Stake holder involvement particularly in the environmental impact assessment: final disposal facility project

The Ministry of Trade and Industry is the competent authority in all nuclear facility projects. Consequently, one of the duties of the Ministry was to organize a public hearing process both on the EIA Report and, separately, also on the application for a Decision in Principle concerning the final disposal facility project. A public hearing in this context means a procedure of some month's period, when anybody has the right to present opinions on the current issue to the Ministry. The EIA process itself was preceded by the EIA programme (in 1998), and the programme stage also included a hearing process and the Ministry's statement on it. This presentation, however, is confined to dealing with the Ministry's role and experience of the EIA stage itself and especially the hearing process on the EIA Report. According to the Nuclear Energy Act, a report of environmental impacts must be annexed to the application for a decision in principle. An essential point to be noted is that no decisions on the project are made during the EIA. The EIA procedure ends when the competent authority, i.e., the Ministry of Trade and Industry, has provided its final statement on the EIA Report's adequacy. The table below illustrates the public activity in the hearing process. The most of the public opinions sent to the Ministry during the hearing on the EIA Report were not restricted to the current process (EIA) only, but included also views on nuclear issues in general or opinions on the decision making concerning the final disposal project. This may be due to the partial simultaneity of the hearing on the EIA Report and the hearing on the application for a decision in principle. All opinions and points of view were brought to the government's knowledge irrespective of the formal context, in which they had been addressed to the Ministry. (authors)