GORKI. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The amount of radioactive waste dumped in open bodies of water in the period of nuclear industry development under the Soviets exceeds 170 million Ci, Rosatom CEO Sergei Kiriyenko told a government meeting on Monday.
"The problems we had in 2007 when the first federal program to ensure nuclear safety was adopted involved accumulated waste and spent fuel. The main risks were that because a lot of this waste had been stored for 30-40-50 years, the safety barriers eroded, causing considerable risks of emergencies," Kiriyenko said.
"And also the huge amount of radioactive waste which was just dumped into open bodies of water in the 1950s. There are a total of over 170 million Ci in open bodies of water," Kiriyenko said.
Kiriyenko said there are currently no serious problems with spent nuclear fuel storage, adding that the flooding level of storage facilities, which previously reached 96% and 98-200% in some research institutions, now stands at 49%.
"This ensures a controlled, safe, acceptable level of storage," he said.
Kiriyenko said that technology for the disposal of faulty spent fuel, "which previously was not processed anywhere," has been created in parallel with this.
"The biggest problem was associated with open bodies of water, primarily Lake Karachai. There is 120 million Ci [2.5 Chernobyl disasters] of liquid radioactive waste in this lake. If this open body of water was hit by some hurricane raising water, it would cause extremely grave consequences," the Rosatom CEO said.
Kiriyenko said the last square meter of this lake will be buried on November 26 and that it is surrounded by 450 observation wells, which "will help fully control the condition of the underground horizon."
Kiriyenko said the bodies of water in the Tomsk region near the Siberian Chemical Plant (28 million Ci and 20 million Ci each) have now been fully treated for preservation.
"Thus, by November 26 we will have fully closed all open bodies of water, this risk will be eliminated," Kiriyenko said.
Speaking about the Techa Cascade, Kiriyenko said that low-level waste is located there. "The main risks in that cascade are associated with the possibility of the dam breaking. The dam is now reinforced to the first safety category, regulating thresholds have been created, and the infiltration of radioactive materials into open bodies of water and emergencies in heavy rains and natural calamities are ruled out," Kiriyenko said.
He recalled that 13 reactors used for manufacturing plutonium remained in Russia. "They have all been shut down, but no one in the world has yet removed such facilities from operation, and we have removed from operation the first such reactor," Kiriyenko said, adding that safety at this facility is ensured for over 1,000 years and that a technology for removing the other reactors from operation has now been tested.
Kiriyenko said that the Kurchatov Institute did not do any damage to the surrounding territory, "but the risks were very high because residential buildings are located near the institute." "It was a priority facility, which was fully dismantled and removed from the territory of the Kurchatov Institute," he said.