| MOSCOW - Russia's dangerous radioactive legacy
of the Soviet-era nuclear sector has become a matter of domestic
and international concern. While the Russian authorities, notably
the Nuclear Power Ministry - or Minatom - argue that the country's
nuclear facilities sector is safe, some international environmental
organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and parliament
deputies are far from convinced.
The issue of nuclear safety was placed under the spotlight when
Sergei Mitrokhin, a State Duma deputy from the liberal Yabloko
faction, along with two Greenpeace activists and three NTV cameramen,
broke into the Krasnoyarsk-26 plant where the spent nuclear fuel
from Bulgaria is being stored. The break-in, broadcast on NTV,
was designed to show that the country's system of nuclear safety
was "non-existent", Mitrokhin said.
Simultaneously, Greenpeace Russia has also filed suit in a Moscow
district court saying that the import of some 40 tonnes of spent
nuclear fuel in November from the Kozlodui nuclear plant in Bulgaria
is illegal. The waste is now being stored at the Krasnoyarsk-26
in western Siberia, said Vladimir Chuprov, energy programs coordinator
for Greenpeace Russia. NGOs argue that Russia's largest waste-storage
facility, Krasnoyarsk-26, has just 3,000 tonnes of unused capacity,
while Minatom wants to allow other nations to pay to send more
than 10,000 tonnes of their radioactive waste for reprocessing
and storage here.
Last month, the Russian Supreme Court handed a victory to environmentalists,
striking down a government decision that allowed the import of
nuclear waste from the Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary for
storage in Russia. Greenpeace and a group of other environmental
NGOs filed a suit against the government last year when they learned
of the decision to allow nuclear waste from the Paks plant to
be sent to Chelyabinsk for storage, said Chuprov. Russia imports
spent fuel rods from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary for
reprocessing, but is required to return the waste to the countries
for permanent storage.
Environmentalists contest the deals clinched before a law signed
last summer that allows the import of spent nuclear fuel from
other countries for reprocessing and storage. The recycling process
extracts usable material from the spent rods while reducing their
potential to be used in weapons, the Minatom has said. The new
law, signed by President Vladimir Putin, allows the import of
spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing and storage. When Putin signed
the new law last July, he ordered a committee to be formed to
make recommendations on nuclear safety procedures but this committee
has yet to start working. According to Mitrokhin, the committee
cannot start its work because the Federation Council, the upper
house of parliament, is late in appointing representatives to
it.
Since late 2000, environmental groups opposed the law that allowed
the long-term storage of nuclear waste on Russian soil. In an
attempt to block the import of spent nuclear fuel, the environmentalist
groups collected 2.5 million signatures to initiate a national
referendum to ask whether voters opposed the importation of radioactive
materials.
However, Russia's Central Elections Commission, citing minor
technical inaccuracies, rejected more than a fifth of the signatures,
leaving the environmentalists 200,000 short of the 2 million needed
to force a referendum. Most of the signatures were rejected on
the grounds of abbreviating the word "street" in a signer's
address. Environmental activists moved to initiate a regional
referendum in Krasnoyarsk region and gathered 100,000 signatures.
However, the authorities agreed to look at only 40,000 and then
rejected 36,000 as invalid - roughly on the same technical reasons.
No big wonder that some Russian environmental activists even
argued that the twain of democracy and nuclear energy cannot meet.
Nonetheless, the environmentalists continue to contest skipping
both referendums in Russian and European courts, Chuprov said.
However, the governmental nuclear agency, Minatom, still plans
a lucrative business turning Russia into the world's nuclear pay
dump. Advocates of nuclear-waste imports argue that Russia could
earn US$20 billion over the next decade by importing some 20,000
tonnes of spent nuclear fuel. Yet critics, led by Greenpeace,
have lashed out the plan, saying the environmental fallout could
outweigh the benefits.
Moreover, even Moscow faces nuclear-waste problems, mainly due
to Kurchatov Institute. Over the decades, however, the institute
has accumulated a huge quantity of radioactive waste on its territory
- located in a residential district just 15 kilometers northwest
of the Kremlin. The waste depositories at the institute, which
still runs six of its nine nuclear reactors, contain spent nuclear
fuel, water used as a cooling agent and worn reactor parts.
Another matter of concern is the naval nuclear legacy. Notably,
on Tuesday deputies of the State Duma, the lower house of the
Russian parliament, urged the government to approve a federal
program on how to deal with decommissioned nuclear submarines
and other ships with nuclear reactors. Russia now has 230 such
vessels, half of which are near the end of nuclear reactors' lifespan.
The deputies urged the government to increase funding so as to
decommission these vessels safely.
In 2002, no less than 10 trailoads of hazardous waste from nuclear
icebreakers and submarines will be transported from Kola Peninsula
to "Mayak", says Stanislav Golovinsky, technical director
of Murmansk Shipping Co. Apart from Krasniyarsk-26, Russia's Minatom
manages Chelyabinsk-65 Reprocessing Plant, or NPO "Mayak",
which had been a site of a series of dangerous accidents. Nevertheless,
since 1994 a total of 29 trainloads of nuclear waste have been
brought from Kola Peninsula to "Mayak" so far. Yet although
the operation is getting faster, all the waste is due to be removed
from Kola region no earlier than 2007.
Only afterward does the Murmansk Shipping Co plan to start removing
waste from an emergency storage facility in Andreyev Guba, where
waste from some 100 reactors is being temporarily stored. At least
five more years will be needed to clear Andreyev Guba, Golovinsky
said.
Russia's Far Eastern regions have waste problems of their own.
The Pacific Fleet's 75 decommissioned nuclear submarines are stranded
in harbors, and 45 are waiting for nuclear fuel to be unloaded
from their reactors, argues State Duma Deputy Boris Reznik. He
says theatest source of danger is from the vessels, used as provisional
storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel from other submarines.
Reznik claimed that in March 1999 some 160 cubic meters of highly
radioactive liquid waste leaked from the rusting tanker vessel
Pinega, which is being used for temporary storage.
Moreover, this month the Russian TV3 channel alleged that a decommissioned
nuclear submarine recently sank in Krasheninnikov Bay, Kamchatka
Peninsula, in Russia's Far East. But Russian officials have repeatedly
denied such allegations and claimed that the risk of a nuclear
accident is extremely slight. "No decommissioned nuclear
submarines were sinking recently," navy spokesman Igor Dygalo
was quoted as saying by the Russian Information Agency (RIA).
However, Dygalo conceded that such incidents had taken place back
in 1997 and 1999, but he denied that there had been leaks of liquid
nuclear waste.
Reznik points out that in 2001 Russia earned $66 billion from
oil and gas exports, hence the government has enough money to
deal with nuclear-waste problems. "The Russian military officials
believe that preventing waste leaks just means avoiding press
leaks," Reznik said.
It is widely accepted that Russia now faces a longer-term safety
problem as its existing nuclear-waste storage facilities are getting
closer to being filled to capacity.
Russia's scientists, officials, NGOs and environmental activists
agree the country urgently needs to monitor and control its post-Soviet
nuclear legacy - notably nuclear waste. Environmentalists, however,
cast doubts on the effectiveness of the governmental programs
to tackle the mess.
(Inter Press Service)
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YABLOKO against
Nulcear Waste Imports
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