Working with local partners: the ONDRAF/NIRAS approach to the disposal of short-lived low-level waste

Until the international moratorium of 1983, Belgium relied on sea disposal for its low-level waste. Since then, ONDRAF/NIRAS, the Belgian waste management agency, has launched studies to look for land-based solutions. These studies, which are still ongoing, have gone through various phases. The sometimes harsh reactions in public opinion and the recommendations of independent experts, however, progressively led ONDRAF/NIRAS to question its work methodology. On 16 January 1998 a milestone was marked in Belgian nuclear waste management. On that day, the Belgian federal government opted for a final, or potentially final, solution for the long-term management of short-lived, low-level radioactive waste, a solution that also had to be progressive, flexible, and reversible. At the same time, the government entrusted new missions to ONDRAF/ NIRAS - in particular that of developing methods to enable the integration of final repository project proposals at the local level - and restricted the number of potential sites for final disposal to the four already existing nuclear sites in Belgium and to possibly interested local districts. The government's decision of 16 January 1998, forced ONDRAF/NIRAS to change its strategy. It set up a new work programme and worked out an innovative methodology. This new methodology aims to generate, at the level of the interested towns and villages, draft projects for a final repository supported by a wide public consensus. (author)