Morsleben repository
The Morsleben repository for radioactive waste (ERAM) was set up in 1971 in the former Bartensleben potash and rock salt mine ( Börde district , Saxony-Anhalt ). The mine has been operated by the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung mbH (BGE) since 2017 . The previous operator of the mine was the German Society for the Construction and Operation of Repositories for Waste Materials mbH (DBE) on behalf of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection .
history
Potash mining
Salt mining in this region began over a hundred years ago. The drilling of the first potash shaft - Shaft Marie - began in 1897. The well was drilled Bartensleben 1910-1912. The pit building of the Bartensleben mine is connected underground at several points to the formerly independent Marie mine .
→ Main article Potash and rock salt works in Bartensleben
Arms production and concentration camps
From February 1944 to April 1945, forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners (from August 1944: 2,500 German, Soviet, Polish and French female concentration camp inmates of the Ravensbrück concentration camp ) from the Beendorf concentration camp , a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp , had to work in the Morsleben salt dome . They were forced into the underground tunnels at a depth of more than 400 meters to produce components for the Me 262 jet aircraft and the V1 and V2 rockets . The underground shafts “Marie” near Beendorf and “Bartensleben” near Morsleben were given the code names “Bulldogge” and “Iltis”.
→ Main article U-shift bulldog
Repository for radioactive waste
After the salt production stopped, the Bartensleben salt mine was selected by the then GDR government as a repository for radioactive waste.
Permits in the GDR
In 1965, the GDR State Center for Radiation Protection (SZS) (later: State Office for Atomic Safety and Radiation Protection (SAAS) ) began looking for a central repository for all types of radioactive waste in the republic. Ten locations were considered in the course of the selection process. Three of them were shortlisted, including the “Bartensleben” (Morsleben) and “Marie” (Beendorf) shafts. The decision for Morsleben as the location of the later “Central Repository Pit Bartensleben” (ZEGB) was made in 1965. In addition to the final storage medium salt, important criteria were the size of the available cavities and the soon usability of the mine. The site permit was granted in 1972/73.
The first partial license for the retrievable storage of 500 cubic meters of radioactive waste from the overcrowded central interim storage facility of the GDR in Lohmen near Dresden was issued in 1971/72. Due to economic considerations, these emplacements began before the conversion measures (construction permit 1974) of the salt mine into a repository. In the following years, smaller amounts of radioactive substances were stored, although the commissioning license was not granted until 1978/79.
The temporary approval for continuous operation was granted on June 20, 1981 and issued on April 22, 1986 for an unlimited period. A decommissioning license, in the context of which proof of long-term safety had to be provided, was no longer granted. At the end of the 1980s, preparations were under way for a further approval phase, which should also enable the storage of highly radioactive substances. This approval was also no longer obtained in the course of the unification of the GDR and the FRG.
Relation to Gorleben
The decision of the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony , Ernst Albrecht (CDU), to locate a German repository for radioactive waste near Gorleben was apparently a political decision in the internal German Cold War . Since the GDR repository at Morsleben was right on the border with Lower Saxony, it was believed that the same coin would have to be paid back to the Gorleben site. The geologist Gerd Lüttig, who was involved in the preparation of the decisions and who was Vice President of the Lower Saxony Office for Soil Research at the time, recalls. According to Lüttig, Albrecht's motive for choosing the location was "to really annoy the eastern zones."
Operation in united Germany
The then Federal Environment Minister Angela Merkel (CDU) ignored expert warnings in connection with the unsafe Morsleben nuclear waste storage facility in Saxony-Anhalt in the 1990s. Even before reunification, several experts questioned the stability of the former salt mine. Even in the 1990s, employees of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection and the government of Saxony-Anhalt did not consider the facility to be suitable for permanently storing nuclear waste.
Merkel assured the State Environment Ministry in a letter dated June 8, 1995 that there was “no security deficit” and that further interference from the state side was forbidden. According to Spiegel , Merkel is said to have ordered on September 9, 1997, despite the country's concerns, that nuclear waste barrels weighing up to 1,100 kilograms could be brought into the mine. According to the report, Merkel stated that she had “based the assessment on the findings of the competent employees of the Federal Environment Ministry and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection”.
In 1998, then Environment Minister Angela Merkel tried to push through an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act that would have allowed GDR law to apply to the Morsleben repository until 2005, so that the mine could be operated for as long as possible on the basis of the old law from a cost perspective. The Higher Administrative Court in Magdeburg upheld an action brought by the BUND against this law.
Situation today
Since the nuclear waste storage facility in Morsleben was stopped in 1998, the warehouse has been extensively stabilized because it is now considered to be in danger of collapsing. The cost of closing the pit is estimated at 2.2 billion euros. The repository is now operated by the Federal Agency for Final Storage (BGE), while the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) is responsible for nuclear law supervision . The licensing authority for nuclear law procedures is the Ministry of the Environment in Saxony-Anhalt.
Storages
In the first emplacement period from 1971 to February 1991 approx. 14,432 cubic meters of low or medium level radioactive waste and 6,227 enclosed radiation sources with a total activity of around 290 T Bq were stored. Most of the waste came from the Greifswald and Rheinsberg nuclear power plants and from the Rossendorf research reactor . The remainder were mainly radiation sources and radioactive preparations from the use of radionuclides in research, medicine and industry. 40% of the waste is made up of solid waste, in particular mixed waste and solidified evaporator concentrates, and almost 60% of liquid substances also evaporator concentrates, together.
In connection with German reunification , the repository was taken over by the Federal Republic of Germany. Responsibility for continued operation has been transferred to the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS). The approval, which was unlimited until then, was limited to June 30, 2000 in the Unification Agreement . The use of the repository was primarily promoted by Gerald Hennenhöfer , the then head of the department for reactor safety and radiation protection at the Federal Environment Ministry. In the period from 1994 to 1998 around 22,320 m³ of radioactive waste with a total activity of 0.08 TBq in alpha emitters and 91 TBq in beta and gamma emitters were stored in Morsleben. The garbage now came from all over Germany. The operational waste from the decommissioned nuclear power plants of the GDR in Rheinsberg and Lubmin accounted for around 88% . 3% of the waste comes from the state collection points and a further 9% from research institutions and other places that are required to deliver. Here, too, it was mainly mixed waste, evaporator concentrates, resins, high-pressure compressed waste and enclosed radiation sources.
A total of at least 36,753 m³ of low and medium-level radioactive waste had been stored in Morsleben by the end of the emplacement operations in 1998 (including the period before reunification). In addition, there are at least 6,621 (other sources indicate 6,892) enclosed radiation sources. The total radiation activity is given as around 380 TBq.
Shutdown
The application submitted on October 13, 1992 to the Ministry of the Environment of the State of Saxony-Anhalt to initiate a plan approval procedure according to § 9 b AtG for continued operation beyond June 30, 2000 was limited to the closure of the Morsleben repository on May 9, 1997.
On April 17, 2001, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) irrevocably waived the use of the regulations of the long-term operating license that allow the acceptance of further radioactive waste and its storage in the Morsleben repository.
In September 2005, the BfS submitted the design documents, such as the plan to shut down the ERAM and the documents for the environmental impact assessment, to the responsible authority of the state of Saxony-Anhalt , the state's Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. Public participation began in October 2009 and ended on December 21, 2009. Approx. 12,000 objections, mostly collective objections, had been submitted to this day. Oral discussion of the objections began on October 13, 2011.
The mine is currently kept open. A permit for the decommissioning was expected in 2014/2015; backfilling should take 15 to 20 years.
The mine was supported in part with so-called salt concrete , a mixture of about 40% salt, from the Kalisalzwerk Zielitz supplied mountains salt , cement filled, limestone, sand and salt-saturated water or stabilized.
criticism
Morsleben critics accuse the Federal Office for Radiation Protection of delaying tactics because the shutdown has not progressed for years. At the beginning of 2004, the environmental protection organizations affiliated with the Morsleben network requested the publication of interim reports on the Federal Office's current decommissioning concepts. However, this refused.
literature
- Falk Beyer: The (GDR) history of the Morsleben nuclear waste repository . State representative for the records of the State Security Service of the former GDR in Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg 2005. Published as number 36 in the series of publications "Contributions in kind". DNB 974392952
- Merkel's legacy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 2008, p. 46-48 ( Online - Oct. 20, 2008 ).
Web links
- Ministry of the Environment in Saxony-Anhalt: Morsleben repository
- Nuclear power plants Plague: Morsleben
- Traveling exhibition on the history of the Morsleben repository
- Greenpeace blocks Morsleben repository
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de
- ↑ Gorleben repository only second choice from an expert point of view , interview of the German Depeschendienst with the geologist Gert Lüttig, accessed on November 1, 2009
- ^ Anselm Tiggemann , Gorleben as a disposal and repository site. The Lower Saxony selection and decision-making process (Hanover, 2010), 79.
- ↑ a b Merkel's legacy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 2008, p. 46-48 ( Online - Oct. 20, 2008 ).
- ^ Fröhlingsdorf, Michael: Merkel's garbage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 2011, p. 45 ( online - March 18, 2012 ).
- ↑ Nuclear lobbyist becomes head of the department for reactor safety - Röttgen shows his colors taz of December 2, 2009
- ↑ Federal Office for Radiation Protection: Chronology of the decommissioning procedure ( memento of February 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on February 14, 2013
- ↑ Volksstimme: Morsleben only after 2030 close from April 26, 2012
- ^ Society for Nuclear Service mbH
- ↑ taz.de: The time bomb may continue to tick from January 17th, 2005
Coordinates: 52 ° 13 '26.1 " N , 11 ° 6' 7.8" E