What is the ANSTO Amendment Bill 2006?
This Bill will amend the ANSTO Act 1987 to allow ANSTO to fully participate in actions that may be required to assist the Commonwealth and its agencies – and in emergency situations, the states and territories – in the management of radioactive materials and waste, beyond those that stem from ANSTO’s own operations.
Why is this happening?
Currently, the ANSTO Act prevents ANSTO from making its facilities available to other agencies holding radioactive materials or waste, unless the material was originally manufactured at ANSTO.
The Bill will have three substantive provisions to permit ANSTO to condition, manage and store other radioactive materials and radioactive waste as follows:
1. Waste owned by other Commonwealth agencies or contractors
2. At the request of a law enforcement or emergency management agency
3. Waste arising from the overseas reprocessing of ANSTO’s own spent nuclear fuel, designated for placement in the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Facility (CRWF).
What sort of scenarios are we talking about?
Commonwealth waste
After 2011, Commonwealth agencies will be required to send their radioactive waste to the CRWF to be located in the Northern Territory. It may be necessary to condition that waste into a form suitable for long-term storage before it can be sent to the CRWF. The current law prevents ANSTO from making its facilities available for that purpose, unless the material was originally manufactured at ANSTO. Passing the Bill will change this.
Waste owned by other Commonwealth agencies could then come to ANSTO for conditioning in our state-of-the-art facilities before being transported to the CRWF, thereby avoiding the need for duplication of ANSTO’s existing facilities at another site and improving radiation protection across Australia.
The Bill will also allow ANSTO to fully participate in the establishment and operation of the CRWF, should the government decide to make ANSTO the operator.
The states and territories are responsible for the management of their own waste, and the Bill will not alter that general obligation.
Emergency and law enforcement circumstances
The Australian police forces and other emergency authorities, Federal and State, lack suitable storage facilities for any radioactive material. Should a radiological incident occur, ANSTO’s help would be needed.
However ANSTO currently has no power to store materials arising from such incidents – an obvious hole in Australia’s emergency response arrangements for an incident of this type.
The Bill will change this and bring Australia into line with international best practice as set out in the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This provision was introduced at the request of law enforcement and emergency management agencies, and they have welcomed its inclusion.
Spent fuel management
Spent fuel from ANSTO’s research reactor is sent to Britain and France for reprocessing. ANSTO spent fuel is mixed together with spent fuel from other customers and combined in a single batch. The waste arising from the reprocessing of that batch is then divided in proportion to the customers’ shares in the original mixed batch. This means that what will be returned to Australia will not necessarily be exactly that from reprocessing ANSTO’s spent fuel, and under the current law this could prove to be problematic as a court may not accept that the waste is waste originating from ANSTO’s operations.
The Bill will ensure that ANSTO’s power to receive and manage the waste resulting from spent fuel reprocessing is put beyond legal question. The intention of the Commonwealth is that the waste will not be returned to Lucas Heights; rather, it will go directly to the CRWF.
How does Australia really benefit?
The Bill, when passed, will significantly improve Australia’s radioactive waste management procedures, and will enable ANSTO to provide vital support in the unfortunate event of any criminal or terrorist activities involving radioactive material.
Will the Bill result in a large increase in the volume of waste stored at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights site?
The amendments do not alter the Government’s intention to establish a purpose-built facility to manage Commonwealth radioactive waste in the Northern Territory. In fact, the amendments complement the Government’s arrangements to ensure the timely establishment and operation of this facility by permitting ANSTO to fully participate in the project.
Last year, the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 was enacted to put beyond doubt the Commonwealth’s authority to site, construct and operate a radioactive waste management facility in the Northern Territory. These actions should provide considerable reassurance to the community about the Government’s commitment to this project, which will enable a major reduction in the waste inventory held at Lucas Heights.
ANSTO does not envisage that it will immediately take custody of all wastes held by other Commonwealth agencies. Rather, we anticipate that we will condition material as requested and hold the material for only the shortest time necessary before proceeding on to the CRWF. In any case, the volume and activity of radioactive wastes held by other Commonwealth agencies is a small fraction of that of the wastes already held by ANSTO.
The practical implications of the provisions relating to the management of waste at the request of law enforcement and emergency management agencies remain to be seen. Up to date, there has never been a circumstance in Australia where such a provision could have been invoked, and ANSTO is hopeful that there will never be a need to invoke it.
As noted above, there is no intention for the wastes arising from the reprocessing of ANSTO’s spent fuel to be returned to Lucas Heights.
At what stage is the Bill (May 2006)?
The Bill has been introduced into the House of Representatives and will be considered in the next few weeks. A Senate Committee report has already been written, on the basis of which we expect that the Bill will pass through the Senate relatively smoothly. It is expected to be passed within the next few months.
Is there much opposition to the Bill?
On the whole the Bill is supported by most political parties which recognise the importance of the safe handling of radioactive materials and waste. The Bill has been supported by a bipartisan report of the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee, which undertook an inquiry into the proposed changes to the Act, as well as by the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies and law enforcement and emergency management agencies.
Published: 22/05/2006