The Times (London), December 5, 2000
Putin's Nuclear Dump
By Richard Beeston
Putin's contempt for Russia's environment could lead to nuclear catastrophe.
Russia's fragile environment is facing its most serious crisis since Soviet
times, with the Putin Government pushing through reforms that threaten
wildlife and nature reserves and raise the prospect of another nuclear
catastrophe. From the dense forests of the Far East - the habitat of the
endangered Siberian tiger - to the delicate tundra of the Arctic circle,
plans are under way to exploit these great tracts of wilderness.
Simultaneously, the Ministry of Atomic Energy is moving ahead with plans to
import some 20,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel from 14 countries for
storage in sites across Russia.
In the past, the Soviet Union's environment was sacrificed in the name of
communist progress, but this time huge profits from mining, timber, oil and
the nuclear industry are the main prize.
Last week, Russia's fledgeling environmental movement suffered a damaging
blow when attempts to halt the Government and hold a nationwide referendum
on the issue were defeated. Under Russia's constitution a referendum can be
held if more than two million citizens sign the required petition. Activists
succeeded in raising support from 2.5 million people, but, to the anger of
environmentalists, the electoral commission disqualified 600,000 signatures.
"This was done intentionally to stop us," says Ivan Blokov, the campaign
director at Greenpeace Russia. "They want to prevent all attempts to save
the environment. Economic interests have been put above all else, including
human health."
Most of the blame is being directed at President Putin, who has made no
secret of his contempt for the environmental movement and last year
suggested it was a front for "foreign secret services".
One of the first moves he made after his election victory in March was to
abolish the State Environmental Committee and the State Forestry Committee -
the main environmental watchdogs - and to place them under the control of
the Natural Resources Ministry, which is responsible for granting commercial
licences.
"It is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop," says
Thomas Nielsen, of the Norwegian group Bellona, an environmental group in
Russia. "Profits are now the priority over the environment."
As a result of the move, big staff cuts are being made, which could see the
disbandment by the end of this year of the 60-strong anti-poaching force in
the Far East, which is protecting the remaining 450 Siberian tigers.
Many key jobs are also under threat, from forestry officials to
environmental officers - who are already badly overstretched and underfunded
as they safeguard the largest country on the planet.
The biggest immediate worry is the nuclear industry. Later this month, a
Bill before the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, will prepare the way
for the Ministry of Atomic Energy to open up Russia as a storage site for
imported spent nuclear fuel.
Despite the nation's appalling experience with nuclear power, the ministry
says that the contracts could be worth Pounds 13billion. But
environmentalists insist that Russia does not have the capacity to transport
and store safely the 20,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste at the three
proposed sights on the Volga, in the Urals and in Siberia.
Despite the setback over the referendum, some environmentalists insist that
the fight is not over and that Russian public outrage may yet force the
authorities to back down.
"Whatever the authorities said, we still got more than two million people to
back us and in that sense we have scored a victory," says Igor Chestin, the
director of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Russia. He insists that Putin
and the Duma could be persuaded to give way to public opinion, which
demonstrated its power earlier this year with the outcry over the sinking of
the nuclear submarine Kursk. But the authorities are capable of fighting
back - sometimes resorting to old KGB methods of intimidation.
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Last week, for example, the naval prosecutor in Vladivostok reopened a
criminal case against Captain Grigori Pasko, a journalist on a naval
publication, who revealed details of the dangerous state of Russia's nuclear
submarines to Japanese television. Last July he was sentenced to three
years, but was released early to take account of the time he had already
spent in detention. A new conviction would probably lead to a much longer
sentence.
Russia's Natural Resources Ministry has not commented on the case, but does
say that it could have a constructive relationship with the environmental
movement as long as it tones down its public campaigns and engages the
authorities instead of challenging them.
DISASTER FILE
1949: First of more than 140 nuclear devices detonated in northeastern
Kazakhstan.
1957: Nuclear storage tank in the Urals exposes half a million people to
radiation.
1986: Nuclear reactor at Chernobyl explodes, spewing radioactive cloud into
atmosphere.
1993: Tonnes of uranium and plutonium scattered around Tomsk after
explosion.
2000: Nuclear-powered submarine Kursk sinks in Barents Sea. All 118 crew
die.
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