Belarus to defend report on spent fuel management in IAEA

Next week Belarus’ fifth national report on fulfilling the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management will be defended before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), BelTA learned from the Communications and Public Information Office of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department (Gosatomnadzor) of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry.

The fifth review meeting of the parties to the Joint Convention will take place at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria on 11-22 May. During the event national reports on the fulfillment of the Convention by the participating states will be presented. Belarus’ national report was prepared in 2014. It has been officially presented to the IAEA and is publicly available on the Gosatomnadzor website.

The document has been developed by specialists of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry in association with government agencies concerned. In particular, the report outlines the government policy and practices with regard to the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste in Belarus. The report also highlights the legal base and the fulfillment of recommendations given as a result of the presentation of the previous report. The current report covers events that occurred and measures that were taken in the period from 2012 through 2014.

Gosatomnadzor specialists noted that about 70 questions had been submitted to Belarus by representatives of other countries as part of the preparations for the review meeting. Germany, Lithuania, the USA, Ukraine, France, and South Africa were most interested in the document, specified the source. The questions touched upon the legislative infrastructure and the regulating infrastructure, the operation of the special enterprise Ekores, the system used to handle waste of Chernobyl origin, measures that are taken to improve the safety of the sites used to store radioactive waste close to former stations of USSR army units, and the strategy for handling waste of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. Substantial answers have been given to each question. The answers have been published by the IAEA website, BelTA has been told.

Taking part in the review meeting and presenting the national report are part of Belarus’ international obligations for fulfilling the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. Belarus ratified the Convention in 2002. The Belarusian delegation in Vienna will include representatives of the Emergencies Ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Energy Ministry, the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, the Healthcare Ministry, the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and the enterprise Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant. The delegation will be led by First Deputy Emergencies Minister Vasily Stepanenko.