making. Authorities who do not take a positive and on-going approach to this issue, and so are unable to demonstrate how they have complied with the Duty at the independent examination of their local plans, will find that they are not be able to proceed further to adopt their draft plan. In light of this strategy waste planning authorities should actively consider what scale of NORM waste they need to plan for, including potential waste movements from other areas.

Land Use Planning: Wales

The general planning policy framework in Wales is provided by Planning Policy Wales/Minerals Planning Policy Wales (PPW/MPPW) and Technical Advice Note 21 Waste (TAN 21). PPW and TAN 21, in particular, set the context for the preparation of Local Development Plans and for decision making in relation to waste proposals as part of a plan-led approach. Along with local authority development plans PPW and TAN 21 form part of the wider national waste management plan in Wales required to meet the obligations set out in the revised EU Waste Framework Directive.

To date, local planning authorities in Wales have also collaborated to produce Regional Waste Plans as a means of facilitating the provision of infrastructure necessary to accommodate waste arisings across all waste streams. These plans have provided information on both the types of waste facilities required in a region and the types of locations likely to be acceptable. The outcomes have been implemented through each local authority’s development plan. However, the publication of new waste policy in Towards Zero Waste has signalled a new approach based on a Wales-wide strategic waste assessment through the provision of a Collections, Infrastructure and Markets Sector Plan and adjustments are currently being made to the planning framework to reflect this.

Radioactive wastes have traditionally not been explicitly addressed by either Regional Waste Plans or development plans and do not feature as part of the latest Wales-wide waste assessments. This has largely been due to the lack of a definitive UK statement raising radioactive waste as an issue and the lack of evidence to date on strategic needs.

NORM waste generating industries are distributed across the UK, although they tend to be concentrated in certain areas where specific industrial sectors are located. There is a need to accommodate both operational and decommissioning arisings of NORM waste. Collaborative monitoring arrangements are set to form a key part of revised waste planning approaches in Wales and this should provide a mechanism to account for any new evidence on NORM arisings which may come forward and for making any necessary adjustments to waste planning approaches.

Land Use Planning: Northern Ireland

Planning Policy Statement 11 “Planning and Waste Management” (PPS11) sets out the Department of the Environment’s policies for the development of waste management facilities, and explains the relationship between the planning system and those authorities responsible for the regulation and management of waste. The Department is currently undertaking a comprehensive consolidation and review of existing planning policy in order to bring forward a single planning policy statement in advance of the transfer of planning powers to District Councils in 2015 as part of the larger Local Government Reform Programme.

In accordance with the requirements of Article 23 of the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, each of the District Councils must prepare a statement (the Plan) of arrangements made and proposed to be made for the recovery, treatment and disposal of controlled wastes arising in their districts. Three regional waste management groups, representing the District Councils, have prepared Waste Management Plans that cover the whole of Northern Ireland and contain information on the type, scale and locations of waste facilities that will be required during the period of the Plans. In doing so they must take account of the Department’s Waste Management Strategy that sets out its policies in relation to the recovery and disposal of waste in Northern Ireland. Together with the Strategy, they form part of the wider national waste management plan required to meet the obligations set out in the revised Waste Framework Directive.

The Department has recently published a revised Waste Management Strategy (“Delivering Resource Efficiency”) and the three Waste Management Plans are being revised accordingly. Historically, Northern Ireland has not been host to NORM waste generating industries, therefore at this time NORM waste has not been explicitly addressed in either the Department’s waste strategy or the Councils’ plans. Should any new evidence of NORM waste management requirements come forward, the Department of the Environment will work with District Councils to consider adjustments to waste planning approaches.

Land Use Planning: Scotland

In Scotland, there are two key documents that inform the planning system, the National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Policy (SPP). Both of these documents are currently under review, and following public consultations are for finalising by June 2014.

Scotland’s Scottish Zero Waste Plan (ZWP) sets out how planning decisions can support the move to zero waste for Directive wastes. There is addition guidance on planning and waste contained in Planning Advice Note (PAN) 63. PAN 63 is being redrafted to supplement SPP and ZWP. This will include coverage of planning for provision for treatment and disposal capacity for LLW.

It is clear that some of the longest journeys taken by NORM wastes in the UK are from Scottish sources to disposal facilities in England. This is inefficient and potentially increases the vulnerability of valuable Scottish business sectors to changes in the availability of disposal resources. However, it is not clear that the gaps in disposal provision in Scotland are caused by the planning system, rather than by the reluctance of providers in coming forward with proposals to develop capacity.

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