The four locations in the Russian Federation where European uranium waste located:
  - Urals Electrochemical Plant (Sverdlovsk-44),
  - Siberian Chemical Plant (Tomsk-7),
  - Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant (Angarsk),
  - Electrochemical Plant (Krasnoyarsk-45).

All are under the control of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, Rosatom, formerly Minatom.

Illegal storage of uranium waste in Russia

Greenpeace Russia has filed a complaint against JSC “Tekhsnabexport” for concluding contracts with Eurodif, Urenco, Internexco and GKN which are breaching the Russian Federal law of 2001 'On Environmental Protection'.

Under these contracts, a total of 106,725 tonnes of uranium waste was shipped to Russia, while only 9,742 tonnes were sent back. For example, under the contract #60111 with Eurodif (France), 13887 tons of depleted uranium (DU) enriched 0.3% with uranium-235 were exported to Russia. After re-enrichment, 228.8 tons of uranium with natural enrichment of 0.711% with uranium-235 were returned to the client company. The remaining 13658.2 tons with an enrichment of 0.29% uranium-235 was made the property of the Russian Federation and was put in storage. Thus, some 98% of the initially exported depleted uranium is stored as UF6 in Russia.

The Russian legislation prohibits the import of foreign nuclear materials for storage. According to paragraph 3 of article 48 of the federal law of 2001 “On Environmental Protection”, import of nuclear waste and foreign nuclear materials to the Russian Federation for the purpose of its storage or disposal is prohibited. These contracts are thus a clear breach of the Russian law and under Russian legislation, all uranium tails should be sent back to the clients. The Greenpeace lawsuit is on-going.


Violating Russian Safety Standards

The uranium is stored in cylindrical steel containers, each one holding over ten tons, at industrial sites in the open air.(1) Usually sitting out in the open, the steel containers are subject to external corrosion. Pin holes and fissures arising from corrosion are initially plugged by the reaction of the UF6 with moist air and iron leached from the container steel alloy, forming hydrates of the more stable uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) which partially seals up the breach.

According to the data of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision over Nuclear and Radiation Safety, storing containers with waste uranium hexafluoride at industrial grounds at the sites listed above do not meet current safety requirements.(2)


The closed and secret city of Tomsk-7

The Russian sites were established during the Soviet era, and as such have major environmental problems. The example of the site of Tomsk-7 illustrates this. The ‘Siberian Chemical Combine’ whose activity started in 1954, is an immense nuclear complex located a few kilometers from the town of Tomsk, administrative capital of the south of Siberia, and approximately 3000 km east of Moscow. The site covers more than 190 km2 bordering the Tom river. Within the site is the closed city Seversk with more than 100,000 inhabitants. For most of the last fifty years it was only known in code as Tomsk-7.

Nuclear facilities at Tomsk are extensive, the principal operation being plutonium production in five reactors (two still operating). It is the largest source of military plutonium for nuclear warheads still in operation worldwide. In addition to the two reactors, is an associated reprocessing plant, initially intended to extract plutonium from the production reactors as well as irradiated fuels from other sites.

Evironmental impacts at Tomsk have been significant over the years. Direct discharge to the environment of liquid, gaseous and solid wastes.The discharges from the reprocessing plant continue to this day into the channel tributary "Ramashka" of the Tom river, contaminated much the bed and the accesses of these rivers. Even more disturbing is the method for dealing with liquid high level waste, which in western Europe is solidified in glass blocks. The Tomsk approach is to inject the waste directly into underground rock fissures. Millions of cubic meters of radioactive liquids representing several million Tera-Becquerel have been injected. One of the largest radioactive sources on the planet.

On April 6, 1993 a serious explosion of a reserve of 25m3 of a solution containing several thousands of kilograms of uranium and several hundred kilograms of plutonium took place. The accident dispersed radio-nuclides with a long half-life contaminating all the north-eastern area of the site. Certain villages have being evacuated and today 12 years later, warning signs indicate it unsafe to pick wild fruit.

This is the environment into which the European nuclear power industry export their rejected uranium wastes.

Notes:
1. Copy of the letter of the Ministry of Health Care of the Russian Federation #2510/8197-03-20 from 24.07.2003.
2. Report on activities by the Russian Federal service of Supervision over Nuclear and Radioactive Safety in 2003, Moscow, 2004.