Low and medium level radioactive waste repository: the access to information

The technological option for the nuclear energy and the society welfare must be carried on together. Access to qualified information should be allowed to the ones responsible for the preparation of material related to the project as well as to all the interested parties involved. The aim of this paper is to give some guidelines to be followed during the project implementation to guarantee this access. Complete information should be available to those involved in the project in a common database, a virtual library, where every document might be obtained. Information should be updated continuously, allowing access, through reliable search and storage tools. Every step of the project development should be well documented containing data and any eventual modification. To guarantee an open and participative conduction of the Project, several tools might be employed, according to the development of the project. Some of the suggested strategies refer to: informative and educational materials production; public consulting; interaction groups; meetings with people - mainly residents or inhabitants and specialists and stakeholders. The criteria to identify information to be released should be: novelty, impact and public interest. The rule should be to give information to all interested ones, avoiding hidden intentions. The strategy should be elaborated according to the local inhabitant's profile. Communication should be mainly done in a personal way. The responsibility for providing the information should be under an Informative Committee created specifically for communication of the project, supervised by the General Coordination and the Technical Committees. (author)