By Yu.G. Vishnevsky,
Gosatomadzor of Russia,
26 December 2001

Gosatomnadzor (State Committee for Supervision over the Safety of Work in Nuclear Power Engineering) of Russia Sounds Alarm about Extremely Unsatisfactory Safety of Removing Spent Nuclear Fuel at "Mayak" Production Association

Dear Ilya Iosifovich!

Gosatomnadzor of Russia expresses deep concern over extremely unsatisfactory state of safety in removal of spent nuclear fuel of nuclear submarine reactors (SNF-NS) at "Mayak" Production Association for processing.

The problem is a priority issue for the safety of nuclear submarine fleet dislocation and for Russia on the whole and is an object of great concern under close public observation in many countries of the world.

However, to-date to light have come many cases of neglectful attitude to the safety requirements in accomplishing this activity.

For example, in May 2001 new violations of the procedure of loading NSF NS into TUK-18 transport packing containers came to light. As in previous cases the violation had been found at "Mayak" Production Association only after the population living along the transportation routes of the railway cars with SNF NS had been exposed to risk. Violating Spacial Standard 95.957-93 military unit 95404 – supplier of NSF NS – loaded TUK-18 packing containers with damaged fuel assemblies without their lower parts. The personnel of "Mayak" Production Association had not been warned about the breach of safety requirements – this could have led to grave consequences for the personnel of "Mayak" Production Association during unloading of SNF NS fromTUK-18. This did not happen by sheer luck. However, the standard procedure was disrupted by search for "lost nuclear fuel" as several fuel assemblies had up to half of required amount of nuclear fuel. The search was to no avail and a conclusion was made that the nuclear fuel had been lost at the supplier`s object.

These violations, including the deficient nuclear fuel were properly recorded at "Mayak" Production Association by the "Report on Special Product Condition" (№35/1443 of 25.05.2001).

Of serious concern are the repeated facts of cracking in details of railway car structure used to transport TUK-18 (they are shipped in special cars only) and recently found cracking in the weld joints of eight TUK-18s containers. Of special concern is the fact that the inspection of the special train carried out at SNF NS supplier does not detect all defects. In many cases the defects are found when the train arrives at "Mayak" Production Association only. This was the case with car TK-VG-18 (ТК-ВГ-18) serial number №31, and with eight ТУК-18 containers.

Further disregard of requirements of nuclear and radiation safety by performers and officials can lead to catastrophic consequences.

The situation is aggravated by actually complete absence of efficient supervision by the Ministry of Defense of Russia over nuclear and radiation safety when loading spent nuclear fuel into TUK-18, and during preparation of the special train for transportation; this ensues from the nature of the above said violations.

Gosatomnadzor of Russia that earlier noted shortcomings of maintaining nuclear and radiation safety at the objects of the Ministry of Defense of Russia has been debarred from supervision over the nuclear and radiation safety by the efforts of Minatom of Russia and the Ministry of Defense of Russia. Supervision has been assigned to the Ministry of Defense of Russia. This measure spares the repeated remarks by the supervising body, but actually has brought the regions through which the spent nuclear fuel is transported to the brink of an ecological catastrophe.

The situation with accounting nuclear materials at the objects of the Ministry of Defense of Russia is ambiguous; the above mentioned case of the loss of half of nuclear fuel graphically illustrates this and gives rise to concern about the guarantees of nonproliferation of nuclear materials. In our opinion, the latter circumstance calls for an urgent independent investigation of the situation with the loss of nuclear fuel from fuel assemblies.

Gosatomnadzor of Russia considers that imminent in the interests of Russia is to conduct an independent investigation of the state of nuclear and radiation safety, accounting of nuclear materials at the objects of the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the state of work on supervision of nuclear and radiation safety, accounting of nuclear materials by the Ministry of Defense of Russia

(signature) Yu.G. Vishnevsky

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