Soviet N-dumping worse than feared: Russian report

NEW YORK — The dumping of highly radioactive wastes at sea has been banned worldwide for more than three decades.

Spent fuels from nuclear reactors, laden with cesiuin-137 and other deadly Isotopes, were judged too dangerous to oceanic life and ultimately to man.

A decade ago the ban was extended to all other forms of nuclear waste, Including low-level ones like uranium mill tailings.

The oceans, by global consensus, were ruled off-limits to mankind’s most pernicious toxins.

Now, a new report by a team of Russian experts details how the Soviet Union repeatedly broke these rules and makes clear that Moscow lied to world authorities in asserting that it had never dumped any radioactive waste into the oceans.

The 108-page document paints a picture even darker than the rumours and half truths about oceanic dumping that began to swirl as the Soviet Union collapsed.

It turns out that a vast amount of highly radioactive waste — twice the combined total of 12 other nuclear nations — was dumped by the Soviet Union.

But the threat to marine life Is unclear since no records are yet available on the exact composition of the radioactive refuse and no one knows for sure If containment vessels are intact or leaking.

The team of 46 experts that produced the report was headed by Dr Aleksel Yablokov, the top environmental adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Translations of the report, which was made public last month in Moscow, are starting to circulate In the West.

"It’s very significant," said Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who has followed the Issue closely.

"The report has been motivated by a realisation of the scope of the problem and a realisation that they’re going to have to have international assistance to deal with it. The cost of risk assessment alone could be in the billions."

The Yablokov report says that the Soviet Union dumped 2.5 million Curies of radioactive wastes, including 18 nuclear reactors from submarines and an icebreaker.

Sixteen of these power plants — six of them heavy with radioactive fuel, were cast into the shallow waters of the Kara Sea, turning this Arctic site near major northern fisheries into the world’s largest known nuclear dump.

Two of the 18 reactors went Into the Sea of Japan. News of the sunken reactors, which are unfuelled and less dangerous, nonetheless startled Tokyo and prompted it to petition Moscow for details.

The Yablokov report also says that the Russian navy is still dumping minor amounts of radioactive waste because it lacks processing and storage plants on land.

A big dose by any standard, the, 2.5 million curies is almost exactly twice what was previously thought to have been dumped at sea during the whole of the nuclear era.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has estimated that a dozen nuclear nations from 1946 to 1.982 dumped a total of 1.24 million curies of radioactive refuse into the world’s oceans.

In contrast, the recent accident at the Tomsk-7 nuclear plant In Siberia is said to have released 10 curies of radiation.

A curie Is the amount of radiation given off by 1 g radium and, in any nuclear material, is equal  to the disintegration of 37 billion atoms per second. An old-style luminous watch dial with 12 radium dots emitted about three one-thousandths of a curie of radiation.

Debate is beginning to build cover the potential health risks of the newly disclosed oceanic dumping and what, If anything, to do about them.

Although uncontained liquid wastes dispersed long ago, solid and liquid wastes In sunken reactors and steel drums appear to be localised, although the Russians say they have almost no direct observational data about whether such containers are intact, corroding or breached. 

In theory, the powers of the ocean to dilute such material can make radioactive wastes essentially harml4ss. But locailsed releases of high concentration can do real damage when picked up by marine life.

Greenpeace, an environmental group that campaigns for nuclear-free oceans, says the wastes dumped by the Soviet Union are dangerous and should be removed for burial on land if at all possible.

But many scientists say that is too precipitous.

Dr Hugh Livingston, a senior researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod who has studied oceanic radiation for 25 years, said the best strategy is thorough inquiry.

He said: "You have to make an assessment of what’s there and whether it’s leaking.

"Then, you might decide it’s better left alone. The issue is whether it would safely decay in place, lowering the level of radioactivity. If you can’t be sure, you might want to take It out."

MOSCOW'S DIRTY DEEDS

The Soviet Union dumped 2.5 million curies of radioactive wastes — twice the combined total of 12 other nuclear nations into the oceans.

These include 18 nuclear reactors from submarines and an icebreaker.

Sixteen of these power plants were cast into the shallow waters of the Kara Sea in the Artic.

Two went into the Sea of Japan.

The Russian navy is still dumping minor amounts of radioactive waste because it lacks processing and storage plants on land.

Source : The Straits Times 3rd May 1993

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