Among others, the commission member informed Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel, the board members of the AG Schacht Konrad, Ursula Schönberger and Ludwig Wasmus, as well as the first authorized representative of IG Metall Salzgitter-Peine, Wolfgang Räschke, about the work of the commission.
Zdebel explained that the main aim of the meeting, which focused on the National Waste Disposal Program (NaPro), was to explain to the "allies against Schacht Konrad" the challenges currently facing the Commission. He would take some of the suggestions from this discussion back to the repository commission.
The commission member emphasized: "I am clearly calling for Schacht Konrad to be removed from the selection process." Zdebel is certain that the approval for the repository should be reviewed, as Konrad would never have been selected as a repository according to today's scientific and technical requirements. The decision for the nuclear waste repository in Salzgitter was not the result of a selection procedure, but the result of a political process.
The alliance partners are therefore calling for a reassessment of Schacht Konrad according to the current state of science and technology and the binding definition of positive criteria.
The work of the Final Repository Commission was supposed to be completed on June 30, 2016 and a report was supposed to be submitted to the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the Federal Government in which the fundamental issues relevant to the site selection process were examined and evaluated. However, according to the Member of the Bundestag, there are currently discussions about continuing the work beyond this date and presenting an interim report first, as individual tasks, such as public participation, which is actually part of the Commission's work, have hardly taken place yet.
He made it clear that the planned nuclear waste storage facility in Salzgitter was not yet out of the running.
One of the tasks of the commission is to make a recommendation to the Bundestag on a final storage site for high-level radioactive waste and whether the nuclear waste from the Asse mine near Wolfenbüttel and from the uranium enrichment plant in Gronau should also be stored there. If the commission decides against storing this nuclear waste in such a repository, an expansion of the Konrad mine could be considered and the storage volume could be doubled in addition to the approved 300,000 cubic meters.
Three options for final disposal are currently being discussed: firstly, to dispose of the light, medium and high-level radioactive nuclear waste in a central repository. In this case, Schacht Konrad would no longer be necessary, according to Hubertus Zdebel. On the other hand, in addition to the planned nuclear waste repository at Schacht Konrad (light and intermediate-level nuclear waste), two further repositories should be operated. One for high-level radioactive waste and another for light and medium-level radioactive waste. Another option would be a final repository and the Konrad mine.
According to Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel, the panel discussion organized by the Braunschweiger Zeitung in the auditorium of the Gymnasium am Fredenberg and the subsequent collection of 70,000 objections to Schacht Konrad in Salzgitter and the region made a big impression in the capital and led to significant changes in the political processes. "The door was actually already closed, but we got the door open again," emphasized Klingebiel, "and the people here can be proud of that."
But the work of the alliance continues, said the Lord Mayor. Among other things, there will be a meeting with the mayors and district administrators of the region as well as with members of the state and federal parliaments on October 16 in Salzgitter to inform them about the latest status of the debate surrounding the Schacht Konrad repository. A parliamentary evening is also planned in Berlin with Lower Saxony's Environment Minister Stefan Wenzel. There will also be another signal from the capital: Federal Environment Minister Dr. Barbara Hendricks is coming to the region on January 19.