524 



STATEMENT OF DR. LEONID BOLSHOV, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE 

 OF NUCLEAR SAFETY, RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



Dr. BoLSHOV. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to appear 

 before you today representing the Institute of Nuclear Safety of the 

 Russian Academy of Science. The Institute was established in late 

 '88 by an act of government and it was in response to the severe 

 accident which occurred at Chernobyl in '86. In conjunction with a 

 special governmental program, it was suggested to facilitate future 

 SEtfe development of nuclear power in my country. And this was the 

 reason why this Institute was established outside our nuclear in- 

 dustry, which is totally governed by Ministry of Nuclear Energy. 

 And the primary goals of the Institute was to conduct fundamental 

 research in the field of utilization of nuclear energy, to formulate 

 independent evaluation of the safety of existing and projected nu- 

 clear power plants, waste management and other problems associ- 

 ated with the use of nuclear energy for the Academy of Science, 

 government organization and the Parliament. 



I am very happy that during the three years of our existence we 

 have done a lot of work and while this summer in Munich where 

 the Group of Seven Economic leaders of countries were discussing 

 the problem of safe usage of Soviet plants and what to do with our 

 present plants was expressed, opinions that was prepared inside 

 academy and we were doing these, and I cannot say tnat it was a 

 word to word of what ministry of Atomic Energy prepared for our 

 authorities. And another task of our institute to provide informa- 

 tional and medical support to government problems regarding miti- 

 gation by the government's agencies of the Chernobyl and other ra- 

 dioactive accident as well as Chelyabinsk and Novaya Zemlya, et 

 cetera. 



And we are an independent scientific organization delegated to 

 understanding and mitigating in a broad range of nuclear activity. 

 We are doing now different projects for research for Russian 

 Chernobyl conferences, state committee for Ministry of Ecology, for 

 Russian, Ukrainian, American and French Nuclear Regulatory 

 Commissions. And we are working also with our military scientists 

 in some areas. 



And as for organizationgd part of what we are discussing here, 

 I was very pleased to hear fi-om Mr. O'Dowd, his remarks and con- 

 sideration. He was precisely in the target that we have large num- 

 bers of scientists in coimtry, and there are very different groups in- 

 side, and it's very good to use experience and expertise of good 

 group and you must be very precise in selection of right group 

 that's going to represent them. 



And as regard to Arctic disposal of nuclear materials, my organi- 

 zation has no prior involvement in the disposal. They probably can 

 and will provide the necessary independence to ensure that sci- 

 entifically accurate and defensible inventories and analysis are pro- 

 vided. 



I totally agreed with what was said here that it should be multi- 

 disciplinary and multinational efforts; completeness of the inven- 

 tories is of crucial importance. Russia as well as UK and other 

 countries must incorporate all past activities that have contributed 

 to the inventory. That's why a multinational participation in the 

 project is so importEint to assure that all essential inventories are 



