The Soviet and Russian navies have operated nuclear warships for a half-century, with two-thirds of them based with the Northern Fleet at the Kola Peninsula and the remainder with the Pacific Fleet in the Russian Far East. Their nuclear powered ship count from 1959 to the present is 253 submarines, five surface ships, eight icebreakers, and one icebreaking cargo ship. In terms of numbers, this was the most formidable nuclear fleet in the world.
While in service, the ships required periodic refueling which produced large quantities of radioactive wastes. When decommissioning began in the mid-1980s, the materials on board those vessels added to the waste pile.
During the Soviet era, little thought was given to radioactive waste processing and disposal. Hazardous materials were moved from one unsafe environment to another. Much was dumped at sea with some extremely toxic material, including entire ships and submarines, going into the Kara Sea and the Sea of Japan.
A critical waste situation has become worse as the pace of ship decommissionings accelerated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent massive cutbacks in the Russian Navy. To date, Russia has taken a major portion of its nuclear fleet out of service: 185 nuclear submarines, four surface warships, and two icebreakers, with many more planned over the next few years.
Only a handful of these vessels have been scrapped, a process requiring removal of reactors and associated radioactive materials. Of the 185 submarines, only 36 have been broken up. The others are still afloat awaiting dismantling; a few have been in this situation for more than 15 years. In some cases the material condition is such that vessels will sink, increasing the risk of a nuclear incident.
The most serious floating threat is a fleet of 15 nuclear service ships. These were built for afloat refueling of nuclear vessels and removal of their radioactive wastes. Over many years, these floating garbage trucks took thousands of tons of liquid wastes offshore and dumped them. Solid materials were kept on board to be eventually transferred to land for further transport to processing and/or burial sites. Several of these waste-laden service ships are now in such bad condition that they have become potential sites for massive nuclear accidents. Simply moving them might create an incident.
The Northern Fleet service ship Lepse, located at the "atomic port" in Murmansk, is considered to be the hottest nuclear waste site afloat in Russia. Since the 1960s, Lepse has been used to store spent fuel materials from the reactors in the icebreaker fleet. This was not supposed to be the last stop for this waste. Rather, it was to be transported to a site on land, or dumped at sea. The latter course is now unlikely and Lepse sits alongside a pier while her highly radioactive cargo storage containers continue to deteriorate. Radiation levels are so high that it is no longer safe for the ship's skeleton crew to remain on board. Norway's Bellona Foundation purchased portable cabins to house them onshore. The cost to clean up this problem is estimated to be about $31 million.
The Russian government today recognizes the enormity of the problem. It is massive and funds are limited. Further, the Russians have neither the infrastructure nor the technical means in place to do a thorough job. The government is allocating greatly increased funds but they remain insufficient for a situation growing worse with the aging, contaminated vessels still afloat.
For many years foreign assistance was offered, but was not welcomed. That has changed. The concerns in Europe, North America and the Far East have led to the provision of extensive technical and financial assistance. Currently, there are more than ten nations and several international organizations providing funds to assist Russia. The United States has been involved for many years and is the sole sponsor for the scrapping of fleet ballistic missile submarines. To date, 16 have been broken up and their reactor vessels stored away on land.
In Asia, Japan has been very concerned about nuclear waste dumped offshore during the Soviet era from fleet bases in Petropavlovsk and Vladivostok. Of special concern is the impact the radiation has had on fish stocks in the Sea of Japan after 20 years of dumping. So far Japan has invested more than $36 million in cleanup assistance.
Russian experts estimate that full cleanup and removal of radioactive wastes to safe land sites will take more than two decades. This is probably optimistic.
For detailed analyses of the Russian nuclear waste problems and related information on their navy see: www.bellona.no