The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said Monday it has won approval to build two new vaults and an extension to a third vault at its Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR).
With the approval from planners in Cumbria, the facility, located near Drigg, will continue operation through 2050, creating about 120 construction jobs, according to the NDA announcement. Opened in 1957, LLWR serves as the U.K.’s sole site for disposal of solid waste containing low levels of radioactivity. The U.K. has invested more than £100 million into LLWR infrastructure over the past 10 years, according to NDA.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2017. Planning approval also authorizes NDA to cap existing and new vaults, as well as seven clay-lined trenches, which hold waste deposited before the first vault opened in 1988.
“We are absolutely delighted,” LLW Repository Ltd. Managing Director Dennis Thompson said in a statement. “After three years of hard work, millions of pounds of investment, utilising dozens of technical and scientific experts, we submitted a substantive technical document that makes the case that it is safe to dispose of low level waste (LLW) at the site.”
