Update: Arctic Cleanup - Chris Patten calls for cleanup of nuclear reactors and fuel dumped in Russian Arctic - Brief Article

Ecologist, The, March, 2001

Chris Patten, the EU's commissioner for external relations, has called for a cleanup of the around 300 nuclear reactors -- about 20 per cent of the world's total -- and thousands of nuclear fuel rods dumped in the Russian Arctic (The Ecologist, Vol 30 Nos 7&9). The risk of large scale radioactive contamination from the reactors of abandoned submarines are an immediate danger to Russians and Europeans alike, and Patten warned that 'the lack of adequate storage or disposal facilities for spent fuel and radioactive waste from the reactors of nuclear vessels is a sword of Damocles hanging over all our futures'.