Prague, May 22 (CTK) – The Prague Municipal Court has met a complaint by environmental activists against the nuclear waste storage operating in the complex of the Temelin nuclear plant, south Bohemia, and cancelled the offices’ respective decisions, court spokeswoman Marketa Puci told CTK on Tuesday.
The verdict has taken effect and the the Regional Development Ministry and the South Bohemia Regional Office must deal with the matter again.
The court concluded that the impact of serious accidents had not been sufficiently assessed in the process of the environmental impact assessment.
Another reason to annul the offices’ decisions was the violation of the procedural rights of the complainant, the environmental association (V havarijni zone jaderne elektrarny Temelin), in the proceedings before administrative bodies.
The nuclear waste repository in Temelin has been working since 2010. It was filled up to one-fifth at the beginning of this year. The containers are to be stored there for up to 60 years. Then the nuclear waste is to be transferred to a permanent repository.
However, the court panel ruled behind closed doors last Friday that the process preceding the decision to place the nuclear waste storage in Temelin had not been in compliance with law.
The Regional Development Ministry repeatedly approved the decision by the South Bohemia Regional Office from 2008 to place the storage facility in Temelin. It turned down the appeals by the anti-nuclear association three times.
According to the court, the office did not proceed correctly.
The Prague Municipal Court was dealing with the case for the third time in a row. It cancelled the previous two decisions by the ministry since they were “non-reviewable.”
Now it for the first time reviewed the criticised zone-planning decision.
The association claims that the zone-planning proceedings had fundamental shortcomings. The offices did not assess the impact of all the nuclear facilities in the place on the environment, nature, human health and landscape and did not deal with the aftermath of a possible serious nuclear accident, the association pointed out.
