Page 98 - Beyond Decommissioning

Redevelopment as an innovative approach to nuclear decommissioning 79

quantities of materials, for example, those occurring during decommissioning. These
efforts culminated in the publishing of IAEA standards (International Atomic Energy
Agency, 2006, 2012a,b, 2014b), which opened the way to unrestricted or restricted
reuse/redevelopment of decommissioned facilities and sites.
But the concept of redevelopment goes beyond the decommissioning/remediation
of obsolete facilities and idle sites. It is important to be able to appreciate the historic
and cultural meaning of the landscape (including industrial buildings) and to under-
stand how “landscape ecology and design can invent alternative forms of relationships
between people, place, and cosmos so that landscape architectural projects become
more about invention and programs rather merely corrective measures of restoration”
(Centre of Land Policy and Valuations, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 2014).
A word of caution is necessary: While the redevelopment of nuclear facilities/sites
is in line with the principle of sustainability, this very principle can be invoked, for
example, to justify the installation of new energy-savings measures in heritage build-
ings being redeveloped, which seems to contradict the principle of conservation.
Needless to say, a trade-off can be needed in concrete cases.

4.2 Typical reuse/redevelopment approaches

Typical approaches follow consolidated practices and generally focus on the future of
historic structures. The US Department of the Interior/National Park Service (NPS)
defines four practices for historic buildings (US Department of the Interior,
National Park Service, and Technical Preservation Services, 2017). They are preser-
vation, restoration, reconstruction, and rehabilitation. Each practice focuses on differ-
ent plans for a given site. Preservation retains the most historical character of the site
and rehabilitation adds new designs and uses. It is important to review each option
when considering applicability to the post-decommissioning phase (for the sake of
simplicity, we will refer here to NPPs).
“Preservation
is defined as the act or process of applying measures necessary to sustain the existing form,
integrity, and materials of an historic property. Work, including preliminary measures to
protect and stabilize the property, generally focuses upon the ongoing maintenance and
repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new con-
struction. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing sys-
tems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a
preservation project. However, new exterior additions are not within the scope of this treat-
ment. The Standards for Preservation require retention of the greatest amount of historic fab-
ric along with the building’s historic form.”
This approach freezes the building/facility in time, although limited upgrades to its
systems are possible. Historic house museums often follow this approach because
it allows us to accurately depict a given period in history and preserve fabric that
is significant to the history of the structure. In other cases, this approach is selected
if there are significant historic materials onsite and the site is relatively easy to main-
tain or stabilize.