594 



Findings 



1. We have established and documented that beginning in 1959, the fonner USSR disposed 

 of various levels of RW. This refers to RW produced during the operation and repair of nuclear- 

 powered Naval vessels and ships of the Murmansk Maritime Shipping Line. There were cases of 

 unauthorized and accidental sinking of vessels containing RW. Some RW (including NS reactor 

 compartments and damaged reactors with nuclear fuel residues) was transferred for sinking from 

 ship repair enterprises of the USSR Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry. 



In 1991-1992, the Navy continued dumping liquid RW in the Barents Sea, as well as liquid 

 and solid RW in Far Eastern seas. 



2. The Soviet Union did not fiimish any information to the International Maritime Organiza- 

 tion of the International Atomic Energy Agency on RW dumping at sea performed by the USSR. 



Normative legal acts and departmental instructions regaiding the disposal of RW at sea that 

 have been retained from the time of the USSR and are applicable on Russian territory either do 

 not comply with or directly contradict the London Convention accepted by the Russian Federa- 

 tion, other international agreements in this area, and the 1991 Russian Federation Law Protection 

 of the Natural Environment. 



3. Due to the fleets' unpreparedness for a transition to new means of transporting SNF, 

 existing temporary storage facilities for SFA's are overflowing. SRW from vessels, ships and 

 yards is accumulating in containers in outdoor areas. 



This is why it is practically impossible to halt RW dumping at sea without simultaneously 

 solving problems of handling it on shore. It would lead to a further accumulation of RW at its 

 points of production and temporary storage, degrade radiation and overall ecological conditions, 

 and cause a rise in social tensions and a real threat to personnel and the public. 



4. Because the leaders of the fonner USSR adopted the concept of disposing of intermedi- 

 ate- and low-level RW at sea, construction of capacity for processing solid RW and purifying liq- 

 uid RW, begun by the Navy in the 60s, was halted in 1972. 



The 1985 USSR Government decision to build special storage facilities in the northern and 

 Pacific Fleets for disposal of reactor compartments from NS's, with conunissioning of their first 

 stages scheduled for 1993, has not been implemented. 



5. It appears impossible to establish the amount of radionuclides that entered the marine en- 

 vironment in RW discharges fi-om the territory of the USSR with the desired accuracy. According 

 to documentary data at the Commission's disposal, the activity of dumped RW was 325 kCi. Ac- 

 cording to expert estimates, the maximum activity of RW that entered seas adjacent to Russian 

 territory could have been as much as 2,500 kCi (at the time of disposal). 



6. The greatest potential radioecological hazard is presented by reactors from NS's and the 

 core plate of the nuclear icebreaker Lenin, with nuclear fuel in place, which were dumped in 

 shallow inlets of Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Kara Sea. 



7. Monitoring of radiation conditions in marine disposal areas for SRW has not been per- 

 formed for over 25 years. 



52 



