Please add your signature to this appeal. On March 23, the Russian government will review whether to authorize the importation of radioactive material into Russia from other countries. Many organizations around the world have already agreed to unite with Russian NGOs and sign-on to this letter. Now the letter has been translated into English and will be disseminated around the world.

Aleksei Yablokov
March 20, 2000

At the present time, countries that have developed nuclear energy have run into the problem of storage and burial of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Not wanting to use its territory for the repository of these dangerous materials, the governments and nuclear-energy companies of these countries are trying to transport them to other countries that are experiencing economic difficulties, in particular, to Russia. Earlier attempts by industrial countries to establish international repositories for spent nuclear fuel in Australia, South Africa and Namibia were not successful. Proposals by private companies to construct such a repository on one of the islands in the Pacific Ocean that belongs to the US caused a sharp negative reaction by the White House.

Russian legislation forbids the import of foreign radioactive materials for storage and burial on Russian territory. The Ministry of the Russian Federation on atomic energy (Minatom), which is counting on receiving the material into its custody and developing its potential, is lobbying to change this law and is making preparations for organizations of commercial storage and for the reprocessing of foreign radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in its facilities. The Russian authorities, which are facing a continual budget deficit, are ready to change the law.

The administration of the US, worried on the one hand about the security of fissile materials and the possible leaking of nuclear specialists from Russia, and on the other hand, not wanting to store spent nuclear fuel on its own territory from countries that use in their reactors nuclear fuel that was produced in the US, is giving in to the support of the commercial storage of foreign radioactive materials in Russia.

The United States, in exchange for giving permission to Russia to import spent nuclear fuel from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries, requires that Russia stop reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and further accumulation of plutonium. But the accepted conception in Russia of a closed fuel cycle envisages such reprocessing. Minatom promises (under the conditions of constructing many new nuclear power plants) to curtail the production of plutonium for only 200 years. Having at its disposal large stock of Russian spent nuclear fuel, Minatom is ready to agree with the US requirement to give up reprocessing of foreign spent nuclear fuel today in order to be able to use it in the future in its facilities, which are constructed with “radioactive” money.

Minatom maintains that the resources they receive from storing radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel will go first to remediate land that has been polluted by radionuclides during the Cold War. However, it is clear that a primary part of the resources that are received in the waste business go into building new nuclear power plants, factories for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, and other environmentally and politically dangerous projects.

The waste business, in which Minatom intends to earn money, will result in the deterioration of the environmental situation in Russia and create significant additional risks for the population during the transport of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste and the management of dangerous wastes.

It is disturbing to us that negotiations on the management of radioactive and nuclear materials, which affects the interests of the whole world, go on in secret from the public. We hold that this leads to the weakening of international and national environmental legislation and undermines the foundations of civil society.

We hold that countries, in which long-term radionuclides were obtained in reactors, should take full responsibility for their safe storage during the time it is necessary for full decay of all long-term radionuclides.

We hold that the Russian and US governments and other nuclear countries should first take care of the safe storage of the large quantities of already manufactured plutonium.

We categorically come out against the import and export of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. We are against earning “dirty” money in the morally unacceptable “waste business,” which carries numerous misfortunes for current and future generations, we are against double standards.

We hold that reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, which inevitably leads to the management of a large quantity of radioactive waste and to extraction of new quantities of plutonium, should be stopped in all countries.

We are in favor of every future generation living in a less dangerous world.

Signed,

L. Popova ­ Center for nuclear ecology and energy policy, SEU
A. Yablokov ­ Center for environmental policy in Russia
E. Kriusanov ­ Program on nuclear and radioactive safety, SEU

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