Radiological Conditions of the Western Kara Sea

Assessment of the radiological impact of the dumping of radioactive waste in the Arctic Seas

Background and project set-up - Rumors surfaced in 1992 that the former Soviet Union had, for over three decades, dumped radioactive wastes in the shallow waters of the Arctic Seas. The news caused great concern in many countries, especially those having an Arctic coastline.

In early 1993 the Office of President of Russia published a document with detailed information on the past dumping operations of the former Soviet Union. According to that document, the items dumped in the Arctic Seas included six nuclear submarine reactors containing spent fuel; a shielding assembly from an icebreaker reactor containing spent fuel; ten nuclear reactors without fuel; and solid and liquid low-level waste.

The solid high- and low-level wastes were dumped in the Kara Sea, mainly in the shallow fjords of Novaya Zemlya, where the depths of the dumping sites range from 12 to 135 meters and in the Novaya Zemlya Trough at depths of up to 380 meters. Liquid low-level wastes were released in the open Barents and Kara Seas.

Project Conclusions

The Project reached a number of conclusions:

• Monitoring has shown that releases from identified dumped objects are small and localized to the immediate vicinity of the dumping sites
• Projected future doses to members of the public in typical local population groups arising from radioactive wastes dumped in the Kara Sea are very small, less than one microSv per year. Projected future doses to a hypothetical group of military personnel patrolling the foreshore of the fjords in which wastes have been dumped are higher, up to 4000 microSv per year but still of the same order as the average annual natural background dose
• Doses to marine fauna are insignificant, orders of magnitude below those at which detrimental effects on fauna populations might be expected to occur
• On radiological grounds remedial actions are not warranted.

Other Radiological issues exist that need to be addressed in Russia, but also in China and the US...in fact all development of radioactive materials for use in industrial or weapons programs yields waste that is potentially dangerous to our ecology. The simple fact is that using these elements in any form requires us to take extra effort to prevent contamination.

The Russians have a history of poor management and lack of control on their programs, but each atomic nation has had problems with waste control and preventive actions. Now that we are again looking at the increased use of nuclear power we need to take the steps necessary to protect our resources and effectively manage these materials that will require impounding for tens of thousands of years.

All in all, wind and solar may be easier to control.