The tragic loss of the Russian Navy's Kursk has raised the old issue of what to do about waste from nuclear accidents at sea. One geologist's radical theory that nuclear waste could be stored safely in the deep seabed may offer a solution for the Kursk and other downed submarines.
Wreaths have been dropped on the Barents Sea waters over the sunken Russian submarine Kursk, but she will not lie quietly on the ocean floor. The tragedy's effects on the Russian people, military, and government will continue to unfold with the traumatic recovery of the dead seamen, and questions linger about a potential environmental threat from the submarine's two nuclear reactors. The Kursk is different from other downed submarines in that she lies in only 350 feet of water, a depth less than the length of the submarine herself. By contrast, five other lost U.S. and Soviet submarines lie at ocean depths of some 5,000 to 16,000 feet. No radiation leakage has been reported from the Kursk's nuclear reactors, but unless they are proved to be safe in place, there will be concern over a possible long-term threat to the Barents Sea fisheries and marine environment. If the reactors are recovered, the question will be what to do with the hazardous material. One scientist may have had an answer.
Disposal of nuclear waste in the marine environment was a particular concern of Dr. Charles Hollister, a world-renowned marine geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. An experienced mountain climber once awarded a National Geographic Society medal for his exploits, the 63-year-old Hollister died in a climbing accident in August 1999 while vacationing with his family in Wyoming. His death cut short a remarkable lifetime of ocean-floor study that included 30 research cruises, numerous dives in research submarines, some 90 scientific papers, and six books. Hollister believed the deep ocean's seabed is "the safest place on the planet" for radioactive waste and favored it over land-based repositories such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, citing geologic uncertainties and instabilities over thousands of years.
In a January 1998 article in Scientific American, Hollister and coauthor Steven Nadis described a disposal method for nuclear waste materials under the deep ocean floor. The idea, first conceived by Hollister in 1973, would employ standard drilling techniques similar to those he used to extract core samples from the seabed. (One such sample yielded a 65-million-year continuous record of the ocean basin—the longest presently in existence.) The authors argued that the subseabed is "some of the world's most stable and predictable terrain" and as a repository would have minimal chances of being affected by earthquakes or other seismic activity. They also noted that some areas of the Atlantic and Pacific have remained "geologically inert for tens of millions of years."
Hollister was not a headline hunter and was true to his science. He led a U.S. delegation negotiating with Russia on monitoring disposed radioactive waste, and in 1993 did a six-week study for the Russians on their downed nuclear submarine Komsomolets. The sub was the most advanced the Soviets had when she sank in 5,500 feet of water on 7 April 1989 with the loss of 42 men. Hollister said the Russians, seeking funds from the West to retrieve the sub, presented the situation as a potential environmental time bomb and international disaster. He recalled that scientists familiar with the problem of nuclear material on the sea floor said the opposite and recommended that the sub be left where she lay and her nuclear torpedo tubes sealed. "None of us felt it was any kind of environmental disaster," he said. The media covered the event extensively but Hollister downplayed the environmental threat, saying the sub's plutonium was simply going to settle into sea floor sediments. "A lot of people wanted to make this a huge deal—but we couldn't," he said.
Unfortunately, Hollister never realized a new round of related research he had planned. A year before his death, he was seeking funding to dive on another downed Soviet sub, the K-219, which sank in some 16,000 feet in the Atlantic Ocean on 3 October 1986. All but four of the crew escaped, but the ocean floor was littered with nuclear reactors and weapons, including 15 missiles with warheads. Hollister called the site "the highest concentration of weapons-grade plutonium that we know of in the marine environment," and "an incredible experiment waiting to happen—an ideal opportunity to sample the sediment and learn what's going on." He believed the depth and location of K-219 made her as "negligible a threat to the environment" as the Komsomolets but wanted to verify his assumption. He favored a joint U.S.- Russian expedition to take on the project with funding from the navies or energy departments of both countries.
Hollister knew his subseabed disposal program was unpopular. It shocked many environmentalists and he dubbed it "dead on arrival" with politicians on Capitol Hill, who feared their constituents would view them as supporting "nuking the oceans." But he continued to press for research funds from the Department of Energy's neglected and now-defunct Office of Subseabed Disposal, convinced that our responsibility to future life on the planet includes formulating the best possible disposal plan for radioactive waste in the subseabed. The Department of Energy and Congress's funding priorities, however, lay with Yucca Mountain.
John Kelly, an expert in nuclear and hazardous waste disposal, made the Washington briefing rounds with Hollister and spoke at the memorial service at Woods Hole for his close friend. He told a gathering of some 300 celebrating Charley Hollister's life that "never was there a better fit between man and idea," and called Hollister's concept "scientifically sound, technically elegant, beautifully simple"—and politically incorrect. Kelly predicted that its scientific and technical merits eventually will overcome political obstacles, adding his belief that some day ships will be carrying nuclear waste for safe burial deep in the seabed.
Perhaps the Kursk's nuclear reactors will be the first, and this could pave the way for disposing of the increasingly dangerous reactors on board idled and decaying submarines in the Russian Navy. As a supportive step, the United States could reestablish the Office of Sunseabed Disposal within the Department of Energy and fund it to take on a pilot project such as studying the littered wreckage of the K-219, sharing the knowledge with the Russians.
Charley Hollister intentionally lived on the edge and saw things differently from most of us. When I first interviewed him in 1973 he said that he rarely climbed a mountain over someone else's route. "The time is too precious," he said. "Better a new route, or better yet, a new mountain." Whether climbing mountains or exploring the ocean's depths, he pursued knowledge from new perspectives with vision, humor, and determination. As John Kelly said, "He knew the subseabed idea was ahead of its time but he refused to give it up." Given the Kursk disaster, perhaps its time has come.
Michael Schofield is a former journalist who covered the search for the downed nuclear submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) in 1963. He later managed Woods Hole Oceanographic's news and information office and retired from the State Department in 1996.
The Kursk's Uneasy Legacy
By Michael Schofield