(December 19, 1991) Highly radioactive waste from Soviet civil and naval vessels was dumped in unsafe leaky containers into shallow parts of the Barents and Kara Seas between 1964 and 1986.
(364.3578) WISE Amsterdam - This was confirmed by Andrey Zolotkov, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet from Murmansk at a conference organized by Greenpeace International in Moscow in September. Zolotkov's statement was a sensation for Soviets, and for foreign environmentalists it was the first official confirmation that the areas in question had been used as a nuclear dump.
Until now, whenever questioned at international fora such as the London Dumping Convention and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Soviet officials have always denied that any disposal of radioactive waste at sea ever occurred. Nevertheless, Zolotkov's statement was not a total surprise. Rumors of sea dumping by the Soviets had been circulating for years. The Norwegian environmental foundation Bellona has been collecting evidence of Soviet sea dumping, as well as other Soviet nuclear activities in the far north, for some time now. According to Bellona researcher Frode Haaland, the foundation was aware that sea dumping had continued at least until the end of 1985, even though the London Dumping Conven-tion had banned the dumping at sea of all forms of radioactive waste in 1983. The Norwegian military, says Haaland, photographed the Soviet ship "Sarebryanka" while it was actually engaged in dumping nuclear waste in the Barents.
Zolotkov obtained documents showing that ships from the commercial (Atomflot) fleet in Murmansk were used to dump both civil and military nuclear waste between 1963 and 1986. He said the containers used to dispose of the waste in 1960s and 1970s were problematic because of their "floata-bility". The documents revealed that holes were cut in the containers "in order to ensure the guaranteed sinking of the containers."
Among the wastes dumped was a container with the damaged reactor core from the "Lenin" nuclear-powered ice-breaker. The "Lenin" is known to have suffered a serious reactor accident in 1966/67 and the reactor, still containing its highly radioactive and damaged nuclear fuel was dumped off the island of Novaya Zemlya in the early 1970s. Also, according to Zolotkov's sources, in 1984 a container of nuclear waste was washed up on one of the shores of Novaya Zemlya. Radiation readings from the container reached 160 roentgens per hour -- a massive reading, said Greenpeace, indicating that the container almost certainly contained highly-radioactive nuclear fuel. The container was redumped in the same area.
The dumping areas in the Kara and Barents Seas are very shallow -- in many areas only tens of meters. The Barents Sea dump site is close to a major, active fishery including spawning grounds. "Fish were caught exactly in places of elevated radioactivity," Zolotkov said.
Sources:
- "Information on Radioactive Dump in the Kara Sea", by Igor Kudrik (USSR), Oct. 1991
- Greenpeace Press Release, 26 Sept. 1991
- Bellona, 3 Apr. 1991.
Contact: Igor Kudrik, For a Nuclear Free North, Maklakova 9-21, 183073 Murmansk, USSR. Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 74, 1016 DW Amsterdam, Netherlands; tel: +31-20-523-65580
Bellona, P.B. 8874 Youngstorget, 0028 Oslo 1, Norway; tel: 02-38 24 10; fax: 02-38 38 62.