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Russia will import, store and reprocess other countries' nuclear
waste, following the approval of the third and final reading of
a controversial bill by the Russian lower house of parliament.
Once passed by the upper house and signed by the president, the
bill will earn Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry up to $20bn over
a 10-year period.
The ministry has promised to use part of the money to clean up
Russian regions polluted by radioactive waste from the Soviet-era
nuclear programme.
But environmentalists and other opponents' previous pledges to
clean up nuclear contamination have gone unfulfilled.
Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party and one
of the main opponents of the bill, told the chamber: "One
hundred million Russian citizens are against it and only 500 people
are for - 300 members sitting here and 200 bureaucrats who will
be getting the money."
Last month the EU Environment Commissioner Margot Walstrom told
Russian officials that European countries were concerned about
Russian safety levels for the processing and transportation of
nuclear waste.
She said the processing centre in the Ural Mountains where it
is planned to treat the waste did not meet European safety norms.
The deputy chairman of the 450-member State Duma, Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
defended the bill, explaining that what the government has called
waste, is actually a valuable resource.
"Waste is something found at a dump. It stinks and crawls
with microbes and beetles. This, on the other hand, is a very
valuable raw material for the production of plutonium and uranium,
all of which may be used to heat and light the country,"
Mr. Zhirinovsky told Russia TV.
The bill passed by 243 to 125, with seven deputies abstaining,
in a vote that took only 20 minutes.
But the speaker of Russia's upper chamber of parliament, Yegor
Stroyev, warned that the Federation Council may have serious concerns
about the bill.
"We will take our time with this decision," he said.
"First, we have to take a careful look at all the consequences,
think about guaranteeing security, and only then make our decision."
The bill amends existing legislation to allow Russia to import
and store on a "temporary" basis nuclear waste and byproducts
from abroad.
It does not specify time limits.
Russian towns, rivers and large tracts of land were exposed to
radioactive pollution during the secretive development of the
Soviet nuclear industry, and environmentalists say they remain
dangerously polluted.
Scientist Alexei Yablokov, a former presidential adviser, has
said opinion polls show 90% of voters are against the bill.
See also:
Nuclear
waste bill section of the web-site
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