No. 3/19 - Wall around the Gorleben mine site to be demolished

Preservation of a section as a place of remembrance

The wall built around the Gorleben mine site will be demolished. A section of the wall will be preserved as a place of remembrance on the initiative of the Lüchow-Dannenberg district and the Lüchow-Dannenberg Citizens’ Initiative. This will be honoured today with a handover ceremony attended by Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary at the Federal Environment Ministry, and Stefan Studt, Chair of the Management Board of the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE). The former exploratory mine itself is now in a moratorium period.

Flasbarth: “By preserving a section of the wall, we are preserving the memory of a profound social conflict in our country. The Gorleben wall stands as a symbol for the decades-long dispute over nuclear energy in Germany. The next big challenge will be to find a final repository for our high-level radioactive waste. We approach this task in a science-based and transparent process without favouring certain regions and without excluding certain regions from the outset. The white map still applies – also to the Gorleben mine. That’s how it is stated in the repository consensus – and that’s how it will be implemented”.

At the end of the 1970s, the then state government of Lower Saxony, with the approval of the federal government, had designated Gorleben as the site for a nuclear waste management centre, including an exploratory mine for a final repository for high-level radioactive waste. Construction of the mine began in 1986. In the course of the negotiations on the nuclear phase-out, a ten-year moratorium on the exploration of the salt dome was initially agreed in 2000. In connection with the extension of the operating life, which was initially decided in 2009, it was agreed that exploration would be resumed. Exploration was finally stopped in 2013 following the decision to phase out nuclear energy in 2011, which was passed by a wide majority. In 2014, the federal government and the state finally agreed to decommission the mine and keep it open as part of the site selection process. This decision also included the demolition of the wall. Since then, machinery, equipment, and power lines have been removed from the mine, the underground drifts largely sealed off, and the infrastructure dismantled.

The Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE) reports that the wall around the mine site will be demolished in the coming weeks. The BGE has agreed to help fulfil the wish for a place of remembrance. The BGE, which owns the property on which the wall stands, has handed over a section of the wall as well as a building to the district and the citizens’ initiative. The BGE will also work to ensure that the site can soon be released from Mining Law. This would make this place accessible to the public.

BGE Managing Director Stefan Studt says: “Gorleben is also an important reference point for the BGE”. Much of “what our experts know about repositories they learned during the exploration in Gorleben, the construction of the Konrad repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste in Salzgitter, and our other repository projects”. Studt says: “We are reaching out to the region to do our part to overcome past struggles”. He expects the wall project to “develop into a lasting dialogue with the region”.

Underground decommissioning is nearly complete. The former exploratory mine itself is now entering a moratorium period. In other words: only maintenance work will still be carried out in order to maintain the condition of the mine. In order to illustrate how the moratorium period looks underground, a symbolic final underground tour is taking place today.

In the search for a repository for high-level radioactive waste, the BGE is currently evaluating existing geodata from state and federal authorities in order to identify sub-areas where further exploration seems promising. At the same time, the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BfE) is preparing the public participation steps provided for in the Repository Site Selection Act. The National Civil Society Board (NBG) will support the selection process in a critical and mediating manner.