Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD), which has successfully dedicated and operated the first phase of the low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal facility, is launching projects to support neighborhood residents of the radwaste facility this year.
KORAD held a committee to screen projects designed to support neighborhood residents on March 10 and finalized support projects for the year 2016.
KORAD implements the support projects to enhance the quality of neighborhood residents’ lives and raise public acceptance of the radwaste facility.
The radwaste facility obtains 637,500 won in support fees in return for 200 liters of radwaste being allowed in. Out of the total, 478,125 won or 75 percent is offered to Gyeongju City and the remaining 25 percent or 159,375 won is given to KORAD.
Support fees amounted to some 200 million won annually until 2015 when the first phase of the radwaste facility was built, and they are forecast to swell to a maximum of 1.2 billion won per year as radwaste arrival goes up, KORAD said.
The support projects are divided into mid- and long-term programs designed to continuously create values of local communities and short-term annual ones based on the views of neighborhood residents. Mid- and long-term programs will be oriented to strengthen self-sustainability of neighborhood residents of the radwaste facility like the nurturing of a cooperative of locally produced products and regional manpower. KORAD implements such short-term projects as a program for offering funeral goods and an educational program on the prevention of dementia.
“We’ll continue to collect neighborhood residents’ views and conduct a public contest designed to explore projects tailored to meet residents’ demands, thus contributing to the development of local communities,” KORAD President Kim Jong-in said.
In his New Year’s message, KORAD President Kim extended thanks to his executives and staff members’ dedication and efforts to the dedication of the nation’s first radwaste facility and the successful sea and overland transportation of radwaste for the first time.
President Kim set 10 management tasks for the year 2016, including the launch of a project to construct the second-phase radwaste facility and the establishment of a plan to implement spent nuclear fuel management.
He noted that KORAD attaches priority to being committed to performing duties and roles as an agency charged with the full-fledged implementation of managing spent nuclear fuel. Kim added that KORAD will make preparations for the implementation of future tasks such as the stabilization of the business of managing low- and intermediate-level radwaste and treating decommissioning radwaste. KORAD will implement diverse programs.
The Gyeongju facility is the sole low- and intermediate-level radwaste treatment facility in Korea, 38 years after nuclear energy was introduced in Korea in 1978. Korea’s first nuclear power facility, Kori Nuclear Power Unit 1 began generation in 1978.
The nation had failed in nine attempts to build a radwaste treatment facility over 19 years since 1986. It was in November 2005 that Gyeongju citizens voted to attract the facility, paving the way for a solution to the long-overdue national task.
The construction of Korea’s first radwaste facility obtained a world-class safety stamp of approval from foreign and Korean institutions and experts, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The size of the first phase of the Gyeongju facility is three times bigger than that of the radwaste facility in Finland.
Korea’s facility passed seven safety examinations, including the one by the IAEA.
This past May, the Gyeongju radwaste facility was designated as a “best practice” facility during the Fifth Review Meeting of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, which took place at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna.
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Shown above is the KORADIUM, a facility for publicizing the low- and intermediate-level radwaste disposal facility, operated by KORAD in Gyeongju. (Photos:KORAD)
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