Salt dome Gorleben

The Gorleben salt dome is a proposed deep geological repository in a salt dome in Gorleben in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district in the far north-east of Lower Saxony for low-, medium- and high-level radioactive waste.

At the end of 1973 the search began for a final salt dome storage. The plan was a repository for all types of radioactive waste in a salt dome. 24 salt domes were considered. The federal government asked the company KEWA (Kernbrennstoff-Wiederaufarbeitungs-Gesellschaft) to search for a location.

On July 1, 1975 the KEWA proposed three sites in Lower Saxony for further investigation: the salt domes Lutterloh, Lichtenhorst and Wahn. The location Gorleben is not advantageous in this category. The investigation of the sites began with drilling holes. In November 1976 the Lower Saxony cabinet called for the Federal Government to examine the three sites, so they could designate a location.

In February 1977 the Lower Saxony cabinet designated finally the Gorleben salt dome as a single location for the repository and waste disposal center. The choice of Gorleben was the work of a project group which investigated 140 salt domes within a few months. Of these 140 salt domes only four were proposed: Lichtenhorst, Wahn, Maria Glück (Höfer) and Gorleben. Of these, Gorleben was chosen. The selection criteria were among others, land use, population density, radiation and repository geology. Geoscientific arguments played only a small role. For example, the salt dome Höfer (Maria Glück) is too small for a repository but reached the last round of selection. The ultimate decision for Gorleben according to the former Lower Saxony Prime Minister Ernst Albrecht was mainly for structural reasons for the economic development of the zone. 1.5 billion Euro's of research has been conducted in the period 1979-2000 at Gorleben.

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