Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MURMANSK, RUSSIA LENGTH: Medium
Aboard his nuclear-powered icebreaker, Capt. Anatoly Gorchevsky raised his vodka in a toast ``to the friendly atom.''
It's a friendship that many fear is about to turn ugly.
Murmansk and the surrounding Kola Peninsula is one of the most nuclear-intensive places on the planet. The harbor is home to nuclear-powered warships, submarines and icebreakers; the waters are marked by nuclear-powered lighthouses; on land there's a nuclear power plant and a nuclear test site; nuclear warheads are in profusion both at sea and on land.
Much of it is in poor repair. Radioactive waste is stored in ships so rickety they can't be moved from their moorings near downtown Murmansk, the Arctic's largest city with about a half million residents. The power plant is regarded by many as one of the most unsafe in the world.
``There is a problem and it is acute. We just hope the central government recognizes this,'' said Yuri Titoyov, a Murmansk resident. ``We can't just let all these ships stay in our harbors with all this waste aboard.''
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built up a staggering arsenal on the Kola, which borders NATO-member Norway and neutral Finland.
The peninsula, about the size of Kentucky, is the base of Russia's North Fleet, with 155 nuclear submarines, including 71 derelict vessels, according to a report by the Norwegian environmental group Bellona.
Westerners estimate the Kola has up to 2,000 nuclear warheads, plus the civilian ``Atomflot'' fleet of eight icebreakers.
And Murmansk environmental officials generally go along with those estimates because they can't get such information from their own government.
So the Cold War may be over, but nearby countries still feel a chill when they think about the potential environmental problems just across the border.
Norway has installed radiation detectors in its northern provinces and on Russian territory to give early warning of a disaster.
``We are close to an area that has a lot of radiation,'' said Per Einar Fiskebaek, of Norway's Finnmark county, which borders the Kola. ``It is clear that they have a huge number of boats out of service and problems storing the waste.''
Bellona's report said most of the 71 condemned submarines still have their nuclear fuel on board because there is no place to put it.
``It is a big problem with both solid and liquid nuclear waste. It is a difficult problem that is of interest to the whole world,'' admitted Andrey I. Tumparov, director of ``Atomflot.''
Murmansk governor Yeveny B. Komorov - keen on discussing Western aid for such projects as a tunnel under the Kola Bay and modernizing shipyards - dismissed the danger.
``There won't be any atomic catastrophes in this area. In connection with all the changes in our country, the ships aren't going out of our waters as often,'' he said.
Instead, he said with a Cold War twist, the danger is from the United States. Russia claims that a U.S. nuclear submarine intruded on Kola waters this month.
``Why are American submarines with atomic reactors and weapons up here? A collision up here can result in a catastrophe,'' he said. ``It's not us who are going to Florida. They are coming to us here.''
The Kola Nuclear Power Station nearly suffered a meltdown in February 1993, when back-up power to its cooling systems failed, said Ragnar Vaga Pedersen, of the Norwegian government monitoring station on the Russia border.
``It is considered one of the four or five most dangerous plants in the world,'' Pedersen said.
by CNB