Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management
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Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management
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Welcome to CoRWM The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) was set
up in 2003 to provide independent advice to Government on the
long-term management of the UK's solid higher activity radioactive
waste. New Members were appointed on 25 October 2007 with
revised Terms of Reference.
In July 2006, CoRWM provided its main recommendations to Government on the
long-term management of radioactive waste (PDF 2.19
Mb). This followed over two years of
investigation into the potential management options and an
innovative programme of public and stakeholder engagement.
The work was characterised by an approach that was open,
transparent and inclusive of the views of all parties.
Two key elements of the
recommendations were that the waste should be managed by means
of geological disposal and that implementation should be based on
the principles of voluntarism and partnership between communities
and implementers. It is on putting these two principles into
practice that CoRWM has prepared further advice for
Government. Its report Implementing a partnership
approach (PDF 268 Kb) is now available. The
advice builds on the Committee's report Moving forward CoRWM's proposals for
implementation (PDF 263 Kb) which was also submitted to
Government in 2006.
In light of work by Government on taking MRWS forward and on
the UK's future energy needs, CoRWM has, during the course of its
own work, issued two public statements:
On 25 June 2007, Government published a consultation paper on radioactive waste management including its plans to re-constitute the Committee. On 11 August 2007, Members' appointments ended. Members discussed a set of "signing off" papers which were sent to Government in September. These consisted of:
E-bulletin 16 summarises this and other
developments over the last few months.
Appointment of New Members
On 18 July 2007 the Government announced the appointment of
Professor Robert Pickard as Chair designate of the
Committee. On 25 October 2007 it announced the
appointment of further Members. Further
information is on the website of the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs at http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2007/071025c.htm
The Members are:
Professor Robert Pickard (Chair)
- Chairman of the Consumers' Association
Which?, former Director-General of the British Nutrition
Foundation, Emeritus Professor of Neurobiology at the University of
Cardiff, Visiting Professor at the Royal Agricultural College,
Cirencester, and Fellow of the Institute of Biology and the Royal
Society of Medicine. For the Department of
Health and the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, Professor
Pickard is also Chairman of the national NGO Forum, which
facilitates the interface between government policymakers and 94
NGOs working for health improvements. He is an
international authority on the biology of honeybees and pioneered
the development of solid-state, neural microbiosensors in the
UK.
David Broughton - A
Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers. Recently retired from UKAEA he
worked at Dounreay, Caithness from 1981. He has
26 years experience in professional engineering and management of
complex nuclear projects. He was responsible
for Dounreay's major radioactive waste management projects.
These included new low level waste disposal
facilities, new intermediate level waste encapsulation and storage
facilities, the future retrieval of waste from the Dounreay shaft
and the current shaft isolation project. He is
experienced in both engaging stakeholders in projects that have
many options and technical issues to consider, and guiding projects
through the regulatory and planning processes.
Margaret Burns - A
part-time teaching fellow in the Law Department of the University
of Aberdeen. She was a member of the Health and
Safety Commission for nine years, representing the public interest
and the devolved administrations. As a
Commissioner she chaired HSC's Rail Industry Advisory Committee and
the Partnership for Health and Safety in Scotland and had
particular responsibility for the offshore oil industry and the
nuclear industry. In 2003 she was awarded the
CBE for services to health and safety. She has
extensive experience of working with consumer organisations, such
as the Scottish Consumer Council and Consumers' Association, and is
presently a member of the National Consumer Council's Advisory
Group.
Professor Brian D Clark -
Professor of Environmental Management and Planning at
Aberdeen University. He is a Board Member of
the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Chairman of the
North Region Board and the Planning & Finance Committee of SEPA
and served on the Committee for Radioactive Waste Management from
2003 to 2007. With forty years experience, he
is a specialist in environmental impact assessment (EIA), strategic
environmental assessment (SEA) and urban and rural planning.
Honoured in 1987 by being made a founder member
of UNEP's Global 500 Award. He is a governor of
The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and was a founder member
of the Institute of Environmental Assessment (IEA), now the
Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and
chairs its Technical Committee.
Dr Mark Dutton
- Served on the Committee for
Radioactive Waste Management from 2003 to 2007. He has a
doctorate in high energy physics and a 38 year career based at the
National Nuclear Corporation. Specialising in
design and safety case issues associated with radiological
protection, nuclear safety and radioactive waste management he
continues to work as a nuclear consultant. He
is a Fellow of the Institution of Nuclear Engineers, co-author to
two Safety Guides published by the International Atomic Energy
Agency of the UN and has reviewed the safety of reactors in Iran
and Pakistan on behalf of the Agency. He is a member of the
Defence Nuclear Safety Committee of the Ministry of Defence and a
member of the Presidential Nuclear Safety Committee of
Armenia.
Professor Fergus Gibb -
Professor of Petrology & Geochemistry in the Department
of Engineering Materials, University of Sheffield with over 40
years lecturing & research experience in mineralogy,
petrology and geochemistry. A specialist on
igneous intrusions, he is a Former Vice-President of
the Mineralogical Society and an Elected Fellow of the
Mineralogical Society of America. A
long-standing interest in the geological disposal of nuclear
wastes has led to over 25 papers and national and
international recognition as an authority on deep borehole
disposal. Professor Gibb is employed by
the University of Sheffield. His current post
is part funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on the
strength of potential strategic importance of the research work
involved but the conduct of this work is independent of the
NDA and the nuclear industry.
Professor Simon Harley
- Professor of Lower Crustal Processes
in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh.
An international expert on the evolution of
continental crust, his research integrates geological mapping with
experimental and microanalytical studies of the stabilities of
minerals and their behaviour at high temperatures and pressures.
He has conducted geological mapping projects in
diverse and complex basement areas in Australia, India, Norway,
Greenland, Scotland and Antarctica. Professor
Harley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in
2002 was awarded the Imperial Polar Medal in recognition of his
contributions to Antarctic Earth Science.
Marion Hill - Her early
career was at the National Radiological Protection Board (now part
of the Health Protection Agency) and most recently a background in
consultancy. She has over 30 years' experience
in standards for and assessments of the radiological impact of the
nuclear industry on the public and the environment. She
specialises in policies, strategies and standards for the
management of radioactive wastes and radioactively contaminated
land. Her experience includes national and international work
on policy and regulatory topics, and environmental impact
assessments for nuclear installations in the UK and overseas.
She is a member of the Health and Safety
Commission's Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC) and is
leader of its regulatory framework task force.
Professor William Lee -
Head of Materials at Imperial College London.
He has a Physical Metallurgy BSc from Aston, a DPhil in Radiation
Damage Studies from Oxford and has held academic positions in the
USA (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland and Ohio State
University) and UK notably at Sheffield University where he was
Director of BNFLs University Research Alliance on Waste
Immobilisation. He has over 300 publications including An
Introduction to Nuclear Waste Immobilisation (Elsevier, 2005).
He is a member of the International Commission
on Glass Technical Committee on Nuclear and Hazardous Waste
Vitrification and Chair of the International Ceramic Federation
Technical Committee on Ceramics in Nuclear Applications.
He is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society
and of the Institute of Materials.
Professor Francis Livens -
Has held a radiochemistry position at the University of
Manchester since 1991. He worked for over 25
years in environmental radioactivity and actinide chemistry,
starting his career with the Natural Environment Research Council,
where he was involved in the response to the Chernobyl accident.
At the University of Manchester, he has worked
in many aspects of nuclear fuel cycle research, including effluent
treatment, waste immobilisation and actinide chemistry.
He was the founding director of the Centre for
Radiochemistry Research, established in Manchester in 1999, and has
acted as an advisor to the nuclear industry both in the UK and
overseas.
Leslie Netherton - With
over 30 years local government experience, specialised in health
and safety, food safety, environmental protection and emergency
planning. As Head of Service with Plymouth City
Council from 1998 to 2007 he had responsibility for civil
protection, waste management, cemeteries, building control,
consumer protection, sustainability and environmental health.
As lead Authority officer for the nuclear
submarine refitting facility at Devonport Royal Dockyard, he was
involved with major planning applications, Discharge Consent
consultations, offsite emergency planning and extensive stakeholder
engagement. He is Chair of Interim Storage Of
Laid Up Submarines (ISOLUS) project Advisory Group and sits on the
Ministry of Defence ISOLUS Steering Group. He
currently runs an environmental health consultancy company and has
been an active member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental
Health.
John Rennilson - With over
37 years experience in local government planning, is Director of
Planning & Development at the Highland Council.
He was County Planning Officer of North
Yorkshire County Council (1984 to 1996) and has extensive
experience of planning issues at a strategic level and of balancing
development needs with public concerns. An Executive
Committee Member of the Scottish Society of Directors of Planning
he also chaired the Society from 2000 to 2001.
Professor Lynda Warren -
Emeritus Professor of Environmental Law at Aberystwyth
University and a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution. She has postgraduate degrees in marine biology and
law and has pursued an academic career first in biology and
latterly in environmental law. She has over 100 academic
publications, including a number on radioactive waste management
law and policy. Lynda has 15 years experience of radioactive
waste management policy. She was a member of CoRWM from 2003
to 2007 and, before that, a member of RWMAC chairing its working
group on Dounreay. She is currently a member of SEPA's
Dounreay Particles Advisory Group and an associate of IDM, a
consultancy engaged in environmental policy advisor, mainly in the
nuclear sector.
The Committee's revised Terms of Reference are here. You can also view their 'Declarations of Interest' and their revised 'Guiding Principles'.
CoRWM's Plenary Meetings in 2008
The Committee will hold its next (46th) plenary meeting in
Edinburgh to which the public are invited. A summary will be
published. Dates for future meetings (held in public) can be
viewed here.
CoRWM has now begun to formulate a work
programme. A draft (here) was sent to Government for
approval on 31 March and this will be developed in more detail, for
example at our Edinburgh plenary on 24 April.
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