At last, Russia signs an agreement to tackle the massive radiation pollution in its sea and land
A CONTRACT between Russian, American
and Japanese organisations, to hasten a
long-awaited radiation clean-up, was
signed in Moscow last month. This incident may mark the first concrete step
taken by the concerned parties towards
solving the staggering problem of radiation pollution off the Pacific coast of
Russia in the Far East.
Under the contract, Japan, which
has been partially helping finance disarmament attempts of Russia since 1993,
will foot the bill for building safe facilities for reprocessing and storage of
liquid radioactive waste. The cost of the
entire operation is expected to exceed us
$25.5 million.
Russia was a signatory to the
London anti-Dumping Convention of
1972, but its government commission
report of 1993 - commonly known as
the Yablokov Report (after its chairperson Alexei Yablokov), revealed that contrary to the declaration which came into
force from 1959, Russia had been regularly dumping radioactive waste in the
adjoining seas. At present, Russia maintains that it has stopped all dumping
activities, and although there is information that its navy still generates upto
20,000 cubic metre of liquid waste
arm 'all,, this is being stored in land-
based bins.
Radioactive contamination off the
Pacific coast is a major cause for concern, especially for the eastern nations.
The Yablokov Report disclosed that
between 1966 and 1992, liquid waste
with a radioactivity level of at least
12,337 curies was dumped in the Sea of
Japan and the Pacific Ocean. In fact,
Russia's last recorded dumping of 900
cubic m of liquid waste in the Sea of
Japan provoked a furious outcry from
Japan.
In 1993, an amendment to the anti-dumping convention imposed a blanket
ban on dumpinr of any kind of nuclear
material in the seas. Russia then refused
to sign the amendment, at least for the
time being, citing financial bottlenecks
as the reason.
A recent examination of Russia's
land-based radiation waste dumps,
which presently house spent nuclear
fuel, revealed that most were almost full.
The recently signed agreement provides
for the storage of reprocessed liquid
nuclear waste on board a tug vessel measuring 60 metres by 20 metres.
According to the plans, the ship would
be built in the naval dockyard in
Komsomolask-on-Amur, where, ironically enough, most of Russia's nuclear
submarines were earlier commissioned.
The reprocessing will be conducted
in the Siberian city of Bolshoi Kamen.
The plant would be modelled after its US
counterparts. However, the signatories
made it clear that Russia must be prepared to bear all serving and maintenance costs - expected to
be over a million us dollars
annually.
Plans are also afoot to
build a full-fledged nuclear
graveyard in the Far East,
as the floating storage unit
is expected to be live for
not more than 20 years.
Under the proposed
scheme, radioactive materials will be stored in the
manner it has been done in
the US: bonded securely in
cement and paper in stainless steel containers.
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