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B. Plans for responding to a nuclear reactor accident aboard a submarine: 



These plans exist but are kept secret from local authorities, according to Severodvinsk city 

 oEQcials. Local authorities wish to know about these plans and coordinate with the Navy 

 to develop a joint response. No coordination, however, has been forthcoming. If an 

 accident were to occur, an already chaotic situation would be made more disastrous by the 

 lack of such planning. 



C. Radioactive waste and submarine decommissioning: 



Nuclear submarines are almost constantly in the refit facility undergoing refuelling, 

 generating a constant stream of spent reactor fuel and other radioactive wastes. 

 According to Admiral Pakhomov, spent reactor fuel is loaded op specialized submarine 

 service ships and directly taken to the Murmansk area. Other radioactive wastes are held 

 temporarily at the facility but then are also shipped to the Murmansk area. 



Submarines are also being decommissioned, according to the Admiral, at a rate of about 

 one a year. At the refit facility, the fuel is taken off and other equipment is removed. 

 The reactor compartment the submarine is sealed up and then the whole submarine is 

 towed to a facility in the Murmansk area, and held in a storage afloat condition pending 

 plans of how to dispose of the reactor compartments, and the hull itself. Local residents 

 complain that there is a backlog of submarines in the area awaiting the decommissioning 

 process. They wish these submarines would be removed as soon as possible. 



These details, combined with information Greenpeace gathered in Murmansk about 

 radioactive waste disposal from naval ships and nuclear-powered icebreakers, indicates 

 there are sizable radioactive waste depositories on the Kola peninsula in the Murmansk 

 region. Admiral Pahkomov and plant officials denied any waste was dumped in the White 

 Sea, but given what is being discovered about past ocean dumping of radioactive waste by 

 the USSR, Greenpeace is concerned that some of the waste in the Murmansk regions is 

 or will be dumped at sea. 



D. Submarine accidents: 



While Greenpeace was in Severodvinsk, the news about a submarine accident in the 

 White Sea broke. A modem Typhoon ballistic missile submarine, reportedly carrying 18 

 nuclear armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as two testing missiles, 

 suffered an accident when one of the training missiles misfired. 



Plant workers reportedly complained they had little advance notice before the submarine 

 was brought into Severodvinsk. As a result they had to hurriedly shift some of the nuclear 

 refuelling barges to make room for the damaged submarine. Accidents like this are 

 reported to happen at least once a year. 



