by Lisa Holtyn, CNS Graduate Research Assistant
June 1998

INTRODUCTION

In response to what is often referred to as the "Chernobyl syndrome," a public backlash against nuclear power in the wake of the Chernobyl accident in 1986, the Rostov Oblast Council decided to suspend construction of the Rostov NPP in 1990.[1]  This decision was supported by a parallel decree by the Russian republican government, and in 1992, the oblast council voted to permanently ban any further construction of the power plant.[2]   However, in 1996 Minatom announced plans to resume construction of the Rostov NPP due to a severe energy shortage in the region.[3]  This announcement led to major protest actions on the part of environmental groups and other concerned parties.  The decision to resume construction has been so controversial and caused such an uproar that it led to three separate hostile confrontations in the summer of 1997 between environmental activists and nuclear power plant workers, in addition to numerous town meetings, appeals to the regional legislative assembly, and even national-level debate.
 

FACTORS INFLUENCING DECISION TO RESUME CONSTRUCTION

Minatom's decision to resume construction of the Rostov NPP was based primarily upon a severe shortage of electric power in the region, which produces between only one quarter[4] and one third[5] of the energy it consumes.  As the rest must be imported, the cost per kilowatt hour is over three times as expensive for industrial and agricultural enterprises than it would be if it were generated locally.  The commissioning of the first and second reactors (in 1998 and 2000, respectively) would provide the region with 2,000 additional megawatts of output, and the resulting lower prices would enable the region to emerge from its current economic stagnation.[5]  At the time that the NPP was mothballed, the first reactor was over 95 percent complete, and the second reactor was 47 percent complete.  Over $800 million has already been invested in construction of the plant, and another $300 million is needed to complete the first reactor.[1]  According to then-Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov, Minatom will invest $100 million to start up the first reactor, and the remaining $200 million will come from domestic banks and the French company Electricite de France.[1,4]  Minatom will also invest an additional $600 million for completion of the second reactor.[4]  Original plans called for the completion of four reactors;[6] however, two reactors are sufficient for the region's energy needs until the year 2000, and will allow for the decommissioning of two aging non-nuclear power plants in the area.[7]  Because of worn-out equipment in currently operating plants, it is possible that electricity output will drop by 1000 megawatts within the next seven years.  Without alternative energy sources such as the Rostov NPP, the electricity deficit in the region will reach 1,500 megawatts.[8]

Another factor that influenced the decision to resume construction was the financial burden that Minatom must bear in order to preserve the mothballed NPP.  Minatom employs over 1,200 people at the plant,[9]  and costs more than R80 billion yearly just to maintain in its current non-operational status.[4]  Mikhailov stated that this financial burden would be passed on to the regional government if the oblast legislative assembly voted against finishing construction of the plant.[8]
 

CRITICISMS OF ROSTOV NPP

The Rostov NPP has been the object not only of public opposition, but of severe criticism from many leading environmental experts who cite numerous problems related to its location and construction, which violate strict post-Chernobyl laws.  Criticisms include the following:

1. The NPP is located only 12 kilometers from the city of Volgodonsk, which has a population of 195,000, although laws passed since the inception of the Russian Federation state that an NPP must be at least 30 kilometers from cities with populations exceeding 100,000 people.[10]
2. The NPP is located on the shores of the Tsimlyanskoye water reservoir on the Don river, which supplies the only source of drinking water for most of the region.  Existing environmental legislation forbids an NPP to be built closer than 200 meters to water reservoirs.[2,10]  According to a number of scientists, there are numerous ways in which the water supply could be contaminated during normal operation of the reactors.  First, through rainfall and snow melt, radioactive particles of cesium-137 and iodine-131 emitted into the atmosphere via the smokestacks would end up in the water reservoir.[11]  Second, since the NPP is built on loam soil, emitted radioactive particles would penetrate the soil and leach into the water system.[12]  Third, "spent water" of the cooling pond will inevitably filter through the walls of the dam and into the nearby river systems.[8]  Fourth, construction of the storage area for liquid radioactive waste was carried out without taking into account the level of ground water, which could lead to contamination of  water-bearing geological strata.[13]   In all of the above scenarios, radioactive particles would not only contaminate the water reservoir, but pass through the dam into the water of the lower Don river, and all the way to the Sea of Azov.[11]
3. The NPP is located along a major fault line in a seismically active region.[12,14]
4. Thermal pollution from the cooling pond could disturb the flora and fauna in the vicinity of the water reservoir.[13]
5. Scientists say that basic meteorological factors, such as fog, dust storms, and temperature inversion, which could cause the transfer of radionuclide particles to the south-west part of Russia and southeast Ukraine, have not been properly taken into account.[14]
6. The plant itself is not up to current construction and technological standards, as construction began in the 1970s, prior to the development of new safety requirements prompted by the Chernobyl accident.[15]

PLANT PROPONENT COUNTER-ARGUMENTS

Proponents of the plant argue that it will in fact meet with the new safety standards implemented since Chernobyl and will not pose a threat to the environment or public health.  The Russian Federation State Committee on the Environment (then-Ministry of the Environment), which assessed the potential risks posed by the NPP in response to the renewed controversy, concluded that the plant was environmentally safe.  According to the opinion of some experts, the reactors are supposedly capable of withstanding a 7-point earthquake, and they are even designed to withstand the blow of a 20 metric ton airplane crashing directly into the plant at the speed of 720 kilometers per hour.[1,8]  Regarding potential contamination of the water supply, the projected estimates of radiation which would be released through normal operation of the reactors is tens of thousands of times lower than the level necessary to cause some type of disturbance in the ecosystem.[8]

PUBLIC ACTION AGAINST ROSTOV NPP

Since the announcement by Minatom to resume construction in 1996, there have been continuous attempts by various parties to prevent the plans from going forward.  Opponents of the NPP say that, contrary to the claims of Minatom,  none of the major issues which prompted the initial decision in 1990 to mothball the plant have been resolved.  According to one radio report from 4 December 1997, only 20 out of 46 experts on a commission tasked with determining the environmental impact of the NPP actually endorsed the project ( it is unclear whether or not the commission referred to in this report is the same body as the Russian Federation State Committee on the Environment).[2]  This unabated concern over the potential threat posed by the NPP has led to protest actions by numerous national and international environmental groups, and even resulted in hostile confrontations with NPP workers on at least three separate occasions:

• In the first such incident, which took place on 29 July 1997, nuclear power plant workers returning home from their shift at the Rostov nuclear power plant violently attacked environmental protesters from a group known as the Guardians of the Rainbow who were barricading the plant access road. When the protesters refused to comply with the workers' request to dismantle the barricades, the workers severely beat them, then burned and looted the protesters' nearby tent city, at which point the local police, who had witnessed the entire episode, finally intervened.  In all, 50 people, including women, were beaten, six so severely that they sustained serious injuries such as damage to internal organs, spinal injuries, and concussions.  The protesters included not only Russian participants, but citizens from Belarus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Poland, Tajikistan, and Ukraine.[16]
• Again on 11 August 1997, 150 protesters[3], including members of the Guardians of the Rainbow and local Cossacks, blocked the access road to the NPP.[17]  The protest action was brought to an end peacefully only after representatives from the Volgodonsk city legislature agreed to try and persuade the Rostov regional legislature to hold a public referendum on the issue of the power plant, which satisfied the activists' chief demand.[10]
• On 23 March 1998, at a public meeting organized by Rostov NPP workers, environmentalists from the Guardians of the Rainbow again confronted the workers, and attempted to disrupt the workers' public appeal to the oblast regional assembly and the governor by yelling during the presentations.[18]

In addition to such protest actions, there have been a number of appeals by various groups to the Volgodonsk city and Rostov Oblast councils demanding that a public referendum be held to determine the fate of the NPP.  Although the Volgodonsk city council passed a resolution demanding a local referendum,[1] the oblast council has thus far not consented, even though it has received formal requests for a referendum not only from city and regional councils, but also from environmental groups, the administration of the oblast, and even the Russian Federation State Committee on the Environment, which had already concluded that the plant was not a threat to the environment.[19]

According to some sources, Minatom can not legally resume construction without obtaining the prior consent of the Rostov oblast legislative assembly, which must first revoke the oblast's Soviet-era decree that banned further construction in 1990.[2,4]  However, according to Alexander Zharkov, head of the department of nuclear safety of the Rostov NPP, since the NPP is a federal structure and therefore under federal jurisdiction, the lack of consent by the oblast legislative assembly cannot legally impede the federal government's decision to re-start the NPP.  According to Mr. Zharkov, all necessary approval at the local level was already given during the original voting on site selection and construction plans, and according to local and federal law it is also only during this stage that a public referendum can be held.[20]

As the official findings on the potential impact of the NPP to the environment were completely rejected by numerous environmental groups, Minatom sponsored an environmental conference on 17-18 November 1997 in an attempt to diffuse the opposition.  However, opponents of the plant accused the plant's supporters of pursuing their own self-interests, and the conference only served as a venue for more heated exchange on both sides.[2]   The issue even reached the federal level when on 2 December 1997 the committee on industry, construction, transportation and energy of the State Duma held a round table discussion to deal with the problems surrounding completion of the Rostov nuclear power plant.  In spite of the ongoing controversy, the committee recommended that the oblast legislative assembly adopt legislation as quickly as possible to complete construction of the Rostov NPP.[7]

On 6 April 1998, the Volgodonsk city legislative assembly finally almost unanimously approved a measure to resume construction of the NPP.[21]  At this time, it is unclear whether or not the Rostov oblast legislative assembly has also voted on the issue.  However, it appears that the fate of the NPP is still uncertain, as the legality of the conclusions reached by the State Committee on the Environment, which violate a number of active Russian laws, has been questioned by the general prosecutor's office.[19]  In January 1998, Greenpeace Russia brought formal charges against the State Committee on the Environment regarding these conclusions, and a trial is set to begin in Moscow in July 1998.[22]

Sources:

[1] Aleksandr Bezmenov, "Prizrak Rostovskoy atomnoy snova pugayet ekologov," Kommersant, 6 June 1997, p. 5.
[2] Mikhail Denisov, "Power Plant Controversy Escalates in Rostov," IEWS Russian Regional Report, 4 December 1997.
[3] RFE/RL Newsline vol. 1, no. 93, part 1, "Environmentalists Protest Nuclear Plant Under Construction in Rostov," 12 August 1997.
[4] Sergey Krylov, "You Can't Spread the Peaceful Atom on Bread But We Have to Live Somehow," Izvestiya, 4 November 1997, p. 2; in "Mikhailov Urges Rostov AES Approval," FBIS-SOV-97-323.
[5] Konstantin Zvonkov, "'Nuclear' Compromise on the Banks of the Don Could Be the Solution to the Energy Crisis in Which Rostov Oblast Has Found Itself," Rossiyskiye Vesti, 24 October 1997, p. 2; in "Rostov Nuclear Power Plant on Track," FBIS-SOV-97-310.
[6] Vladimir Gubarev, "Four Billion 'Greens' For Dances by the 'Greens,'" Rabochaya Tribuna, 20 August 1997, pp. 1,3; in "Nuclear Official Slams Greenpeace," FBIS-SOV-97-272.
[7] Yu.V. Egorov, "Rostovskaya AES: problemy i perspektivy," Atompressa, no.47, December 1997, p. 3.
[8] Anatoliy Tkachenko, "Konservatsiya Rostovskoy AES oboydetsya v 80 mlrd rub.," Delovoy mir, 30 October 1997, p. 3.
[9] Red Book, Russian Television Network, 13 December 1997; in "'Red Book' on Possible Reopening of Rostov Nuclear Plant," FBIS-TEN-97-350.
[10] Bronwyn McLaren, "Angry Town Residents May Get Reactor Referendum," St Petersburg Times, 1-7 September 1997.
[11] L. Kravchenko, "Zachem nam igry Minatomovskiye?" Vecherniy Rostov, 24 November 1997, p.1.
[12] L. Kravchenko, "U Rostovskoy atomnoy stantsii est shans provalitsya skvoz zemlyu i otravit Don. A nam eto nuzhno?," Vecherniy Rostov, 30 October 1997, p.1.
[13] "Pozitsiya," Zelenyy mir, no.14, June 1997, p.1.
[14] "Rostovskaya AES: 'za' i 'protiv,'" Molot (Rostov-na-Donu), 21 October 1997, p.1.
[15] Sergey Vakhonin, "Atomnoye pugalo nad tsimlyanskoy volnoy," Pravda pyat, no. 43(381), 21-28 November 1997, p. 6.
[16] Sergey Fomichev, "Poboishche vozle Rostovskoy AES," Izvestiya, 8 June 1997.
[17] Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 11 August 1997; in "Environmentalists Block Roads to Nuclear Plant Near Rostov," FBIS-TEN-97-223.
[18] "Posledniye novosti - miting v Rostove, 23.04.98 g.," Rostov NPP web page, http://www.vdonsk.ru/~rosnpp/new.htm, accessed 21 April 1998.
[19] Aleksey Yablokov, "Ne nado mazat atom na khleb,' Zelenyy mir, no. 29, 1997, p. 2.
[20] NISNP Correspondence with Aleksandr Zharkov, 24 March 1998, RUS980324.
[21] "Posledniye novosti - Rostovskaya AES: Finita la Commedia!" Rostov NPP web page, http://www.vdonsk.ru/~rosnpp/new.htm, accessed 5 June 1998.
[22] "Grinpis Rossii vystupayet protiv aktivnogo finansirovaniya Minatoma," Interfax, 10 May 1998.

 

Comments or questions? E-mail Cristina Chuen at MIIS CNS: Cristina.ChuenATmiis.edu

This material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2002 by MIIS.

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