Taipower bemoans waste dump

Radioactive waste stored in barrels at an interim repository on Orchid Island (蘭嶼), Taitung County, will not be removed until a final repository becomes available, officials of state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電) said yesterday.

Furthermore, officials argue that "a complicated political and social environment" has made it almost impossible to build a domestic final repository for such waste.

Amid the controversy surrounding the removal of low-level radioactive waste from the island, Taipower officials said yesterday that without government intervention, a satisfactory solution could not be found.

The interim repository has operated since 1982. About 98,000 barrels of radioactive waste are stored at the site.

Responsibility for managing the repository was transferred from the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) to Taipower in 1990 under an agreement which required all the waste to be relocated by the end of this year.

Taipower's preferred site choice for its final low-level radioactive waste repository is Hsiaochiu Islet (小坵嶼) in Kinmen County. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), however, has not yet approved the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the site.

Both environmental and national security issues -- due to the islet's proximity to China's Fujian Province -- have threatened to put the brakes on the project.

That may be the reason that a feasibility assessment for the Hsiaochiu Islet site has thusfar failed to secure approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Taipower said it has offered a list of alternative sites to the EPA for further evaluation.

Lin Ming-hsiung (林明雄), director of Taipower's Nuclear Backend Management Department, told the Taipei Times yesterday, "The ball is in the government's court."

Meanwhile, Lin added, Taipower officials are still trying their best to find ways to ship radioactive waste to dumps in Russia, South Korea and China.

"If no final repository becomes available, radioactive waste on Orchid Island won't be relocated," Lin said.

Lin said that the environment at the site had been carefully monitored and that radioactive waste stored in barrels had been processed for re-packing.

By the end of this year, Lin said, facilities to remove rust from the iron barrels housing the waste and for the inserting of the waste into new barrels would be completed so that it can be stored more safely.

"Although we don't yet have a new home, we've begun packing the waste in the new barrels," Lin said.

Repacking all the radioactive waste on Orchid Island will take at least seven years, Lin said.

AEC Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (歐陽敏盛) offered his comments on Monday, saying that the local Aboriginal Tao people should have confidence in government assurances, as proper management of the waste repository would ensure its safety.

To drive home his point, he said that decades ago, people did not even install toilets in their homes, but now thanks to technological progress, most houses have them.

"Now, thanks to technology, everybody's home has a toilet," Ouyang said, adding that the AEC had strictly supervised Taipower's management of the repository on Orchid Island.