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Greenpeace 



Greenpeace • 1436 U Street NW • Washington DC 20009 • Tel (202) 462-1 177 

 Tlx 89-2359 • Fax (202) 462-4507 



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 27 February 1992 



Contaa: John Sprange or Jacquelyn Walsh in London, 071 833-0600 

 Joshua Handler in Washington, DC, 202/319-2516 



15 RUSSIAN NUCLEAR REACTORS DUMPED AT SEA 



London - Greenpeace today released information confirming that 12 submarine nuclear 

 reactors and three icebreaker reactors have been dumped in the waters off the coast of 

 Novaya Zemlya. This is the first public disclosure that Russian submarines and their 

 nuclear reaacrs were dumped in the Kara Sea. 



One whole submarine, the K-27 powered by a liquid-metal cooled reactor, was dumped 

 in the Stepovov Gulf sifter an accident in May 1968. Its two fueled nuclear reactors were 

 dumped in the same location off the southern island in 1982. 



Eight reactors, three of which still contain their nuclear fuel, were dumped with sections 

 of four accident-damaged nuclear submarines in waters just south of the K-27. The 

 submarine sections - from the K-11, K-3 Leninski Komsomol, K-19 Hiroshima, and one 

 unknown - were reponedly dumped during the years 1964-65. 



Five more reaaors litter the seabed, including the three damaged reactors from the 

 icebreaker "Lenin." Over 17,000 containers of liquid and solid radioactive waste were 

 also dumped; the location of some 10,000 of these containers has now been made public. 



Novaya Zemlya, an island archipelago in the Arctic Circle used as a nuclear test site, is 

 proving to be one of the CIS's largest nuclear dumping grounds. The information tomes 

 from sources inside the CIS, researched by Alexander Yemelanenkov, Russian chairman 

 of the anti-testing association Towards Novaya Zemlya," and Andrei Zolotkov, a nuclear 

 engineer aboard the "Imandra," a nuclear refueling ship for icebreakers in Murmansk. 



"The waste from the nuclear icebreakers is a molehill compared to the mountain of 

 waste created by the Russian nuclear navy," said John Sprange, Greenpeace disarmament 

 campaigner. "This is the begiiming of an uncontrolled landslide." 



Greenpeace is working towards a worldwide ban on nuclear-fHJwered and nuclear-armed 

 ships and submarines. In October 1990, the Greenpeace flagship "MV Greenpeace" 

 sailed to Novaya Zemlya to protest continued nuclear testing. 



J--J -C_Y _ C_ L__E_0_ PAPER 



