Radioactivity Waste

Russian and international non-governmental organizations have their own opinion on the problem of RW and SNF disposal outlined in various documents. NGO members of the DECOMMISSION International Network have been analysing the experience of safe disposal of RW and SNF for over ten years.
This analysis is based on the official printed state documents and positions of the NGOs – members of the DECOMMISSION International Network.
The authors of this report would like to express their appreciation to Oleg E. Muratov, member of the Public Council of Rosatom, for his valuable observations and comments, many of which were included.
To read the booklet you can here.

One of the areas of state policy in the sphere of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel management is provision of environmental safety for the population. On the basis of general legal principles the state policy of Russia in the sphere of radioactive waste (RW) and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management should not contradict the fundamental rights and legitimate interests of its citizens. The right to favourable environment, ecological and radiation safety, sustainable use of natural resources belongs both to the current and future generations. These rights are legally important and they must determine the essence of adopted normative acts. For this purpose the state policy of RW and SNF management cannot contradict the national environmental policy.

Rosatom may change the approaches for organization of the national (international) nuclear waste repository. Novaya Zemlya have chance to be the repository of the nuclear waste

One of the biggest secrets in the Soviet society was its closed towns. Some of them were well known, but others were so secret that they did not seem to exist. Existing towns that were turned into a closedtown ceased to exist on maps. In other places big towns grew up without any trace on maps or any other official records. Very few except those who lived there knew about their existence. Often they were known to the outside world only by their postcode, for example Krasnoyarsk-26, which stands for Zheleznogorsk.
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The final halt and decommissioning of the world's oldest RBMK-1000 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (LNPP) is planned for 2018. The oldest operating power units with VVER-440 nuclear power plants at the Kola NPP, the same age as LAES, will be decommissioned in the future in the Murmansk region. The Northwest Federal District of Russia will be the first to solve the complex problems associated with the decommissioning of energy units, final disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The experience in solving the complex problems of the decommissioning of these nuclear power plants can be replicated in other federal districts of Russia and in other countries.

The State Corporation Rosatom plans to build item disposal of radioactive waste (CDEP) in the town of Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad region. Voluntary environmental organizations, area residents and local authorities are concerned about the prospect of nuclear burial ground near their house.

A Statement of Non-Goverment Organizations of Russia
For several decades spent nuclear fuel from European countries and from European Russia has been transferred for storage to the Gorno-khimicheskii kombinat (GKhK) factory (in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory) and to Mayak (in the closed city of Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region). To date, a gigantic amount of nuclear materials and radioactive substances has accumulated here. In the minds of the residents of Europe, the impression is that such a transfer to closed, opaque cities in the Urals and Siberia is a safe solution to the problems. This is not so!

We, representatives of non-government organizations, are writing to you in regard to the potential danger for present and future generations of the Krasnoyarsk Region in implementing the strategy of the transfer of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from Central European countries and the European part of Russia to Siberia (Federal State Unitary Enterprise Mining and Chemical Plant, Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Region).

The cooperating organizations in the Decommissioning Network have as their main goal to convince the Russian government to start the decommission process of the oldest and most dangerous nuclear power plants. The present official Russian policy is to expand the number of nuclear power stations with new constructions and giving the existing old nuclear reactors lifetime extensions beyond their design life-time limit. This is working contrary to the goal of our project.