RUSSIA: How Bad was Radioactive Leak?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Perera and Andrei Ivanov

MOSCOW, Feb 5 1996 (IPS) - Russian officials have confirmed that a cloud containing radioactive steam-gas vapour poured into the atmosphere last week from a damaged reactor – but emphatically deny any radiation danger.

The accident happened on Jan. 31 at the Russian Institute for Atomic Reactors (RIAR) near Dimitrovgrad on the Volga River, some 750 kilometres east of Moscow.

A crane inadvertently struck the emergency safety equipment of the reactor causing a safety pressure relief valve to open. The reactor is a 50 MW VK-50 boiling water research reactor used mainly for materials testing.

The safety system immediately shut down the reactor, according to Institute Director Valentin Ivanov.

Vitaly Nasonov, a spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom), said there was no radiation danger. He insists that the radioactive cloud did not escape the nuclear facility and said contamination was confined to an area of some 200 square metres within the institute grounds.

“The vapour contained low-active manganese nuclides with a half- life of about two hours, so it caused practically no damage to the environment,” he explains.

The amount of radioactivity released in the accident was officially put at around 100 millicuries, said a duties officer at the Emergencies Ministry.

The accident was classified as Level 1 on the seven-level International Nuclear Events Scale (INES). The one at Chernobyl in 1986 was classed as Level 7. “Clean-up work began immediately. Nobody’s health had been endangered,” the duty officer said.

Viktor Aparin, a deputy head of the Ulyanovsk regional administration, says the leak was not big, adding that it was quickly stopped ensuring that contamination was confined only to the institute and its grounds.

“There is no great danger,” he insists.

However environmentalists are very concerned and believe the INES rating will be revised upwards later.

“I can remember the bland assurances that were given after the accident at Tomsk in 1993, but in the end they had to admit that the damage was much greater than they had initially admitted,” says a spokesman for Greenpeace.

RIAR is one of Russia’s biggest nuclear institutes. It specialises mainly in fast breeder reactor technology and materials testing as well as research into nuclear fuel. It covers an area of 17 square kilometres and was a closed city until very recently.

The VK-50 is just one of seven research reactors at the institute which also has a design division and a complex of special laboratories for studying irradiated fuel elements and assemblies.

It also has a small pilot facility for making fuel for fast breeder reactors. It was established in 1956 and now has a staff of almost 6,000 including over 400 scientists, 2,000 engineers and 3,500 other workers.

The accident will be a blow to the positin of the plant director, Ivanov, who welcomed the lifting of restrictions at the institute and who hopes to make it into an international centre of excellence for nuclear research.

He believes safety standards are high at the facility. “We have 10-12 people from Gosatomnadzor (the nuclear inspectorate) on site who check our work constantly,” he says.

RIAR has been criticised by environmental groups because of its waste disposal methods — it injects its liquid wastes directly into the ground.

Ivanov defends the method as one of the safest, provided the geology is suitable which he says it is in Dimitrovgrad. He points out that they are injected into heavy mineral waters 1.1-1.6 kilometres down. The wastes are prepared to be at a similar density so they will not rise to the surface.

Above this are two layers of clay each some 300 metres thick. He says the system has been carefully monitored for over 25 years by sinking wells to detect any leakage. “In may opinion,” he says, ” this is one of the best methods of waste storage.”

Ivanov is hoping to attract scientists from other countries to study at the institute and to undertake joint projects. Reactor accidents are not good public relations in these circumstances.