Swiss experts back deep storage for nuclear waste

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Swiss experts back deep storage for nuclear waste

BERNE, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A group of Swiss experts recommended on 
Monday that low- and medium-level nuclear waste be stocked and 
monitored deep in a mountain in a report set to revive public debate 
about the proposed storage site. 

The special panel of experts, asked last year to study alternatives 
by Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger, said it favoured a new 
concept of controlled geological long-term storage for Switzerland's 
nuclear waste. 

The system consists of a deep long-term main storage site and 
separate pilot storage sites closer to the surface, allowing 
monitoring of the waste even after the main site is closed. 

The panel, headed by geology professor Walter Wildi, rejected 
alternatives of half-open sites or sites nearer to the surface. 

``There are conflicts between the demand for security for a duration 
of more than 100,000 years and demand for eternal controls and 
reversibility,'' the group said in a statement. 

Low- and medium-level nuclear waste consists mainly of used material 
from hospitals and laboratories and does not include 

highly radioactive waste from nuclear power stations. 

GNW, the company that runs a provisional storage site at Wellenberg 
in central Switzerland, said it was high time it received the green 
light for a probe tunnel to conduct tests ahead of the final storage 
decision. 

The Wellenberg mountain, in the canton of Nidwalden near the popular 
Lake Lucerne tourist attraction, was selected because the stone there 
is well suited for storing radioactive material. 

But the project is not without political resistance. 

Residents of the local community of Wolfenschiessen voted in 1995 in 
favour of the programme, which contained financial compensation for 
the inhabitants. But voters in Nidwalden rejected the programme in a 
referendum that year. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
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