Nuclear watch in the far north

UNESCO Courier, Nov, 1998 by Ethirajan Anbarasan

The fate of the unparalleled concentration of nuclear material on Russia's Kola peninsula is alarming neighbouring Scandinavian countries

The strike only lasted an hour, but it was enough to set alarm bells ringing in Moscow. Organized by Russia's nuclear defence workers in September this year, it caused such concern in Moscow that despite the severe financial crisis the government allotted about $16 million for the defence employees who had not been paid for months. Even the latest deal gave the workers only half of the wages owed to them by the government. "People are really hungry. How can you ask them to look after our security?" said Yury Bersenyev, a scientist from the closed nuclear city Snezhinsk, in an interview to a local daily.

Corroding equipment and dissatisfied servicemen

The Russian Union of Nuclear Industry Workers says that hungry nuclear workers and lack of funding could lead to serious trouble in the Russian nuclear sector, including defence establishments. In addition to corroding submarines, dissatisfied military personnel now add more complications for the Russian authorities. In September this year a disgruntled armed conscript killed eight of his fellow servicemen and threatened to blow up the Akula-class submarine at the Skalisty naval base in the Kola peninsula. Finally he killed himself in the torpedo compartment. Though Russian officials assured that the sailor could not have damaged the torpedoes, any explosion in the compartment was strong enough to damage the submarine's single nuclear reactor. This incident alarmed Norwegian officials, as it happened just 120 km from the border in the country's north. The unstable situation in the Russian nuclear sector has aggravated the worries of the neighbouring Scandinavian nations who will be the first to be affected in case of a nuclear disaster in Russia's north-west.

The gravest environmental hazard in the Arctic Circle stems from nuclear activity on the Russian side, especially in and around the northern Kola peninsula. Nowhere else on earth is there such a concentration of civilian and naval nuclear reactors. According to the Yablokov report(1), an official Russian document, there were a total of 270 nuclear reactors in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk counties in 1990. Nuclear activity in and around the Kola peninsula includes power plants, nuclear submarines, huge piles of nuclear waste and the effects of nuclear tests conducted by the former Soviet Union.

Russia's immediate neighbour Finland is the only European Union country to share a 1,200-kilometre border with Russia and faces constant environmental threats from the former superpower. Finland's Arctic Circle would be the first and worst hit region in the event of a Russian environmental disaster. With memories of Chernobyl still haunting them, the Finns are constantly monitoring air, water, soil, plants and meat to make sure nothing is amiss on the Russian side.

Despite the presence of so many old-fashioned nuclear reactors and unprotected piles of nuclear waste so close to the border, Kristina Rissanen, head of the Regional Laboratory of the Finnish Centre for Radiation and Nuclear Safety (CRNS), in Rovaniemi, tries to keep a sense of perspective. "The radiation levels across the border at present are not alarming. Moreover the Russians in recent years have started showing a more open approach, and that itself is a positive factor."

Rissanen's laboratory, eighteen metres underground, is designed to withstand a nuclear holocaust. The enthusiastic team of chemists in CRNS analyse hundreds of sampies every day, from reindeer meat to industrial products. Kristina makes frequent trips to northwestern Russia on joint expeditions to find out the fate of submerged nuclear reactors and the operational reactors.

The Yablokov report noted that only 15 per cent of the dry-docked submarines had been properly decommissioned by the removal of reactor fuels and the reactor section. A state of the Arctic Environment Report(2) says that along with nuclear waste, the Soviet Union dumped six nuclear submarine reactors and a shielding assembly from an icebreaker reactor, containing spent fuel, between the years 1959 and 1991.

Expeditions in the Barents Sea

Rissanen, whose team often searches the Barents Sea for the nuclear reactors from sunken Russian nuclear submarines, takes a different view. "There is no doubt many of the submerged reactors could pose a serious threat to the environment of the Arctic region in the future. I am more worried about the Kola nuclear power plant than those reactors lying under the sea. The nuclear reactors in Kola are very old and similar to Chernobyl-type reactors."

The Northern Fleet and naval shipyards include nuclear-powered submarines and battle cruisers based at nine ports along the northern coast of the Kola peninsula and at two bases on the Archangelsk region's coast. There are about ninety vessels in operation and more than seventy out of operation and laid up, containing about 170 reactors in operation and 130 out of operation. About 5,000 tons of solid waste are generated annually at the Northern Fleet's nuclear vessels and at shipyards in the two regions.