§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will define the very small quantities of alpha emitters and small amounts of trace elements 197W mentioned in his reply of 3 May to the report of the Environment Committee on nuclear waste; and if he will specify what quantities of each can cause human harm.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe Government have stated their intention that only wastes which are broadly classed as low level wastes should go into a near surface facility. Detailed control over the type of waste disposed of would be exercised through the site authorisation issued under the RSA 60, together with the nuclear site licence issued by the NII.
Any site authorisation would take careful account of the characteristics of the chosen site. It is therefore premature to define precisely what levels of alpha emitters and trace elements would be appropriate.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the health risk arising from nuclear waste in nuclear waste dumps; and on what basis these figures are calculated.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe risk assessment methodology used by the Department is described in research report DOE/RW/86.076, and in an article published in the journal of the British Nuclear Energy Society (London, 1984). A copy of this article has been placed in the Library of the House.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will refund the rail fares of those delegates invited to London to give their arguments for the exclusion of Killingholme from the special development order on nuclear dumping.
§ Mr. WaldegraveNo.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he received the letter of 7 April 1985 from Mr. J. W. Saville of 61 Yarrow road, Grimsby, with regard to the proposed nuclear dump site at Killingholme; and if he has replied to this letter.
§ Mr. WaldegraveMr. Saville's letter was received on 9 April. A reply was sent on 15 May.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment at what stage he will make available to local authorities the technical site selection criteria used in the choice of the four possible nuclear dumps.
§ Mr. WaldegraveNIREX has already sent copies of its brochure explaining its site selection procedures to all county councils in England and Wales and regional councils in Scotland.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment, at the time of the laying of the Town and County Planning (Nirex) Special Development Order (a) how many letters protesting at the proposals for nuclear dumping he had not answered, (b) how many requests from deputations for a meeting he had not answered and (c) how many of the four proposed sites he had visited.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI and my colleagues met Members and delegations from all the areas in which a site is located before the SDO was laid. In addition, I was able to visit three of the four sites concerned and I visited the remaining site on 15 May. I have yet to reply to a request from Britain Against Nuclear Dumping for a meeting.
It has not been possible so far to reply to 600 of the letters received, but the points made have been considered.