News

Minatom begins inspection of Northern fleets nuclear waste

Publish date: May 4, 1998

Written by: Thomas Nilsen

Acting Minister of Nuclear Energy Yevgeny Adamov are leaving to the Kola Peninsula today to discuss and adopt concrete decisions aimed at ensuring nuclear safety of decommissioned submarines, reports RIA Novosti.

Adamov is going to meet with Admiral Oleg Yerofeyev, the commander of the Northern fleet, and other officers working with nuclear and radiation safety. They will also study the condition of coastal and floating technical bases, where radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel is stored. In addition to the fleets officers there are also plans to meet with the leaders of the Murmansk and Archangels regions. Yesterday, Admiral Yerofeyev visited the town of Bodoe in northern Norway where he stated that it should be a civilian responsibility to handle spent nuclear fuel from the fleets submarines.

Deputies of the State Duma, senior officials of the Defence Ministry and the Economics and Finance Ministry will also participate in the discussion of these problems. Last week Bellona Web wrote that the level of radioactive contamination in the sediments outside some of the naval bases and military shipyards has increased dramatic in the last three years, due to bad maintenance of the storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.