Russian Environmental Digest (REDfiles) is a compilation of the week's major English-language press on environmental issues in Russia. 5 - 11 June 2000, Vol. 2, No. 23 1. Last Rites for Chernobyl 2. US, Russia in Accord on Disposal of Plutonium 3. Canada to Help Russia Remove Nuclear Waste 4. Nuclear Dump Plan for Russia 5. US, Russia to Ban Use of Nuclear Waste for Arms Plutonium 6. Pipeline Threatens Neva, Say Officials 7. Ecologists Protest after Reactor Plans Confirmed 8. Nuclear Waste Storage Project in Jeopardy 9. Norway Worried over Nuclear Safety Situation in Kola Peninsula 10. Deadly Germs From Cold War 11. Krasnoyarsk Complex Ready To Implement Plutonium Programme 12. Forest Fire Specialists Express Concern 13. Russian Caviar Threatened by Caspian Oil Find 14. Hundreds of Seals Die Off Dagestani Caspian Sea Coast 1 Last Rites for Chernobyl Calgary Herald, June 6, 2000 Fourteen years after the world's worst nuclear accident, Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma ordered the Chernobyl nuclear power plant closed, drawing praise from U.S. President Bill Clinton, who dispensed $80 million US in aid to entomb the plant forever. ''This is a hopeful moment, ''Clinton said in this former Soviet republic, the last stop in a week-long European tour. ''It is also a moment when we remember those who suffered as a result of the accident there.'' The April 26, 1986, accident spread radioactive material over much of Europe. The Ukrainian government has blamed the disaster for at least 8,000 deaths, including 31 killed immediately, many more killed in the massive cleanup operation and others who later died of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses. The plant will close on Dec. 15, Kuchma said. The U.S. Energy Department said it will help find replacement sources of electricity. Ukraine had earlier promised the G-7 group of leading industrialized countries that it would shut the plant's sole remaining working reactor by the end of the year if they provided financial help. But Ukraine's government had until now delayed setting a firm date. Still, the environmental group Greenpeace warned in a statement that the closure target could come too late, so pressing are the safety problems at the plant. Earlier, in Moscow, Clinton used an address to the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, to criticize the Kremlin's crackdown in Chechnya. And he paid a nostalgic visit to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin at his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. ''Yeltsin looked good,'' Clinton told reporters on his plane Air Force One on the way to Kyiv. ''He's in good spirits, happy. He and his wife and daughter were there. We all just had a nice visit. It was like old times.'' The money Clinton pledged will help contain radiation from the destroyed reactor, with $2 million earmarked for improving safety at Ukraine's other nuclear power plants. It comes atop about $200 million the United States has already spent to improve nuclear safety in Ukraine. The new money will go toward repairing a cover, or sarcophagus, which was built not long after the disaster but now is considered unstable. During his half-day visit, Clinton announced steps to open the door to expanded U.S. co-operation with Ukraine's struggling space program and a $25-million program for small and medium- sized Ukrainian businesses. ''America will stand by you as you fight for a free and prosperous future,'' Clinton told tens of thousands of people, many waving Ukrainian and American flags. In Moscow, Clinton became the first U. S. president to address the Russian parliament. ''We are not destined to be adversaries but it is not guaranteed that we will be allies,'' Clinton told Russian legislators. His 50-minute speech drew mostly polite applause, although several dozen sat impassively. Ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky shouted before and after Clinton's speech and muttered audibly several times during it. ''Shame! Whom are you applauding?'' Zhirinovsky asked. Clinton said he hoped Russia would take advantage of recent economic growth, due largely to higher oil prices, to create a more diversified economy. He offered U.S. support should Russia seek to join the World Trade Organization. Turning to the Russian crackdown in Chechnya, he said: ''I know you disagreed with what I did in Kosovo, and you know that I disagreed with what you did in Chechnya.'' Clinton also made yet another pitch for modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to open the way for the U.S. to build a national missile defence, something Russia continues to oppose. Facts Key facts about Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant April 26, 1986: Reactor No. 4 at the Soviet-designed plant explodes following an experiment when staff temporarily cut off the reactor's safety system, aiming to test the unit's capacity. A series of powerful blasts caused by overheated steam inside the reactor completely ruins the unit, sending a huge cloud of radiation across Ukraine and much of Europe. Tonnes of radioactive strontium, cesium and plutonium spreads across millions of hectares, affecting millions of people. April-October 1986: Soviet authorities try to hush up the scale of the tragedy, admitting reluctantly that about 30 people had died in the first few weeks after the blast. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the Soviet Union, now popularly known as ''liquidators,'' are mobilized to clean up the disaster. Most of them are now disabled and some terminally ill. November 1986: A unique cover above the reactor, the so-called ''Sarcophagus,'' is built to protect the environment from radiation for at least 30 years. October 1991: A huge fire forces officials to shut down the station's reactor No. 2. April 13, 1995: Kuchma declares Ukraine is ready to shut down the station by the year 2000. December 1995: Ukraine and the G- 7 group sign a memorandum of understanding agreeing to close Chernobyl. It involves commitments of about $2.3 billion US in aid from the G-7 to support Chernobyl's closure. November 1996: Chernobyl shuts down reactor No. 1 one after its safe lifespan expires. Only reactor No. 3 remains in operation. November 1997: Dozens of countries collect $350 million to rebuild the rapidly deteriorating concrete sarcophagus, but most of this money has yet to reach Ukraine. The reconstruction cost is estimated at $760 million. April 1999: Reconstruction of the sarcophagus begins. June 5, 2000: Kuchma says Chernobyl will close Dec. 15. (back to top) 2 US, Russia in Accord on Disposal of Plutonium Financial Times London Edition; June 5, 2000 The US and Russia agreed yesterday on a plan to dispose of 68 tonnes of weapons grade plutonium and immediately launched a campaign to secure international financial backing for the deal. The agreement was signed by President Bill Clinton and President Vladimir Putin yesterday afternoon in the Kremlin. It aims to bring about the destruction of 34 tonnes of Russian plutonium at a cost of around $1.7bn and the same amount of US plutonium at a cost of about $4bn. Roughly three-quarters of the plutonium will come from nuclear weapons, the rest being high grade plutonium that could be easily converted into weapons. In Russia the plutonium will be disposed by converting it into fuel for nuclear power reactors, while in the US some will be burned as reactor fuel and the rest will be stored underground with high level radioactive waste. The US and Russia already have in place a programme to dispose of weapons grade uranium, but a comparable programme for plutonium, the other type of material used in nuclear weapons, had not been agreed. The agreement builds on an accord in principle signed by Mr Clinton and former President Boris Yeltsin in September 1998. It will take at least 20 years to complete the programme. But it still lacks funding. "One of the big tasks we have ahead of us now is raising international funding in order to carry this programme through from beginning to end," a senior US official said. The US Congress has already appropriated $200m (GBP133m) for the programme and the Administration has pledged to seek a further $200m for the Russian programme. The US and Russia will begin to work together to establish an international funding mechanism to allow the programme to be carried through, and they will start talks at the Group of Eight meeting in Okinawa, Japan, in July. Another US official said there were some hopes that the private sector could help to fund the programme. He said Switzerland had last year expressed an interest in burning fuel that could be derived from the plutonium, raising the possibility that income could be developed to support the plan. Separate talks between US and Russia on halting the separation of plutonium from nuclear power reactor fuel have been stalled by concerns about Russia's nuclear assistance to Iran. (back to top) 3 Canada to Help Russia Remove Nuclear Waste The Vancouver Sun, June 9, 2000 The Canadian government will work to establish a University of the Arctic and help Russia clean up the radioactive waste originating from its decommissioned Cold War submarines under a new northern policy plan. The plan, unveiled Thursday by Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, will also see the government investigating eco-tourism opportunities in Canada's North and seeking quicker, more efficient world flights across the Arctic in a bid to create more prosperity in the region. ''For the North, this is a time for very rapid and exciting change,'' Axworthy said. The main goals of The Northern Dimension of Canada's Foreign Policy, he said, are to enhance the economic base of northerners, to ensure the preservation of Canada's sovereignty in the North, to establish the Arctic region as a vibrant geopolitical entity and to promote sustainable development in the circumpolar region. Over the next five years, $10 million from the foreign affairs department will be doled out to support these plans. Part of the money will go toward funding the Arctic Council, a group comprised of eight Arctic countries -- Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States -- along with aboriginal groups from Arctic regions. The forum met for the first time in the fall of 1998 and will meet again this October in Barrow, Alaska. Another $5-million infusion will go toward supporting programs that help Russia's indigenous peoples find local solutions to development problems. ''The issues now in the North, and Arctic area are so much more about dealing with environmental issues, sustainability issues and issues of human security and social problems,'' Axworthy said. The environmental situation in the North is fragile, Axworthy said, and it is ''vital, crucial and critical'' that problems like military radioactive waste in Northern Russia be dealt with. The foreign affairs department paper says there are 150 nuclear reactors from decommissioned subs in the Russian cities of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk waiting to be dismantled. The Canadian government will promote non-proliferation and disarmament of weapons, along with environmental protection in Russia. (back to top) 4 Nuclear Dump Plan for Russia The Guardian (London), June 9, 2000 A controversial plan to use Russia, a country struggling to cope with the consequences of its ageing nuclear arsenal, as a storage depot for 10,000 tonnes of the globe's spent nuclear fuel is being actively developed in Washington and Moscow. Five countries - Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands and Switzerland - have expressed interest in sending the fuel to Russia to be placed in specially constructed stores where it would be kept safe and prevented from being used for nuclear weapons. As part of the deal, the Russians would agree to halt plans to commercially reprocess spent fuel, assuring that it would make no more plutonium available for nuclear weapons. Minatom, the Russian nuclear power agency, suggested in April a 20-year moratorium on reprocessing in exchange for the US helping Russia to build a dry store. Russia has the expertise to deal with spent fuel, but it has no money to build the storage facility. The plan would generate an estimated Dollars 15bn (pounds 10bn) in fees during the first 10 years. This foreign exchange would provide the funding to build enough space for the 10,000 tonnes of fuel and solve the problem of what to do with Russia's increasing stockpile of fuel from reactors - believed already to be 14,000 tonnes. The idea has influential backers in the US and Russia, including endorsement from senior environmental figures such as Tom Cochran, the director of nuclear programmes at the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC), but some green groups are appalled by the idea. "The world has huge problems with nuclear waste but sending it to Russia is not the answer," Michael Mariotte, the executive director of the Nuclear Information Resource Service, said. "The plan really represents the ultimate in 'not in my back yard' thinking." Vladimir Slivyak, of Russia's Ecodefence, an umbrella group of 300 environmental organisations, said: "We are shocked by the proposals which have nothing in common with environmental principles and unethically promote the interests of western nuclear industry, whose main concern is to get rid of its nuclear waste." Mr Slivyak said Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's minister for nuclear power, has included the building of 23 nuclear reactors in Russia as part of the programme. "These reactors are dangerous and not needed. Energy-efficient technologies do not exist on an industrial scale in Russia," Mr Slivyak said. "Development of renewable sources of energy would provide Russia with a great amount of energy as well. But efficiency and renewables do not have great lobbyists as one of the richest corporations of the world - Minatom - has." Still, the NRDC's Dr Cochran remains squarely behind the initiative. "It would stop reprocessing in Russia for at least a couple of decades; it would aid nuclear non-proliferation by removing fuel from countries like Taiwan. It would also solve storage problems for countries in earthquake zones. The income stream (it would create) could cure a lot of problems in Russia." He said the five countries had expressed an interest in the scheme because it would solve their problems on what to do with spent nuclear fuel. (back to top) 5 US, Russia to Ban Use of Nuclear Waste for Arms Plutonium ITAR-TASS News Agency,£ June 9, 2000 The United States hopes to draft a joint statement with Russia for the G-8 July summit in Okinawa on imposing a moratorium on the use of waste fuel of nuclear power plants for the production of arms-grade plutonium. Deputy administrator for defense nuclear non-proliferation Rose Gottemoeller told reporters on Thursday that U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov instructed experts to finalise the agreement by the above deadline. According to Gottemoeller, the sides have already passed three-quarters of the road. It is now time to resolve a very complicated question on a transfer of nuclear technologies to third countries, provoking anxiety in connection with the nonproliferation problem. This will need tense work in the next month, she emphasised. The U.S. administration plans to render aid to Russia in 2001 in realising this understanding to a sum of 100 million dollars. The sum will be used for improving safety of the South Ural Mayak nuclear complex, construction of a new fuel waste storage and for raising reliability of nuclear reactors. (back to top) 6 Pipeline Threatens Neva, Say Officials The St. Petersburg Times, Tuesday, June 6, 2000 The Baltic Pipeline System, or BPS, has been sharply criticized by local officials for endangering the quality of drinking water supplied to St. Petersburg residents, and potentially landing the city with a $1 billion bill to find and construct an alternative water source. At a news conference on Friday, Boris Usanov, an advisor to the City Economics Committee, said that a letter from state officials received in January this year "recommended that the St. Petersburg administration find a source of drinkable water other than the Neva." The only such source available would be taking water directly from Lake Ladoga, Europe's largest freshwater lake. While admitting that the city was examining ways of finding a secondary source of water, Usanov said that "to [initiate] this now, while the Baltic Pipeline System is being built, is not possible - not technically, [and] not financially." "If [finding an alternative source] is a condition of the project, then those building the pipeline must find the finances to make sure that [St. Petersburg] is able to construct such a source," he said. The 2,400-kilometer BPS would deliver oil from the Timan-Pechora region, in the Komi Republic, and from Western Siberia to a $3.7 billion port in Primorsk, located 150 kilometers northwest of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. The port is currently under construction. The pipeline is set to run between St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga on its way north, and will pass underneath the Neva near the town of Kirovsk, not far from where the river and Ladoga meet. Officials from Vodokanal, the city's water monopoly, and environmentalists have expressed fears that the proximity of the pipe to the Neva could endanger the supply of drinking water to the whole of St. Petersburg if an accident was to happen. Irina Dariyenko, director of mains water services at Vodokanal, said at the press conference that, "The interests of the city should not be dependent on the interests of oil companies." Referring to the October 1999 accident when the tanker Nefterudoboz-7 spilled over 60 tons of fuel oil into the Neva, Dariyenko said, "We are still feeling the effects." Dariyenko estimated the cost of supplying St. Petersburg with water from Lake Ladoga at around $1 billion, including chemical purification of the water. "Neither the city nor Vodokanal can afford [this sum]," Dariyenko said. The city budget for 2000 totals 34.1 billion rubles, or about $1.2 billion at Monday's rate. Oleg Bodrov, the head of the environmental organization Green World, said that the area around Kirovsk was even a potential earthquake zone. "[Therefore] there is a possibility that the pipe could rupture and [the oil] pollute the river," he said in a telephone interview Monday. While the chances of seismic activity look slim, in April a Greenpeace report said that leaks, spills and waste lose Russia up to 20 million tons of crude oil every year - a volume comparable to 6 percent of national output. But a spokeswoman for the State Environment Committee for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast (Len KomEkologiya) - which sent the letter recommending an alternative water source - shrugged off the complaints in an interview on Monday, saying that an alternative supply for the city had been under discussion for 50 years. "It is a well-known fact that the water in Lake Ladoga is cleaner than [that of] the Neva river, and that is why it would be better to take water from the lake," said Tatyana Zakharova, press secretary for LenKomEkologia. "Discussion of [such a] source has nothing to do with the pipeline." "As for those environmentalists, all of them work for Western publications, and it is a well-known fact that the West is not interested in seeing Russia's exports develop," she said. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet ports on the Baltic Sea are now outside of Russia - such as Ventspils, an oil port in Latvia. The Primorsk port would give Russian oil direct access to the Baltic for the first time since 1991. Capt. Yury Karpov, head of the Emergency Situations Ministry's department that deals with maritime accidents in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, said that the threat of disaster caused by the BPS was unlikely. Karpov said that he was more worried by the prospect of an oil spill at or near the port at Primorsk. But he said that if an accident should happen, "At the moment we do not have the resources deal with it," adding that the cost of forming a "crisis group" for the BPS would be extremely high. Transneft, the state oil pipeline monopoly which is in charge of the BPS project, could not reached for comment on Monday. Viktor Tereshkin, head of the St. Petersburg Association of Environmental Journalists, said that representatives from Transneft had promised to answer concerns put to them at a meeting held in February within a month, but so far had not responded. "They [also] said that the construction of the Primorsk port would create 400 jobs for Primorsk workers. Instead, there are people working there from Moscow, Finland and Ukraine, and only 20 new jobs for Primorsk. Transneft promised to build water-purification [facilities], and nothing has been built. 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