SÚRAO cancels tender for Czech nuclear waste repository boreholes

The Radioactive Waste Repository Authority (SÚRAO) has cancelled for the second time the tender for the geological boreholes needed to select the site of the future deep repository. This was reported by the Platform Against the Deep Repository, which brings together 58 members: 40 towns and municipalities and 18 civic organisations.

SÚRAO intends to take advantage of a change introduced by the recently passed amendment to the Building Act. Today, geological surveys, including drilling, require an agreement with the landowner. Once the change takes effect, the law will allow that consent to be bypassed entirely: the investor or a person authorised by it will be able to enter and drive onto any land and carry out surveys without the owners’ consent.

Michal Forman, the platform’s spokesman and the mayor of Horažďovice, said that municipalities and associations are surprised by the cancellation of the public procurement and expect SÚRAO and the state to provide a new timetable and a clear explanation of the next steps. In his words, with such a serious intervention in the landscape, landowners and the affected local governments cannot be ignored, which could deepen distrust of the entire repository preparation process.

Forman also stressed that the choice of the final site cannot be subordinated to political deadlines at the expense of obtaining the necessary scientific and geological data, since the decision will affect the lives of local residents for “thousands of generations”. The platform considers a transparent, professional process and a real levelling of the rights of affected municipalities to be important.

Matěj Machek of the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, who represents municipalities on SÚRAO’s expert advisory panel, added that he cannot imagine selecting a site without data from the planned deep boreholes. The methodology and criteria now being prepared are designed around that data.

The platform is pushing for a change in the state’s approach to spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste, one that would not be limited to a deep repository alone, and demands that the choice of site depend on the prior consent of the affected municipalities.

Around Prague, based on reporting by ekolist.cz