Deep Underground Storage in France?

By Mary Byrd Davis¹

In December 1998, the French government announced its decision to develop two "laboratories" to study geological disposal of nuclear waste. This decision is the outcome of a very long and controversial process. The first round in the search for a repository site began in May 1987, when French national authorities identified four zones in France with geologic characteristics favorable for deep underground storage of highly-radioactive and long-lived waste (see below for a summary of Radioactive Waste Categories in France. The zones were the granite formation of Neuvy-Bouin (also known as Deux Sevres), the clay to the north of Sissonne (in Aisne), the salt in the vicinity of Ain (also known as St Julien sur Rouyssouze); and the shale to the southwest of Segré (also known as Maine et Loire). Between mid-1987 and the end of 1990 these four areas were to be studied and a site for an underground "laboratory" chosen. Around 1995, after the laboratory would have been constructed and presumably found suitable, authorization to turn it into an actual storage facility would have been requested. All going well, authorization to place waste in the facility would have been granted around 2000.2 All did not go well. Following the Council's 1987 announcement, protest organizations sprang up in each of the four proposed zones. Opposition was not limited to petitions, studies, and peaceful marches. For example, in November 1988, at Ain, protesters seized an excavator and audiovisual equipment, raided and walled up the offices of the Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactif (ANDRA -- National Waste Management Agency), and in a public square burned the documents they had seized. The same day 1,000 people staged a march. The mayor described the activities to the press as "a natural reaction" to ANDRA's program. Officials, farmers, and business people in Ain feared that a waste site would damage the reputation of Bresse chicken, traditionally marketed as the finest in France.3 Citizens were still expressing their "natural reaction" December 20, 1989, when access routes to ANDRA's site were blocked, and 30,000 liters of pig litter were spread on the exploratory area.4 At Neuvy-Bouin, ANDRA had to survey by helicopter because demonstrators had systematically cut ground survey lines. The agency told a nuclear industry meeting in October 1988, that it had lost more than 48 percent of its work time at the site that year because of the activities of protesters.5 The most serious protests occurred in Maine et Loire. In December 1989, demonstrations involving thousands of people led to violent clashes with gendarmes (police officers). As at other sites, ANDRA property was damaged and destroyed. On January 20, 1990, 15,000 people, including representatives of groups from the three other study sites, marched in Angers. At this point, as a parliamentary report noted, "the Prime Minister, in order to prevent these incidents from claiming victims, had to decide to interrupt work for at least a year."6 Prime Minister Michel Rocard declared a moratorium on work at all three sites in February 1990 and asked an independent advisory body to examine the waste question and turned over decision-making to the parliament.7 With a law passed December 30, 1991, the French Parliament gave the waste program a new start. The law requires the government to approach the problem of what to do with highly-radioactive and long-lived waste by simultaneously: conducting research on the separation and transmutation of long-lived isotopes; studying the possibilities of reversible or irreversible deep underground storage, in particular by establishing underground laboratories; and studying procedures for packaging and storing these wastes above ground. Laboratory sites were to be chosen in consultation with local officials and the public, and the transformation of a laboratory into an actual storage site would require additional legislation. No more than fifteen years after the promulgation of the law, by the end of 2006, the government must send to parliament a report evaluating the research and, if appropriate, a bill that would authorize creation of an underground storage facility.8 In December 1992, the government appointed Deputy Christian Bataille of the Office Parlementaire d'Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Techniques (Parliamentary Office for the Assessment of Technological Options) to identify candidate sites for laboratories. Each community hosting a laboratory would receive 60 million francs (about $10 million) a year for fifteen years and be given priority for government investments in infrastructure. Furthermore, communities with candidate sites were given numerous, expensive gifts.9 Some thirty departments (local governments) volunteered, and after geologic evaluations, Bataille narrowed the number of candidates down to ten, each of which he visited. In a report to the government made public January 5, 1994, Bataille named four departments as finalists: Gard, Haute-Marne, Meuse, and Vienne. The General Council in each had voted unanimously or virtually unanimously in favor of a laboratory. His criteria in selecting the four had been based on "economic" and "social" considerations -- which would benefit the most from a high technology installation.10 The number of sites was reduced to three, as a site, which became known as the "Est de la France" was chosen on the boundary between the Haute-Marne and Meuse regions.11 The Gard and Est de la France sites are clay; the Vienne is granite. Opposition to each of the sites immediately manifested itself and continues at the sites now chosen, although so far without the threat of violence. In the Gard, the Syndicat Général des Vignerons (Union of Wine Growers) des Côtes du Rhône is campaigning against a laboratory for fear it will damage the reputation of their wine. They refer to a study carried out under the aegis of the Chamber of Agriculture, which concludes that there is a major risk that a laboratory could damage the image of the wine with potentially serious economic consequences.12 The findings of two official groups of French scientists and engineers have buttressed some of the arguments of opponents to radioactive waste burial. The 1991 law required that a Commission Nationale d'Evaluation (CNE -- National Evaluation Commission) be set up to assess the status of research on management of highly radioactive and long-lived waste and to make annual reports to the government for transmission to Parliament. In a June 1998 special report on reversible and irreversible storage, the CNE recommended that low- and medium-level alpha-contaminated waste be placed deep underground but that highly radioactive waste be stored above ground or just below the surface for a long period of time.13 Furthermore, a 1996 CNE report expressed strong reservations about the granite site in Vienne, since it judged that a risk exists that fluids will circulate between the granite that would hold the high-level waste and aquifers from which water for drinking and irrigation is drawn.14 In its 1997 report, the CNE states that the negative aspects of the site "appear today to be uncircumventable and cause the Commission to go beyond the reservations that it expressed in report no. 2."15 Bataille disagreed with this view and in a report of the Parliamentary Office criticized the CNE for overstepping what he considers to be its role.16 The Institut de protection et de sûreté nucléaire (IPSN -- Institute for Nuclear Protection and Safety) has found a fractured zone in the Tournemire Tunnel in Aveyron where it is studying the suitability of clay as a burial medium. Researchers have been able to see water flowing in certain of these fractures. The IPSN 1997 annual report notes that the transfer mechanism in clay is not understood.17 The authorities held public inquiries on each of the three proposed laboratory sites in 1997, and construction of a laboratory at each site was officially found to be within the public interest. The government was then obligated by law to choose two sites. In December 1998, the site in Meuse was chosen for development of a laboratory to study clay sites. Researchers will explore to a depth of 400 to 500 meters, and the laboratory is slated to be finished by the end of 2002. The Gard is to be studied as the location of a subsurface storage site. No granite site was chosen because the Vienne site was deemed unsuitable, and the search is beginning for a new site. Deep disagreements continue over both the process and the goal of developing a geologic repository in France. Opponents of deep underground storage of waste argue that the waste should be retrievable in case of possible future technological advances allowing a better solution. The Green party has argued that the government's decision was a political one, made under heavy pressure from the nuclear industry. They fear that political pressure will cause a permanent repository to be sited at one of the two laboratories. Furthermore, there are fears that the Meuse site, because of its location close to France's borders, could become a dumping ground for waste from other European countries, particularly Germany. RADIOACTIVE WASTE CATEGORIES IN FRANCE France's Commission nationale d'evaluation has characterized three categories of waste, according their level of activity, their nature, and the half-lives of the isotopes contained in the waste. French government agencies generally follow these categories in conduct and oversight of waste management activities. Category A: low- and mid-level wastes which contain principally only short- or medium-lived beta- and gamma-emitters, and alpha emitters in small quantities (not more than 3.7 gigabecquerel(GBq)/metric ton [0.1 curies/metric ton] of alpha activity after 300 years). Category B: low- and mid-level wastes which contain long-lived radionuclides, notably alpha-emitters in significant quantities (more than 3.7 GBq/t [0.1 Ci/t] of alpha activity, but less than 370 GBq/t of beta and gamma activity). Category C: high-level wastes containing large quantities of fission products, activation products, and actinides. This is mainly vitrified wastes. Spent fuel is also considered a high-level waste (without upper limit).19 Category A wastes are destined for surface storage in France. The Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactif (ANDRA) operates two of these: the Centre de stockage de la Manche, which has been filled; and the Centre de stockage de l'Aube, which is currently receiving wastes. Category B and C wastes are placed in interim storage, awaiting geologic disposal. They are kept on site, or in several interim storage facilities, notably a facility for alpha-emitting wastes at Cadarache. Treatment of substances with an activity of less than 100 Bq/gram for artificial radionuclides or 500 Bq/gram for natural radionuclides (called very low-level wastes), is essentially unregulated at the present time. The Direction de la sûreté des installations nucléaires (Nuclear Installation Safety Directorate) is currently in the process of elaborating more precise definitions for waste categories than those currently in use, to consist of four levels: "very low-level, low-level, mid-level, and high-level." Each level is divided into "short-lived" and "long-lived." Sources: Mary Byrd Davis, La France nucléaire: matières et sites (WISE-Paris, 1997); Commission nationale d'évaluation, Rapport d'évaluation no. 1, June 1995. Also see Rock Types for a Radioactive Waste Repository (table)