No. 09/18 – Lower Saxony State Office for Mining, Energy and Geology approves discharge of Asse water into mine

19 July 2018

The BGE undertakes to comply with the limit values of the Drinking Water Ordinance

If no other disposal option is available, radiologically safe salt water collected in the Asse II mine may be discharged into the disused Bergmannssegen-Hugo/Friedrichshall mine near Sehnde and Lehrte. The Lower Saxony State Office for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG) has approved the identical applications of the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE) and the mine operator K+S AG. This option will come into play if the current recycling route via a customer from the chemical industry is not available for the rock-salt-saturated groundwater from the Asse. Another prerequisite for the discharge of the salt solution is that the limit values of the Drinking Water Ordinance –100 becquerels per litre for tritium – are complied with. For caesium-137, the BGE itself has requested a low value of 10 becquerels per litre.

The salt solution from the Asse II mine was used to flood the Mariaglück mine near Celle until the end of 2016. This flooding will be completed this year. The discharge of salt solution from the Asse into the Bergmannssegen-Hugo/Friedrichshall mine could begin in autumn at the earliest. The necessary facilities are currently under construction and will be available in September at the earliest. If the BGE needs to use the option, it will notify the LBEG and the city of Sehnde of a planned transport in advance. The municipality can then convince itself of the radiological safety of the influent salt solution at any time by taking its own samples and having them tested by a laboratory of its own choice. The costs will be borne by the BGE. The BGE has already assured this in advance. Similarly, the BGE had already offered that the cities of Sehnde and Lehrte could take samples at any time. The BGE, in turn, continuously measures the salt solution and documents the results. The BGE publishes the measurement results on its website. You will also find the decision of the LBEG here later today.

The BGE is a federally owned company within the portfolio of the Federal Environment Ministry. On 25 April 2017, the BGE assumed responsibility from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection as the operator of the Asse II mine and the Konrad and Morsleben repositories. Its other tasks include searching for a repository site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste produced in Germany on the basis of the Repository Site Selection Act, which entered into force in May 2017. The managing directors are Dr Ewold Seeba (Acting Chair), Professor Hans-Albert Lennartz (Commercial Manager) and Dr Thomas Lautsch (Technical Manager).