A plan for Soviet nuclear waste
If environmentalist forces are successful, the Russian government may soon establish the country's first comprehensive program for dealing with nuclear waste. Later this month the Russian parliament, back from its summer recess, is expected to begin considering a bill on this topic. A draft copy indicates that Russia is starting with the basics: It orders the government to develop a means of insulting waste from the environment, to form a national waste processing program, and to create a registry for tracking where spent atomic fuel is stored or buried. The bill comes on the heels of a November 1991 decree by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to step up efforts to deal with nuclear waste issues and to create a government registry of nuclear waste disposal sites by 1 January 1993. The former Soviet Union has come under fire from environmentalists for dumping low- and intermediate-level nuclear wastes in the Arctic Ocean and for improperly storing waste at sites in the southern Urals and Belarus. Adding to the bill's urgency is the fact that Russia is considering sites for underground repositories for high-level waste at Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, and on the Kola Peninsula.
- OSTI ID:
- 7066346
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States), Vol. 257:5077; ISSN 0036-8075
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Changes in Russia's Military and Nuclear Doctrine
Improvements in progress for Russia`s new PSA law