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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 10:32am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#8002 of 8012)
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Environmentalists Caution Against Chelyabinsk Plan

By Nabi Abdullaev STAFF WRITER

MOSCOW - Chelyabinsk Governor Pyotr Sumin has warned the prime minister that radioactivity in some of his region's waterways is reaching dangerous levels and has proposed a solution: building a nuclear power station that would use the polluted water as a cooling agent.

Environmentalists warned that such a project could spell disaster for the region in the southern Urals that is still fighting to contain the fallout of a nuclear blast in 1957.

The letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, obtained by environment watchdog Ecodefense! and confirmed by Sumin's office, proposes building the nuclear power station near the Mayak plutonium plant, which spouts polluted water into the Techa River.

For more than 40 years, Mayak has been dumping water polluted with radionuclides into the Techa River, which has been artificially turned into a cascade of pools divided by dams.

The June 7 letter signed by Sumin, a copy of which was obtained by The St. Petersburg Times, said that in three to four years the pools will overflow and contaminate the Iset, Tobol and Ob rivers. The pools now contain 400 million cubic meters of waste, according to the letter.

Using water from one of the pools for cooling at the proposed South Urals Nuclear Power Station would make use of the otherwise contaminated water, Su min wrote.

Deputy Chelyabinsk Governor Gennady Podtyosov said that the situation will become even more critical once Russia begins importing spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing and storage, as outlined in recently passed legislation.

"Russia is expecting to import nuclear waste, part of which will be processed at Mayak," Podtyosov said by telephone from the city of Chelyabinsk. "Now the plant dumps 10 million cubic meters of polluted water a year. This amount will increase when nuclear waste from abroad arrives."

Podtyosov said building new storage pools, which would require the resettlement of villages and pollute dozens more square kilometers of land, would cost considerably more that the construction of the nuclear power station.

Podtyosov said he discussed the issue with the Nuclear Power Ministry two months ago and was told that no funds could be earmarked for a power station until 2010.

After the governor's appeal, Kasya nov ordered the ministry to start fresh talks with Chelyabinsk officials about the plant, which would cost about $1.5 billion to build, he said.

Nuclear power experts said feeding contaminated water though the nuclear power plant is safe.

"Technically, the idea of evaporating polluted water is a possible solution to the problem," said Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear power expert with the Moscow Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The technology of Russian nuclear

lunarchick - 10:33am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#8003 of 8012)
lunarchick@www.com

"Technically, the idea of evaporating polluted water is a possible solution to the problem," said Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear power expert with the Moscow Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The technology of Russian nuclear power plants can handle it."

But the idea of placing a new nuclear enterprise just 65 kilometers from Chelyabinsk is sparking protests from environmentalists.

Natalya Mironova, an environmentalist from Chelyabinsk, said that according to documentation she has seen about the proposed station as a member of an Economy Ministry commission, the station does not have an alternative source of water.

"Imagine what would happen if a pool is exhausted or the old dams burst and all the water floods out," Mironova said. "Without the inflow of cool water we'll have a new Chernobyl at the nuclear station."

Moreover, Mironova said she believes it is dangerous to place two nuclear enterprises close to each other. The nuclear power station - the construction of which was started in 1983 and then suspended in late 1992 - is located only 3 kilometers from the Mayak plant.

"If one facility goes off, it will cause a catastrophe at the other," Mironova said. "The negative outcome of any error will be drastically multiplied."

"The motives of the regional administration are clear: The project means hefty transfers from the federal budget," said Vladimir Chuprov of Greenpeace. "But don't you see something dubious in averting one nuclear threat by creating another?"

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/archive/times/697/news/n_4377.htm

lunarchick - 10:36am Aug 22, 2001 EST (#8004 of 8012)
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WRT pollution above. Would one assume that those employed in the Soviet Union 10+ years ago, might not have been free to speak their mind with regard to 'waste and pollution'. Or was it just lack of a 'Quality' plan?

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