The entrance to the underground is guarded by a statue of St. Barbara, the traditional protector of miners. Limestone was mined here in the 19th century, then the Nazis took over the premises and turned them into a secret weapons factory.
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Prisoners, including those from Terezín, dug or widened the corridors for her in inhumane conditions from the spring of 1944 until the end of World War II. The total extent of the original area is still not fully mapped.
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To landfill? No!
“We use only a fraction of the former premises, specifically its part Richard II,” tells me Martina Máčelová from the Radioactive Waste Repositories Administration (RAWRA). It is she who is in charge of the operation of the local place – with an area of about 16 hectares and a total volume of used mining areas of over 19,000 cubic meters -. They are designed for safe storage, disposal of low and intermediate level radioactive waste.
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Crowded in barrels, he is brought here by trucks several times a year, during which time about four hundred of them end up underground in the Litoměřice region. According to the law, their contents may not be deposited in a normal landfill. It would cause illicit exposure of humans and the environment.
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The entrance to the underground is guarded by St. Barbara.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
“Most often it is waste from hospitals, research and industry. That is, objects containing certain radionuclides: cesium, americium, which probably all of us have heard of. Specifically, these are, for example, gloves, needles, cellulose wadding, laboratory glassware, various packaging, decontamination solutions, contaminated debris or plastics …, “Máčelová continues, adding that they also end up with emitters used by beverage manufacturers to determine whether their cans they have the right amount.
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The model shows how the waste is stored in barrels.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
“On the line, they have a tiny emitter and detector in the filler that monitors the fluid level so that it is correct in each package,” he explains. He adds that in the healthcare sector, one of the larger producers of waste deposited in Richard is, among others, transfusion stations or wards using radiopharmaceuticals to treat patients.
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In concrete and in barrels
The need to safely store the mentioned waste underground in our country was related to the development of nuclear technologies in the 1950s. At first he ended up in the Beroun region, but soon the limestone subsoil in the Richard mine proved to be a more suitable environment for him.
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Martina Máčelová at the plans for the Richard mine. The repository is full only in purple parts.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
Today, the material enters the guarded area in barrels from companies that have a permit from the State Office for Nuclear Safety to create – as it is technically called – “waste in a form suitable for storage”. These are usually two-hundred-liter barrels, inside which are hundred-liter barrels with radioactive material in the solid state. Before they reach Richard, they pour concrete elsewhere. In addition, they are galvanized and painted with an anti-corrosion agent to increase moisture resistance. There are also inscriptions containing, among other things, information about the weight, origin …
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Each of the barrels must be precisely described. The authorized person reads from the data, among other things, the origin of the waste or the weight of the barrel.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
The data is checked again before being stored underground. Each barrel has a certificate, a consignment note, which SÚRAO receives before the arrival of the consignment. “The content of radionuclides, the weight and other properties of the barrel are precisely determined by the limits and conditions … This ensures the long-term safety and the safety of the operator during handling. Companies pay for bringing the barrel to us, “Máčelová lists other necessities.
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Municipalities are not reworking
For each barrel, its sender pays over thirty-three thousand crowns, but even this, seemingly high amount for a layman, will not cover the cost of its storage underground. Expenditures for the disposal of radioactive waste also increase the statutory fees to the municipalities in whose territory the repositories are located.
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The repository is currently being reconstructed. When it is finished, the premises will be open to the public on designated days. Similar tours have taken place in the past. There is a lot of interest in them.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
“Litoměřice thus receives four million crowns a year for Richard, and that is not the final amount. They receive even more money, for every cubic meter of waste stored per year, “says Máčelová.
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At that moment, we are already standing in the dressing room, dressing in gray coats with the inscription RAWRA on our backs, putting on helmets, attaching dosimeters to our pockets … “Normally it’s very clean here, you can easily walk here in boats, you won’t even get dirty,” my guide tells me after closing the metal gates leading to the mine.
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Prisoners also dug the local corridors in inhumane conditions during World War II. Many of them died underground.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
This is due to the fact that the local underground is currently undergoing extensive reconstruction and there is dust on the ground in places. It is released during the structural strengthening of ceilings and walls in previously unused chambers. The ongoing modifications are aimed at stopping the natural weathering of limestone, crumbling it into places where barrels will one day be stored.
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The biggest supplier? Rust
“We put bolts in the ceilings that sew the rock, holding its layers together. We are also adding reinforcing curry nets to them, we are still concreting everything, “Máčelová calculates the scope of construction work and adds:” By modifying the sub-chambers, we are also increasing the storage capacity. We are not expanding it, but we are building new storage chambers with a suitable profile from the old corridors. Simply put, we try to make the barrels fit well and be stored securely. ”
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The dosimeter shows the amount of radiation in front of one of the barrels placed in the chamber.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
It will then begin to clarify what will happen after the takeover of the barrels by RAWRA staff. “After verifying all the details, he travels underground on a forklift. There it is stored in a regular storage chamber. We place each other horizontally. When the chamber is full, it closes and the free spaces between the barrels are filled with concrete from above, “he describes the highly professional procedure in the simplest possible version.
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Martina Máčelová stands in front of one of the already closed chambers, where the special material is stored.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
During the tour of the underground, I also receive a thorough lecture on what can (not) be stored here. Definitely do not expect spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants here. Waste from hospitals, from scientific research, is really ending in the Litoměřice region. “Our main supplier is the Řež Nuclear Research Institute, which sorts the material in advance,” explains Máčelová.
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Dosimeters on the fence
In practice, it seems that first the workplace – with a permit to work with technology using radioactive material – will send a really sorted waste to Řež, according to its radioactivity.
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“Only what can not be used in any way comes to us … One barrel delivered to us can then weigh a maximum of six hundred kilos,” he adds, adding that it is possible to store a non-standard size underground, which is more expensive. In this case, the barrel is replaced by a metal box. The exact amount paid by the supplier for it is then determined by the price list set by the government in its decision.
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The barrels are stacked on top of each other. The chamber only closes when it is full.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
Whatever shape the material is stored in, the same strict safety rules apply. And in order for everything to work as it should, not only people, but also the most modern technologies monitor the SÚRAO complex in Litoměřice. The local level of radioactivity is monitored by dosimeters placed on fences. At regular intervals, they check for unwanted gamma radiation from below.
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“For these purposes, we also have several wells from which we take water. We also take it from the surroundings: from the Elbe, from one well, from a nearby wastewater treatment plant. We analyze it for the presence of radionuclides, “says Máčelová. He adds that no trace of similar pollution has ever been found in any similar sample.
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The devices do not lie
Another fact proves that the storage is super safe. It is located in the protected nature reserve České středohoří, famous for its plant and animal diversity. That is also why the locals do not protest against it in the vast majority, they have long been accustomed to it in a decade. After all, it stands almost alone on a hill, in its immediate vicinity there are almost no houses.
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The entrance to the underground is accompanied by strict security measures. Pictured is a radiation control device.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
At present, there is an area in the Richard mine designated by SÚJB (State Office for Nuclear Safety – editor’s note) for a repository full of more than eighty percent. It can be extended by further reconstruction. Barrels with special waste will be transported here for many years to come, until a central radioactive waste repository, the so-called deep repository, is established in the Czech Republic.
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“Part of the public is protesting against him. Who knows when construction will begin, when it will be put into operation, “Máčelová is aware. The last words fall again on the device measuring the radiation dose during the stay underground. The data on the dosimeter show that in the limestone corridors the values of radioactivity are lower than those originally measured, ie on Earth still in the locker room.
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The devices do not lie. After all, the level of radiation on the ground is often higher in the Czech Republic than below it.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Law
“The dosimeter doesn’t lie,” my guide laughs. This is confirmed by the well-known fact that the natural level of radioactivity in our country is relatively high compared to neighboring countries. This is due not only to the geological subsoil of the republic, but also to the buildings that often surround us for centuries. Specifically, the material from which our ancestors once built them … But that’s a completely different story.
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Poll
The creation of a central repository is accompanied by a heated debate. Would you mind having it close to where you live?
Yes, but I would listen to the conditions of its origin and functioning
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I would decide only on the basis of the information I would have received, or would I have searched for
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A total of 34 readers voted.
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History of nuclear waste disposal in the Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and later in the Czech Republic
- 1959 The Hostim u Berouna repository is opened in the former Alkazar quarry
- 1964 commissioning of the Richard repository in Litoměřice, part of which replaces Hostim
- In 1974, the Bratrství repository was established in Jáchymov
- NPP Dukovany (opened 1985) and NPP Temelín (approved in November 2006) have intermediate storage facilities on their premises.
- The Radioactive Waste Repositories Administration (SÚRAO) was established in June 1997, and since 2001 it has been an organizational unit of the state. Its operation is paid for from the nuclear account, to which radioactive waste generators contribute by law.
- The search for new sites for the deep repository was to be narrowed by the end of 2020 to four selected sites out of the originally assessed nine. However, it is not yet known whether this will happen.
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