WHAT is being done to make safe Russia’s huge fleet of ageing nuclear submarines? Not so long ago it was said there were 96 subs waiting to be scrapped. Now, good news from Nigel Griffiths, the Department of Trade and Industry minister with responsibility for nuclear clean-up matters. Two Oscar-1 class nuclear-powered subs have been dismantled at the Zvezdochka shipyard at Severodvinsk on time and within the budget of £11.5 million. It was the biggest project involving UK-Russian cooperation set up under the G8 Global Partnership.
In the light of this success, Griffiths says his department is reviewing a proposal to dismantle a Victor class submarine at the Nerpa shipyard in Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk. This would be a large collaborative project with the Norwegian government, which is also planning to dismantle a Victor submarine at the same shipyard.
Work has begun at the Atomflot port in Murmansk on a storage facility for nuclear fuel. This project, costing some £16 million, is managed by the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments and Administrations. One aim will be to make safe a large quantity of highly enriched spent zirconium-uranium fuel. Cooperative work is also under way at Andreeva Bay on the Kola Peninsula to make safe nuclear fuel facilities there, the minister said.
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The next G8 Global Partnership annual report will be required reading for anyone concerned with environmental matters.
MANY poor nations sit on a toxic time bomb. ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ recently reported the alarming news that funds available to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for its programme to destroy old stocks of pesticides are drying up (18 September 2004, p 4). I asked Gareth Thomas, the information minister at the Department for International Development (DFID), how serious a problem it is.
Thomas replied that the DFID has raised concerns over funding with the FAO. The organisation replied that, with respect to Africa, prevention and disposal will continue, with FAO involvement, under the new Africa Stockpiles Programme. This is part of a Global Environment Facility initiative due to start this year under the World Bank’s leadership. The UK contributes almost £30 million annually to this initiative, making it the fifth largest donor.
Thomas added that numerous international conventions cover various aspects of the management of hazardous wastes. These include the Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants, the Rotterdam convention on prior informed consent and the Basel convention on transport of waste from one country to another. To these it should soon be possible to add the strategic approach to international chemicals management.
From my own discussions with numerous visiting politicians I fear there is still far more talk than action on this dangerous practice.
