38 



you as a citizen or did you obtain it through the Academy of 

 Sciences or as a member of the Duma? 



Dr. Yablokov. My official position is chairman of Interagency 

 Commission for Environmental Security in the National Security 

 Council. My commission has 18 members. The first deputy minister 

 of defense is a member of my commission. The first deputy KGB 

 is a member of my commission. The first deputy minister of envi- 

 ronment, chairman of land committee, chairman of water commit- 

 tee, chairman of hydro, metallurgical committee, and so on, such 

 a top level of governmental body. 



The main source of my information, it is official information 

 which was previously classified. We tried action under law about 

 state secrets. We have a law about state secrets, 2 years old. We 

 have a special article, article 7, in the law about state secrets. 

 Under this article 7, the law about state secrets, environmental in- 

 formation and information which could deal with public health has 

 to be open, has to be open. 



I used this law to open this information. My commission has a 

 meeting every month, this official meeting, and we have received 

 all information, classified information and open information. And 

 after a meeting of my commission, I, going under this law, opened 

 this information to the public. This is the main source of my infor- 

 mation. 



Mr. Spratt. Are you satisfied that you have a good, comprehen- 

 sive estimation of the waste, where it is and how much and what 

 quantities? 



Dr. Yablokov. No, of course not, because it is a difficult ques- 

 tion, especially, for example — we discussed in my commission, 

 three times in this year we discussed the problem of radioactive 

 waste in different, radioactive waste which is generated from under 

 destroying of nuclear arms, radioactive waste which we have in 

 Myak, radioactive waste which, and so on. And after this discus- 

 sion, the minister of nuclear energy several times gave us the full 

 information when they collect especially for us. 



The ridiculous situation is that nobody has information in Rus- 

 sia. Nobody has full information in Russia, part information col- 

 lected by the Norwegian environmental organization, part informa- 

 tion collected by Greenpeace, part information collected by my com- 

 mission in their official way. When we put all this information to- 

 gether, we hope that we receive something near to real. 



Mr. Spratt. Has anyone attempted to develop a cost estimate, an 

 estimate of what it would cost to clean up, remediate, correct these 

 problems in Russia alone, or the former Soviet Union States? 



Dr. Yablokov. We hope that we now understand the scale of the 

 problem, not the detail but the scale of the problem. The scale of 

 problem we know is a billion curies. We discussed 6 billion curies 

 of radioactive waste we have in Russia or a billion curies we have 

 in Russia. This is maybe 9 billion curies. 



Mr. Weldon. Would you yield for a question? 



Mr. Spratt. Certainly. 



Mr. Weldon. I am not a scientist, but just to put that into per- 

 spective, you say 6 billion curies. My lay understanding is that 

 Three Mile Island at its worst gave off 15 curies of radioactivity, 



