(446.4424) WISE-Amsterdam - When the disposal site was set up by the government of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1972, it was intended to be for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The GDR government, however, allowed the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Morsleben for a transitional period.
The licenses for its use for high-level radioactive waste expired in 1991 and 1992. Thus, since then, the highly radioactive sources have been stored in Morsleben illegally. The environmental ministry of Saxony-Anhalt is in a quandary as to what to do with these highly radioactive sources.
The Federal environmental minister Angela Merkel has demanded that the sources be stored for another transitional period in a so-called Landessammelstelle, a regional facility where dangerous waste is collected. But a Landessamellstelle is not suitable for high-level waste. And Merkel seems not to know that Saxony-Anhalt has no such Landessammelstelle and does not even plan to build one.
Source: die tageszeitung (FRG), January 25, 1996
Contact: Bürgerinitiatieve gegen das AtommülI-Enlager Morsleben, Dorothea Janzen-Pöhlman. Birkenweg 3, 38350 Helmstedt, Germany.
Tel/Fax: +49-5354-41861