32 



Norway is of the opinion that the Moscow Summit on nuclear issues should result in a 

 Russian pledge to accede to the ban on dumping of radioactive waste at sea adopted in 1 993 

 by the London Convention of 1972. The Norwegian- American-Russian project to expand the 

 capacity of the effluent treatment facility in Murmansk should facilitate such a policy change. 



V MANAGEMENT, STORAGE AND DISPOSAL OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND 

 RADIOACTIVE WASTE. 



According to a recently published United States General Accounting Office (GAG) report on 

 nuclear safety, there are 221 nuclear facilities operating in the Former Soviet Union. 99 of 

 them are located in the Russian Federation. The list in the GAO report does not include the 

 nuclear-powered submarines, ice-breakers, and support ships in the Russian military and 

 civilian fleets. 



All nuclear facilities generate radioactive waste and spent nuclear fiiel, the accumulation of 

 which is a major problem. Few, if any, countries with nuclear facilities have arrived at 

 satisfactory, long-term solutions to this problem. 



Existing storage facilities in the Russian Federation are virtually filled to capacity and in very 

 poor condition. Some of these facilities are located quite close to the Norwegian-Russian 

 border and within a few hundred meters from Qords ending in the Barents Sea with some of 

 the richest fishing grounds in the world. The more information we get, the more dramatic the 

 situation seems to be. 



Safe management, storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste from civil 

 and military facilities are matters of urgency if we are to prevent accidental releases, leakages 

 to the marine environment and fiirther dumping. Assistance in this field will address a serious 

 environmental threat which is also an important security risk. 



The question for the international community is: Can we afford to leave the situation as it is 

 and wait until the Russian Federation has the economic strength to deal with the problems 

 herself? 



VI INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS 



International co-operation on safety problems in nuclear power plants is well established e.g. 

 under the auspices of the EBRD, as a result of the decision of the G-7 Summit in Munich in 

 1992 to establish the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA). Valuable work is also done by the 

 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) 

 to improve safety at nuclear power plants. 



Norway is prepared to continue, intensify and expand the emerging contacts between 

 Norwegian, Russian and American defence communities with a view to preventing 

 radioactive contamination from defence-related activities and installations. This is an attempt 

 to pave the way for closer co-operation in order to address key problems relevant to the 



