19 April 2004 19:02
Russian nuclear waste site got proper clearance from regulator, says general
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Moscow, 19 April: Speculation that the radioactive waste storage at the Mayak production facility in Russia's
Chelyabinsk Region was commissioned without a special Russian state nuclear supervision committee [presumably, the
"Russian Federal Monitoring Authority for Nuclear and Radiation Safety", which became the "Federal
Service for Nuclear Supervision" in Putin's decree of 9 March] authorization is untrue, the acting chief of
the 12th Defence Ministry Directorate, Lt-Gen Vladimir Verkhovtsev, has said.
"The storage of fission materials at Mayak was commissioned for use in December 2003 with a representative of
the Russian state nuclear supervision committee responsible for nuclear and radioactive security [present]," he
said in a Monday [19 April] statement issued in response to a relevant State Duma inquiry. "The commission has
established that the site met the project and security requirements for the safety of weapons-grade plutonium and
uranium," the statement reads.
The information was received in response to lawmaker Albert Makashov's inquiry as to the state of weapons-grade
plutonium and uranium at Mayak, reportedly commissioned [without] special Russian state nuclear supervision committee
authorization. The addressee was the Defence Ministry, because storage of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium from
decommissioned warheads is a nuclear weapons operation, which is a Defence Ministry jurisdiction. [Note: the
"Federal Agency for Atomic Energy" is the body responsible for nuclear issues within the Defence
Ministry.]
Mayak is one of the greatest Russian facilities processing radioactive materials from the Kola, Voronezh, and
Beloyarsk nuclear power plants, and cannibalizing the fuel of Russian SSBNs [nuclear submarines].
[Interfax-AVN military news agency web site] |
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