To return to the main
Pacific Fleet entry, see the Pacific Fleet
file.
Vilyuchinsk (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy-50), western
shore of Krasheninnikova Bay across from Rybachiy, near Petropavlovsk
Ministry of Defense
The PM-74 service ship, which operates out of the
Chazhma
Ship Repair Facility, delivers fresh fuel to the Kamchatka Shipyard for refueling
nuclear submarines based out of Rybachiy.[1] Although the fuel generally
moves directly from the PM-74 to the submarine reactor during refueling,
fresh fuel has been stored temporarily on land here in the past.[2,3] According
to one report, this facility contained enough fresh fuel for six to seven
submarines in 1995.[3] After refueling, the PM-74 service ship returns
to Chazhma with a load of spent fuel.
Also known as Site 49K[1] and the Gornyak (Miner) Shipyard,
the Kamchatka Shipyard (Kamchatskiy Morskoy Zavod) at Krasheninnikova Bay, between the towns of Vilyuchinsk (also called Sovetskiy
and Staraya
Tarya) and Primorskiy (also referred to as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy-53),
refuels and repairs nuclear-powered submarines.[2,3,4] The entire
facility covers approximately 50 square kilometers and houses two piers
and a radioactive waste burial site, also known as the ground-3/Kamchatka
waste site, in addition to the interim fresh fuel storage facility.
The waste site consists of three burial trenches and contains both high-
and low-level radioactive waste.[7] As it is involved in refueling, the
site may also have an interim storage area for spent fuel.
In the spring of 1990, cracks were discovered in
the wall of one of the burial sites, which had allowed radiation to leak.[7]
The buildings and trenches are located approximately 200 meters from the
sea.[2] A survey commissioned by the Kamchatka regional administration
in 1991 detected shore contamination. In late June 1994, melting snows
washed radioactive contamination from a burial site into Seldevaya Bay
(located just southeast of the town of Primorskiy) leading to an increase
in radiation levels to 8 milliroentgen/h.[7]
Seldevaya Bay is home to several tankers that house
liquid radioactive waste (LRW). As of 1 January 2000, the TNT-23 service ship,
also docked in Vilyuchinsk, housed 678.66m3 of
LRW emitting 37.51 curies of radiation, while Kamchatka Shipyard's PKDS-60 had
73.5m3 of LRW (well over its nominal capacity of 50m3)
and emitted .46 curies of radiation (the total amount of radiation emitted by
all ship-board LRW in the Russian Far East is 5853.85 curies), according to a
Russian report.[8] Spent fuel on
the PM-32, a service ship that in March 2002 was called the most dangerous
radioactive object in the fleet, leaking radiation from the 126 damaged fuel
rods on board, was finally unloaded in 2002. [For more information, see the
9/18/2002 entry, below.][10,11] The vessel was the subject of local concern for
many years. In 2000, a Kamchatka Oblast official said that the regional Committee on Ecology and Natural Resource Management had appealed
to the Russian president and the head of the armed forces for assistance, but
the only result was the strengthening of the guard forces around PM-32.[9] The
status of LRW on PM-32 is unclear. As of 1 January 2000, PM-32 had 47m3 of LRW
emitting 5,556.58 curies of radiation.[8]
Solid radioactive waste (SRW) is stored on the
following vessels in Seldevaya Bay: BTB (833.5m3
emitting 1599.9 curies), TNT-23 (1.2m3 emitting .7 curies),
and PM-32 (5m3 emitting
.9 curies). There is also 20.6m3 of SRW on the PKDS, at the
town of Primorskiy, emitting 1.81 curies of radiation.[8]
As of 1 January
2000, five defueled nuclear submarines in Seldevaya Bay awaited
dismantlement.[8]
In November 1998, the Russian Navy provided to the
US Department of Energy (DOE) a proposal for US-Russian cooperation on
SSN dismantlement. In January 1999, US Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson
signed an agreement with the Russian Navy which provided the legal framework
for proceeding with investigating this possibility. The work, should
it come to fruition, will take place at the Kamchatka Shipyard. A US
Department of Energy delegation visited the shipyard in March 1999, and
a joint working group met in May 1999 to begin studying the feasibility
of this work. The initial proposal sought assistance for dismantlement
of 1 SSBN and 22 SSNs at Site 49K. As with other US DOE and Russian
Navy cooperation, Kurchatov Institute will serve as the contractor.
The US DOE hopes to finish the feasibility study and reach a decision on
whether to proceed with the work or not by April 2000.[5] (Please see the
Naval
Foreign Assistance section for more details on US assistance to the
Russian Navy for nuclear material storage and submarine dismantlement.)
Some experts, however, note several problems associated with converting
the Kamchatka Shipyard into an SSN dismantlement facility. These problems
include the exodus of qualified workers from the remote Kamchatka Peninsula,
the seismological instability there, and the military status of the shipyard,
which could lead to difficulties in access for foreign specialists.
Converting the Chazhma Ship Repair Facility, located in Primorskiy Kray,
might provide a better location for SSN dismantlement, despite the fact
that it would need upgrades.[6]
Military Unit 95051 is based at the Kamchatka Shipyard. As
of March 1995, 500 people comprised Military Unit 95051.
9/18/2002: SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL UNLOADED FROM DAMAGED SERVICE SHIP
On 18 September 2002, a Vladivostok report on the conference "Ecological
Problems in Nuclear-Powered Submarine Dismantlement and the Development of
Nuclear Power in the Region" in Vladivostok noted that a group of engineers
and scientists had received a commendation for their work removing spent nuclear
fuel from a damaged service ship in Kamchatka. (CNS believes that the
service ship in question is probably the PM-32 service ship.)
7/2/2002: VILYUCHINSK PREPARING
TO UNLOAD NUCLEAR FUEL
On 2 July 2002, a source at Kamchatka headquarters
of Russia's northeastern military district said that local facilities are being prepared to defuel two
nuclear submarines. The source said that work was being
done on an SSBN stationed at Rybachiy and an additional unspecified submarine. The
defueling will not begin until a special floating workshop arrives (CNS believes
that this ship is PM-74).[1] In addition, Colonel Sergey Zhandarov, deputy
commander of the Russian Northeast, said spent nuclear fuel
on the
TNT-49 tanker would be unloaded and shipped to facilities in Primorskiy Kray.[2]
10/18/2001: RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITY VULNERABLE
In October 2001, a group monitoring radiation levels in Vilyuchinsk reported
that during a two-hour period they observed no guards posted around a
radioactive waste storage facility that had formerly been under 24-hour armed
guard when the Russian Navy was in charge. In addition, the barbed wire
surrounding the facility had large holes that a man could easily pass through.
2/9/2000: NEW FEDERAL ENTERPRISE TO HANDLE
KAMCHATKA SHIPYARD RADWASTE
According to Government Directive No. 220-r of 9
February 2000, a new state enterprise, to be called the Far Eastern Federal
Enterprise for Handling Radioactive Wastes (DalRAO), will be created to manage radioactive
waste at Military Units 40752 (Site 32,
Primorye) and 95051 (Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka). The head office will
be located in Vladivostok; the enterprise will be subordinate to Minatom.
The Ministry of Defense will complete the gradual transfer of security
and fire protection functions to the new enterprise by 2002. For more information, please see the 8/8/2000
entry in the Pacific Fleet Radioactive Waste
Developments file.
1/7/2000: SAILORS BREAK IN TO SUB REACTOR
COMPARTMENT, STEAL RADIOACTIVE PLATES
According to Kommersant-daily, on 9 January
2000 military counterintelligence agents arrested two sailors who stole
rare metals and radioactive elements from a decommissioned ballistic missile
submarine based in Kamchatka.[1] Other newspapers reported the arrest
of five men in connection with the case.[2,3] The submarine from which
the materials were stolen was only lightly guarded and its missiles and
torpedoes had already been removed in preparation for its dismantlement.
The sailors, having reached an agreement with one of the sailors standing
on watch, made their way to the reactor compartment on the night of 7 January,
and removed palladium catalysts as well as nine pipes coated with palladium
worth about $3,500 each.[1,4] According to Kommersant, while stealing
these parts, the sailors could easily have caused a meltdown in the still-operating
reactor of the submarine, if its control rods had not been bolted down.
The control rods had only been bolted down the previous day, however, by
a mechanic acting on his own initiative, who had welded them shut, so that
the thieves could not remove them. The sailors also broke into a
safe in the reactor compartment and stole about ten small radioactive plates
which are used to test radiation measurement equipment. Although the plates
are only slightly radioactive, the thieves later exposed themselves to
radiation by hiding them under their mattresses. The theft was not detected
until the next day (8 January), when the head of the chemical safety detachment
discovered broken seals and missing material in the reactor compartment.
The theft should have been noted earlier, however, as sailors on watch
are required to regularly inspect the seals in the reactor compartment.
The submarine crew did not notify the commander of the submarine flotilla
or the regional directorate of the FSB about the theft until 9 January,
after spending a full day fruitlessly searching for the missing material
themselves. After a brief investigation, the sailors responsible for the
theft were identified, and the materials recovered. The suspects later
confessed that they had stolen the material in order to sell it as scrap.
A Pacific Fleet committee subsequently investigated the incident and reprimanded
the commander of the submarine and the commander of the flotilla. The deputy
commander of the submarine and the commander of the flotilla radiation,
chemical, and biological safety detachment were dismissed from their positions
and transferred to the reserves.[1] The detailed Kommersant story
conflicts with reports in RIA-Novosti and Vladivostok's Yezhednevnyye
novosti, which state that the theft was immediately discovered and
the suspects arrested within a day.
Page last updated 31 March 2003
Comments or questions? Contact Cristina
Chuen at MIIS CNS: cristina.chuen@miis.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.
HOME | CONTACT US | SITE MAP
