Germany's Asse nuclear storage facility is to get a new operator who will be responsible to the federal environment ministry following revelations this week of serious safety violations at the site. Germany's Federal Office for Radioactive Protection (BfS) is to take over the ailing Asse nuclear storage facility in the state of Lower Saxony after strong criticism of operators Helmholtz's German Research Center for Environmental Health in Munich for failing to alert the government to violations at the site. At an emergency meeting on Thursday, Sept. 4, German ministers agreed that the site will now be treated according to nuclear laws and not mining laws as was the case so far. In future, the facility will be under the jurisdiction of the federal environment ministry instead of the research ministry. The move comes after German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel this week slammed Asse's operators for depositing highly radioactive waste for decades at the site.
Germany's Federal Office for Radioactive Protection (BfS) is to take over the ailing Asse nuclear storage facility in the state of Lower Saxony after strong criticism of operators Helmholtz's German Research Center for Environmental Health in Munich for failing to alert the government to violations at the site.
At an emergency meeting on Thursday, Sept. 4, German ministers agreed that the site will now be treated according to nuclear laws and not mining laws as was the case so far. In future, the facility will be under the jurisdiction of the federal environment ministry instead of the research ministry.
The move comes after German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel this week slammed Asse's operators for depositing highly radioactive waste for decades at the site.
Asse was to be the test and pilot project for the final storage facility at Gorleben. The original activity was scandalous, they just dumped nuclear waste without provision for eventual removal, and there is no isolation (the barrels will be dissolved in centuries). Then water became a problem at the entrance. Now we learn there were contaminated liquids, too. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
According to the newest reports, the now fired operator did report the conduction of contaminated lye from a higher chamber into the lower chambers 2 1/2 years ago - but the Lower Saxony environment ministry did nothing.
I wonder if this was incompetence/irresponsibility (the report was a single half-sentence whose significance may have evaded its reader, was it read at all) or cover-up from a nuclear-friendly CDU government (our conservative man in Lower Saxony, what do you say?) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
A case for wrongful termination, then? A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
