Korea sets 12 criteria to screen unsafe sites for high-level nuclear waste facility

South Korea's environment ministry said Friday that a high-level committee had approved 12 criteria for excluding geologically or administratively unsuitable areas from consideration as the site of a facility for high-level radioactive waste, clearing the first step toward selecting a host location. The High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Committee, chaired by Kim Hyun-kwon, adopted the exclusion standards at its ninth meeting in Seoul.

The criteria bar areas whose long-term safety would be undermined and which are already restricted under law, including those with active faults, earthquake or volcanic risk and limestone formations. Sites cut off from the coastline, affected by aircraft or military activity, or subject to development restrictions fall under a conditional category: they may still apply for the basic survey if the relevant regulations or administrative measures are lifted.

Under the approved standards, the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency, which operates the management program, will complete the screening by the end of this year through documentary reviews and on-site checks, and will publish map data on candidate sites that do not fall under any exclusion criterion. In the first quarter of next year, the committee will open the competition for basic surveys to the city, county and district governments whose jurisdictions contain those candidate sites.

The committee also discussed support for local governments ahead of next year's competition, including a subsidy of a set size for areas subject to the basic and deep surveys. For host and neighboring areas, provisional support figures, including a special subsidy and fees for waste brought in, will be presented when the competition opens, with the final package to be decided after deep-survey sites are chosen by a support committee chaired by the prime minister under the special law on high-level radioactive waste management.

"Securing a facility for high-level radioactive waste is a responsibility of this generation that can no longer be put off," Kim said, adding that the government would push the site selection process forward at speed on the principles of rigorous scientific safety, transparent and democratic procedures and reasonable compensation matched to the burden borne by local areas.

Detailed competition rules, covering the application period, eligibility and procedures, evaluation standards and the selection method, are still to be finalised following expert review, the committee said.