Improvement of the Management of Institutional Radioactive Waste in Slovenia

Abstract

The Central Storage Facility (CSF) in Brinje is the only storage facility for institutional radioactive waste in Slovenia. The storage has been in operation since 1986. Since the year 1999, operation of the CSF in Brinje and managing of institutional radioactive waste in Slovenia has been under the control of Agency for Radwaste Management (ARAO). At the time of taking over the CSF, the waste in store was not fully characterized and in some cases the available data did not match records and inventories. Besides this, some shielded containers and drums were degraded, which creates a potential risk of uncontrolled spread of contamination. In addition, in 1999 the Slovene Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA) requested the ARAO to perform refurbishing works in the CSF in order to reinforce and tighten the building on the one hand, and characterize and condition radioactive waste in store on the other. In order to improve the existing situation ARAO lunched considerable assistance and know-how transfer through training and other technical cooperation within the IAEA and the EC projects. In this context, several projects have been carried out in the period between 1999 and 2007. However, these projects only addresses one third of the total inventory of radioactive waste. In particular, the radioactive waste in the form of bulky material, which occupies a significant surface of the CSF, will not be processed. Therefore, the implementation of new project in the frame of EC Transition Facility programme entitled “Improvement of the Management of Institutional Radioactive Waste in Slovenia” has been carried out in December 2007. Through a public invitation for tenders, an international Consortium consists of Belgian and Slovene radwaste experts gained the contract. The project was executed in ten months and it was divided into three tasks of treatment and conditioning according to the type of packaging: - waste packed in drums, - contaminated or activated bulky items and - spent sealed radioactive sources. The implementation of the project enabled the ARAO to meet the requirements for improving the institutional radioactive management and the storage facility itself. It also improved knowledge of the ARAO’s staff in treatment and conditioning technologies for the future management of the CSF. The results of the project and operating experience regarding the waste management in the CSF which were obtained through this project are presented in this paper.