U.S. and Russian officials signed an agreement in Moscow yesterday giving non-Russian personnel access to two closed nuclear cities where Russia has agreed to shut down its only remaining plutonium production reactors.  The agreement will enable U.S.-funded contractors to enter the cities and construct two coal-burning power plants to replace the three nuclear weapon plants that also provide power and heat to surrounding communities.

Yesterday’s signing advances a long-established, U.S.-Russian agreement in principle to end Russian plutonium production which continues at the cities of Seversk, formerly Tomsk-7, and Zheleznogorsk, formerly Kranoyarsk-26.

“Replacing these reactors with fossil fuel energy is critical to eliminating the production of weapons-grade plutonium in Russia and closing these facilities,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyanstev formally signed the reactor shutdown plan in March (see GSN, March 12) and in May the United States selected contractors to perform the work (see GSN, May 28).  The reactors are expected to shut down in five to eight years.

The access agreement allows outsiders to perform activities related to building the new power plants, but negotiators are still working on an access agreement to allow outside experts to install reactor safety improvements while they continue to operate.

“This is one further step in what has been a long process,” said Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard University in Boston (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 18).

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