TL:Preliminary Report on: Greenpeace Visit to Vladivostok and Areas Around the Chazma Bay and Bolshoi Kamen Submarine Repair and Refuelling Facilities SO: Greenpeace International (GP) DT: October 1991 Keywords: nuclear weapons ussr russia navy radioactive waste reactors disposal submarines problems safety fareast ports greenpeace expeditions gp nfs disarmament accidents cleanups / 9-19 October 1991 Joshua Handler Research Coordinator Nuclear Free Seas Campaign, Greenpeace. Washington, DC 202/319-2516 Introduction The effects of glasnost and the end of the Cold War have opened previously secret areas and topics in the Soviet Union. In the case of the Soviet Far East, residents around nuclear- powered submarine facilities in the Vladivostok area are asking questions about past submarine accidents, and current and planned nuclear waste disposal procedures. The military in the region, somewhat uncomfortably and reluctantly, has been forced for the first time to respond to what they term popular "radiophobia." In doing so, the military has provided new and unprecedented information about an explosion aboard a nuclear-powered submarine in August 1985, and nuclear waste handling in the region. More openness by the military may ameliorate civil- military tensions in the region. However, they may also exacerbate them. The military in the region has not held the environment in high regard. As more information about past abuses becomes available, residents may redouble their criticisms of the local commanders. Also, the size of the clean-up cost from past mispractices, as well the cost to decommission old nuclear-powered submarines, may engender more reproaches. The information about the accidents, as well as additional information about submarine reactor design, is providing a different perspective on Soviet submarine operations. A high accident rate, plus low fuel enrichment levels, provides technical reasons why Soviet submarines have lower operating tempos than their western counterparts. Also, the size of the Soviet submarine force may have been partially derived from a need to keep an adequately repaired and fuelled force at sea. Although the Soviet Union may have technically advanced submarines, the information coming to the fore raises questions about its overall operationally capability, hindered as it may be by accidents and limited reactor core lives. Ultimately, additional information about past Soviet submarine accidents and reactor operations, may show the Soviet submarine force was less a threat to the U.S. and its allies, and more of a threat to its own sailors and the environment. Nuclear-Powered Submarine Facilities in the Vladivostok Region The centers of nuclear-powered submarine operations in the Vladivostok area are to the east of Vladivostok, some 35 miles across Ussuryiskyi Bay, in the Shkotovo region and on Strelok Bay. The region includes at least four facilities, all or some of which have been operational since the early to mid-1960s: A major nuclear submarine overhaul and refuelling yard at Bolshoi Kamen (Shkotovo-17), on the west side of the Shkotovo peninsula on Ussuryiskyi Bay facing towards Vladivostok. There at least two plants here concerned with overhauling and refuelling submarines (one or collectively known as the ZVEZDA plant), as well as disposing of their nuclear waste. In addition, the first decommissioned submarine to be dismantled in the Pacific Fleet, was broken up at Bolshoi Kamen. Its reactor compartment is still stored at the plant(s). Two other submarines may be undergoing scrapping there as well. A smaller refit and refuelling yard near the settlements of Dunay (Shkotovo-22) and Temp located on Chazma Bay on the east side of the Shkotovo peninsula facing Strelok Bay. It was here that the submarine reactor exploded on 10 August 1985, contaminating the surrounding land and water. Reportedly, plans exist to turn the Chazma plant into a major dismantling facility for decommissioned submarines. A permanent nuclear waste disposal site, Installation 927-III, is located at the tip of the Shkotovo region peninsula. High-level waste is stored here. There are plans to expand the facility by 1995, in order to be able to store more waste. A major submarine base at Pavlovsk on the eastern edge of Strelok Bay, which at least houses ballistic missile submarines (U.S. inspectors visited this base in 1990 as part of the verification inspections for START). Greenpeace's October 1991 Visit While in Vladivostok in September 1990, Greenpeace heard reports from residents about a devastating reactor explosion at Dunay on board a Soviet nuclear powered submarine in the Spring of 1985. Greenpeace also observed a meeting of the Primorskii Kray Soviet's Environmental Committee where this accident was discussed. Sketchy reports about this accident continued to surface in the Soviet press after September 1990. Greenpeace returned to the region in October 1991 to investigate this accident, as well as other accidents, radioactive waste disposal procedures, radioactive contamination in the area, and the procedures being developed for the decommissioning of nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific Fleet. While in Vladivostok, Greenpeace held meetings with senior officers from the Pacific Fleet including: Chief of the Chemical Service and his assistant, Chief Radiologist, Assistant Chief of the Nuclear Reactor Refuelling Section, Chief of the Technological Service, Assistant Chief of staff/Chief of the Command Section of the Fleet. Meetings included members of the Primorskii Kray Nature Protection and Ecological Committee, the Sanitary-Epidemiological Service, and the Hydromet Service. Field trips to the area of the Chazma facility accident, and Bolshoi Kamen also were conducted, and several official documents discussing the accident and its aftermath were provided. 1985 "Primorskii Chernobyl" Accident On 10 August 1985 the reactor of a Victor-class submarine suffered an explosion while undergoing refuelling at the submarine repair and refuelling facility on Chazma Bay. The Navy officers Greenpeace spoke with said the explosion resulted after the reactivity control elements of a new reactor core were inadvertently removed as the reactor lid was being re-lifted, after being improperly placed the first time. The explosion ejected highly radioactive materials onto the surrounding land and into the water. According to the Navy officers, several 100,000 curies of radioactivity were released (including the short-lived isotopes). Ten men in the reactor compartment were killed instantly. The submarine has not been repaired and is still visible at dockside at the Chazma facility. The "fallout" from the accident spread across the peninsula (some 6 kms long) towards Vladivostok in a band several hundreds meters wide, but according to the Navy officers, didn't reach the city. A secret Navy map prepared four days after the accident (14 August 1985, 1600 hours) outlined an area 3,800 m long and 530 m wide where at the outer edges the level of activity was 600 decays/minute/cm2. On a local road going through the trace, levels of 4,500 decays/minute/cm2 beta radiation were measured (after decontamination in the first four days, this dropped to 20 decays/minute/cm2). Lab analysis showed rates of 1-80 decays/minute/cm2 for alpha radiation. The Navy officers said near the explosion, rates of 260 roentgens/hour were recorded from some smaller pieces of the reactor core. Also some of the radioactive cloud went over Ussuryiskyi Bay to the west, although it did not go as far as Vladivostok. Due to the new core there was a relative minimum of accumulated fission products. Thus the Navy officers claim there was little or no plutonium contamination. Also, the officers said the core was only enriched to 20 percent HEU, and so this minimized uranium-235 contamination. Finally, the officers said it was the third time for the reactor to be refuelled. They said this accounts for the pervasiveness of cobalt-60 as the remaining source of radiation today. Clean-up In terms of clean-up, for the highly radioactive materials, the Navy officers said a special military service with special equipment for clean-up was used. All the fuel elements which were thrown out, and other highly radioactive materials, were gathered by this special military service and put into specialized containers. The screen assembly which holds the fuel was taken out and a specialized container was created for it. These highly radioactive materials were transported by sea to a permanent burial site at Installation 927-III. The screen assembly and the clean-up of the radioactive materials was effected within 10 days of the accident, according to the Navy officers. The total volume of the screen assembly and the fuel which was disposed of was approximately 4 m3. The Navy officers said they are not sure about the total volumes of the high and medium level wastes since measurements were not taken in the first few days due to the hurry to eliminate the worst of the problem. In terms of contamination of the trace and the low-level waste, the Navy officers said the area of the trace where the roads pass through was fenced off, the access of the population was stopped for gathering berries and mushrooms, and radiation warning signs were posted. In order not to spread radiation by transporting contaminated materials over long distances, the officers said a temporary burial site in the trace was created in the first days after the accident. A spot was selected with the most mud, lack of ground water and water sources, most removed from mushroom gathering, yet close to the accident site. Five trenches were dug to the clay level, sand and mud, and cement and or asphalt were poured over the buried materials. A drainage system was dug around it. The officers said, some 2,000 m3 of material was gathered in the first 7-10 days, and in total 5,500 m3 of low-level waste was put into this area in the days and months following the accident. This material included contaminated clothes from the clean-up workers, sea weed from the territory of the Chazma facility, asphalt and sand, metal construction, etc. The site was surrounded by a triple fence of barbed wire, and clearly marked with radioactive warning signs. There is a second area in the trace zone which is used as a temporary dump site. The officers said it contains the roofs of buildings taken down after the accident. The situation today In terms of today, the officers admit the first burial site is no longer adequately cordoned off. The officers say this is because people keep stealing the fencing and marking signs. The military has "recreated" the site several times, sometimes using bulldozers to assist in clearing areas to re- setup barriers, but to no avail. As of October 1991, there were large holes in the barbed wire fencing, and warning signs are missing. The Navy plans to move the materials from the region of the temporary burial site to a permanent facility at Installation 927-III at the tip of the peninsula, according to the Navy officers. The clean-up of the burial area will commence towards the end of the year, in December-January, as soon as the construction for the permanent repository at the burial site at the tip of the peninsula is finished. The officers feel there is no sense in fixing up the temporary burial site again, as it soon will be moved. But although there are higher than background levels of radioactivity in the area, according to the officers, the situation in the trace zone is under control. In August 1991, the military did an extensive survey of the 6x2 km area which contains the radioactive trace (the area that has levels of activity higher than 60 micro-roentgens/hour is approximately 4.5 km x 200-300 m). Readings varied from a high of 800-1200 micro-roentgens/hour at the center of the trace, to 60-80 micro-roentgens/hour at the edges for gamma radiation (alpha and beta measurements were not available). Ninety-nine percent of the radioactivity is from cobalt-60. Seventy to eighty percent of the cobalt was in the top 10-15 cm of the ground though it was found as deep as 60 cm. The navy officers calculate that there is five curies/km2 now in the trace zone. In public access areas, the officers said, the levels of radiation are below what is permitted, and no radiation is leaching from the temporary dump site. In spring 1991, as the thaw was starting, the regional Hydromet office took samples around the burial site, and found no radioactivity in the water. The rest of the trace zone will be left to be decontaminated by natural decay of the radiation. The Navy officers estimate that it will take 50 years for the situation to return to normal (ten 5.26 year half-lives of cobalt-60). As for the disposal of the submarine and its reactor, the Navy officers vaguely said it would be disposed of along with the other decommissioned submarines awaiting disposal. As for the waters surrounding the accident, according to the Navy officers, there is no radiation in them. However, there are still contaminated sediments. In the sediments underneath the submarine at dockside, the August 1991 survey found levels as high as 117 milli-roentgens/hour gamma radiation. The officers admitted radioactivity is spreading outwards into the sediments of Strelok Bay. As for long term health effects, the officers said a medical survey of children was done in the settlements of Dunay and Temp. They said it found their health was unaffected by the accident. No information was available on the health of military or civilian workers used in the clean- up. Doubts about the Navy's reassurances A number of factors raise questions about the Navy officers optimistic attitude about the effects of the accident. Reports about high levels of radiation in the area after the accident, and the extent of the clean-up efforts suggest there is reason to be concerned about the health of military and civilian workers involved in the clean-up. A 25 October 1991 TASS account (see attached article), based on a report in Trud, describes extremely high levels of radiation in the area near the submarine. After the accident it was found that "radiation levels during the accident reached 90,000 roentgens per hour," and those who fought the fire resulting from the explosion or "happened to be nearby received at least 30 to 40 rems each." An 11 October 1991 report titled "Evaluation of Radiational Control and Radiological Situation for Shkotovo- 22" prepared by Vladivostok region military officers and civilian agencies also describes high levels of radiation in the area in the aftermath of the accident. The report says that thirty percent of the territory of Military Division 63971 (which contains the Chazma and the Bolshoi Kamen facilities) was contaminated by the accident. The average dosage in August 1985 was 200 milli-roentgens/hour gamma, and beta radiation was 200,000 decays/minute/cm2. Shards of the reactor and fuel in the area had levels of radiation of 30-40 roentgens/hour. According to the report, the clean-up eventually involved the removal of 5,000 m3 of contaminated materials and 760 tons of metal construction, deactivation of 2,100 m2 of metal construction and 34,000 m2 of roads with cement and asphalt tops. 400 m2 of docks were also decontaminated. According to residents of the area, civilian workers did participate in the clean-up, and received radiation doses. Some local people claimed clean-up workers were running in and out of the accident site picking up radioactive debris with their hands. (The Navy officers denied this. They said quick runs were only used to practice the attaching of lifting cables to the damaged reactor, and then to attach the cables.) One detailed eyewitness account was provided by the chief mechanic from the floating crane Vityaz (a civilian rescue vessel from the Far East Shipping Company) He recounted that at the time his vessel was given an emergency assignment in Chazma Bay, without being told the nature of this assignment. Their job was quite simple, he said. They were to approach the sub from the back and keep it afloat from the rear. The nose section was being supported by a Nakhodka ship, Bogatyr. The Vityaz crew was told there was a crack in the sub. The crack needed to be closed, and at the same time water in the sub needed to be pumped out. The mechanic said when they arrived the water was being pumped out of the sixth section containing the reactor, out of the top of the submarine, and directly into the waters of Chazma Bay. Because it was a hot August day, the Vityaz crewmen were walking around shirtless. He said the Navy sailors on the submarine also were also shirtless. Some of the sailors were sitting on the edge of the hole made by the reactor explosion and dangling their feet into the reactor space. On the second day the Vityaz was there, he said the second mechanic accidentally turned on the KP-5 dosemeter aboard the ship. The measuring equipment immediately went off scale, and because it is connected to the emergency mobilization equipment aboard the ship, a siren began to sound. At that point the captain of the ship, Kuznetzov, went to clarify with the Navy what they were dealing with. On the third day, he said the Vityaz received 14 sets of protective equipment and dosemeters, and explanations of how to avoid radioactive contamination. The Vityaz crew worked for a week, after which they had a dose measuring of the personnel. All of the spaces in the ship, such as the bridge and living spaces, were so contaminated it was impossible to take measurements there. The only part of the ship that was not contaminated was the machine compartment; nobody had entered this space because the ship was not underway. The crew was not told the amount of exposure they had received, he said, but they were told all the clothes they were wearing during the week had to be burned. Nothing about their work was recorded the ship's official medical log. In addition, the Vityaz crew had to sign a document swearing they would not say anything about the incident. The chief mechanic said that a friend of his who worked on the Vityaz as well, said the burial site contains nothing but the bits of fuel. The other pieces of metal and highly contaminated materials were dumped into a little lake next to the bay where the submarine exploded. Locals also complain that today it is not clear what is buried in the temporary waste site in the trace, the more contaminated spots in the trace are not adequately marked and/or sealed off, and that despite warnings people do wander through the burial site, gathering mushrooms and berries in the area. A 15 January 1991 letter by the Chief Radiologist of the Pacific Fleet, discussing the plans to move the temporary waste site suggest local residents have reason to be concerned. He notes that there is "no official data on the activity of materials" in the waste site, but that it may contain radioactive waste of "group III," i.e. more than 1000 milli-roentgens per hour. He said that when the site's fence was reconstructed in 1989, and the area was levelled with bulldozers, the burial site was opened and wastes of "group II," i.e. more than 30 milli-roentgens per hour, were extracted. He wrote, that until this "interference, the exposure dose on the surface of the burial site did not exceed 3.6 milli-roentgens per hour." In a visit to the burial site in mid-October, Greenpeace found that it is poorly fenced off, and there are trails through it. Levels of activity are in some places higher outside the burial site than at its edge. Some hot spots 30 meters from the temporary waste site registered almost 1700 counts per minute on a geiger counter (approximately 1 milli- rem/hour), while at boundary of the site it was only as high as 900-1000 counts per minute. This compares to a background of 13 counts per minute in the city of Vladivostok. A small lake off Chazma Bay next to the refit facility (mentioned above as having had contaminated materials dumped in it) had counts as high as 309 per minute on some parts of its shore. Local residents said children swim there in the summer, although it is forbidden to do so. There are no signs marking off the lake area as contaminated. The Navy officers downplayed the contamination to the sea-bed during the meetings. But, the 15 January 1991 letter says that a commission that worked during 3-10 December 1990 reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy that radioactive materials on the sea floor near dock #2, where the submarine exploded, pose the greatest "radiological danger to the environment." A survey in August 1989 found the situation at 125 meters from dock #2 to be "unsatisfactory." At 125 meters from the dock the level was 750 micro-roentgens an hour, and the letter says, "the total activity of the bottom silt is 8.6 * 10 -7 curie/kg, is 40 times higher than the background (2-3 * 10 -8 curie/kg)." The letter notes, "with the approach to the dock the radiational situation deteriorates rapidly, which indicates the presence of highly radioactive materials on the bottom." According to the 11 October 1991 report by regional military and civilian officials, radioactivity has been migrating outwards into Ruzboynik Bay and the western passage of Strelok Bay. Colbalt-60 has been detected as far away as Abrek Bay to the north and Konyushkova Bay in the south. The report says, the use of two floating drydocks and other vessel traffic is continuing to spread the radioactivity in the bottom sediments. The size of the accident and the magnitude of the clean- up would suggest some official monitoring of the health of the workers and residents of the area would have occurred. But, during Greenpeace's visit no such i( ' *ion was forthcoming. In fact, residents complain the health effects of the accident are being dismissed or covered- up. One worker at the plant at the time of the explosion recently complained to Soviet TV that doctors in the area do not attribute blood diseases to radiation exposure. Residents of the region say the examination of the children in the Dunay and Temp settlements was superficial and cannot be trusted. They also say that military personnel used in the clean-up were conscripts. Residents thought no effort had been made to track the health of these people after they were released from service. Secrecy and Suspicions As late as 1989 the military continued to deny a nuclear accident had occurred. In 1989, General Yazov, the then of the armed forces, told a Chazma plant worker who had witnessed the accident that it had not happened. In the summer of 1990 news about the accident finally began to appear in the Soviet press. On 17 July 1990 Izvestiya published an open letter to Fleet Admiral Chernavin by V. Perovskiy, former commander of the survivability division of the Leninskiy Komsomol, the first Soviet nuclear- powered submarine [translated in FBIS-SOV, 18 July 1990]. Perovskiy, in complaining about the safety of nuclear- powered submarines, noted their reactors are most dangerous during the refuelling process, and that the smallest mistakes can lead to serious consequences. He concluded, "How this all ends is well known from the tragic example of the refuelling of a Pacific Fleet submarine." Since then there have been other brief mentions in the Soviet press, most notably by Sobesednik (April 1991), which said it involved a thermal explosion of the reactor of submarine project 670 due to accidental removal of control rods from a reactor during refuelling. In the aftermath of the October 1991 Greenpeace visit, the Primorskii Chernobyl story has gained more attention. The Washington Post ran a story based on some of Greenpeace's findings, and the Soviet publication Trud also did, by Soviet standards, an extensive story providing new details about the accident (see attached Washington Post and TASS articles). Obviously, much more is now known about this accident and its aftermath. Yet, the history of secrecy or lies on the part of the military and the authorities has left local residents very suspicious of the Navy's account of the accident and its reassurances. Local residents were eager to have more and reliable information about the accident, particularly about the health effects on people in the area at the time of the accident, the clean-up workers, and the population living in the area. Other Submarine Accidents No other information about specific Pacific Fleet submarine accidents was forthcoming from the Navy officers. They denied reports about an accident which was rumored to have happened around 1988, where a submarine scrapped its bottom on rocks in the Peter the Great Bay and leaked radioactivity when it came into Bolshoi Kamen. However, further details were uncovered about the 1968 accident on board the liquid-metal cooled Northern Fleet submarine. One of the senior naval officers confirmed that the accident had happened. He added, that many men were severely irradiated, and many of the crew were retired after the accident. The captain of the submarine was quite "illiterate." After the accident, the crew had dinner as usual and proceeded back to base seemingly at a normal rate, and pulled up to the dock without any special precautions. Thus people at the dockside were also irradiated. He refused to explicitly confirm the reactor was subsequently dumped off Novaya Zemlya. But he said Greenpeace's description of its disposal was not entirely incorrect. He also noted, the frozen lead-bismuth coolant is a major alpha emitter. He said it can only be removed with a "hammer and chisel" type operation, hazarding workers with high levels of radiation. Submarine refuelling, decommissioning and radioactive waste disposal and contamination Refuelling The information provided about refuelling paralleled what Greenpeace learned in visits to Murmansk and Severodvinsk about the Northern Fleet. A refuelling ship comes along submarine and removes the spent fuel with a special crane apparatus. Fuel is temporarily stored in the refuelling ship. As soon as the storage area aboard the support ship is full, the spent fuel is offloaded to a coastal storage site. The length of time it is stored there, before it is shipped to Chelyabinsk for disposal, depends on when the reactor was stopped before refuelling. If it had been stopped a long time, then its activity is lower and so the fuel can be stored a shorter time, and if it was stopped just before refuelling then the fuel needs to be stored longer before shipment. To eliminate the release of aerosols when the top of the reactor is lifted, there is an apparatus which vacuums in the air around the top of the reactor. This air is filtered several times and then released into the atmosphere. The officers claimed that newer submarines have fuel that lasts the life of the submarine. Older submarines are refuelled every 5-10 years. Newer submarine fuel is in the form of cross-shaped rods. Older fuel is in the shape of round rods. Discussions with Moscow and Northern Fleet specialists in September 1991, indicated the fuel is enriched to the 40-60 percent range. The assistant chief of refuelling, however, insisted the reactors in the exploded Victor submarine were only 20 percent enriched. An officer from the chemical service said each reactor contained 47 kg of uranium-235, but he did not know what percentage of enrichment this represented. In terms of other refuelling techniques: Perovskiy in his Izvestiya letter claimed the refuelling methods used by the Soviet Navy were archaic and basically unchanged from thirty years ago. He wrote, "the chief protagonist when cores are being removed from reactors remains the sailor with a sledgehammer." The Navy officers said Perovskiy's letter was essentially correct, except sledgehammers only need to be used to knock lose stuck fuel rods or other material approximately one every ten times. They also noted this procedure is made more difficult when there have been accidents. They said approximately five submarines a year were refuelled a year between the Bolshoi Kamen and Chazma Bay facilities. Waste The assistant chief of the nuclear reactor refuelling section of the Pacific Fleet provided some information on the amount of waste generated by a single submarine during refuelling or decommissioning. He said the weight of liquid waste (coolant, washing waters, etc) from refuelling a twin- reactor submarine is 50-80 tons. Solid waste from refuelling a submarine has a volume of 15-20 cubic meters (this number includes resins from ion-exchangers, but not the fuel). The volume of the spent fuel is 2-3 cubic meters. Filtered washing waters are loaded aboard a support ship and are dumped at sea. One regional storage point for nuclear waste is at the tip of the Shkotovo peninsula, identified in military documents as Installation 927-III. According to the Navy officers, some storage areas are full at the facility, but others are still mostly empty. There are plans to expand the storage facilities to handle more waste. The new areas should be ready by 1995. It is unclear what other waste facilities exist in the region. The Navy officers confirmed that the Khabarovsk region has waste sites, and one added "There is a big area there which is a mess." They said, however, they were not concerned with it. Thus it is unclear whether these are wastes sites associated with the Sovetskaya Gavan or other Navy facilities, with other military facilities, or just "general" sites. Decommissioning The Navy officers said there are approximately 40 nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific Fleet which are awaiting decommissioning. They are stored in coves and bays in the area. At least some are at Bolshoi Kamen and Pavlovsk. Minimum crews are kept aboard them to assure they are kept afloat, and prevent radiation leakage. When asked about the 8 September 1990 Krasnaya Zvezda article discussing the decommissioning of submarines in the Pacific Fleet [translated in JPRS-UMA, 3 October 1990], the officers said this referred to activities at the Bolshoi Kamen facility. They said one submarine has already been broken up there. Its reactor compartments are stored at the plant awaiting a final plan to dispose of them. Details about future plans for dealing with decommissioned submarines were hard to come by. Partly this was due to the lack of plans. The Navy officers said the situation was being studied but no final plan had been decided. They said they had heard that President Gorbachev had proposed that 150-250 billion roubles would be needed to decommission the submarines, dispose of their waste, and clean-up the nuclear naval facilities. They did not think this money would be made available. They were very interested in U.S. decommissioning plans, and meeting their U.S. military counter-parts and experts to discuss the problem. Local residents, however, expressed concerns about what was going to be done with the decommissioned submarines. One plant worker at the Chazma Bay facility, told state TV that the military planned to turn their plant into the decommissioning center for Pacific Fleet submarines by 1993. She was concerned that another accident, like the 1985 explosion, might occur again. Radioactive safety and contamination This was a very difficult and confusing topic to pursue. The Navy officers claimed that no civilian workers at the Chazma or Bolshoi Kamen plants have exceeded the 5 rem limit per year. Seemingly this is because the submarine crew is responsible for normalizing the situation after an accident and also works on the overhaul and refuelling of a submarine. Questions about the exposure of military personnel and subsequent medical follow-up went unanswered. Questions about contamination or problems at Bolshoi Kamen, Chazma Bay, Installation 927-III, or Pavlovsk went unanswered. One naval officer, however, said the Pavlovsk submarine base was constructed in the 1960s without a thought to the future, and today it is an "ugly child." The Navy said prior to the 1985 the waters around Peter the Great Bay were free of any radioactivity beyond what occurred naturally, and today the situation is normal as well. Until 1989, the military took their own sediment samples and analyzed them. Now the Navy takes the samples and hands them over to the regional Hydromet office for analysis. The Hydroment also claim the situation is normal. Conclusions Radiophobia In the past five years, there has been a history of strong anti-nuclearism in the Primorskii and Khaborvosk regions. Local residents have: - stopped plans for a civil nuclear-power station in the Primorskii Territory; - opposed Navy plans to dismantle decommissioned submarines in the Sovetskaya Gavan area (which lead to cancellation of these plans); - criticized plans to offload reactor cores from decommissioned submarines in Vladimir Bay, a relatively unknown submarine facility, located between Vladivostok and Sovetskaya Gavan; - prevented the docking of the nuclear-powered merchant ship Sevmorput at several ports in the area; - protested the military's handling of the clean-up of the 1985 accident. There are no signs that this opposition is slacking off. One Bolshoi Kamen city people's deputy is planning to take the military to the State Arbitrator's office in the coming months to seek 2.3 million roubles for more clean-up of the 1985 accident, paving roads in the irradiated region, and social compensation for the people who live in the Shkotovo region. The military is very concerned about this "radiophobia." In general, the Soviet military is caught in a serious dilemma as it tries to reshape its role. To begin to regain the public trust, it needs to provide more information to the public about its past and present activities. But its past history of environmental degradation is so bad, the more information the military provides, the more angry the public may become. It is not clear how this dilemma will be resolved. Public concerns were one of the reasons Greenpeace was given unprecedented access and information about the 1985 accident. Local environmental officials expressed surprise about how much information was provided. But the Navy officers also feared this information would be further used to agitate the population. They were very reluctant to discuss any procedures or problems at other nuclear facilities in the region. Greenpeace's observations made over the past year in the Vladivostok region, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, Murmansk and Severodvinsk suggest that anti-nuclearism is alive and well in Russia. In so far as popular wishes play a role in post- Soviet politics, pronouncements by high elected leaders, well- known scientists, or other senior officials that a sizable, or even any, military nuclear infrastructure will be maintained either in Russia or other republics, must be treated with caution. There is another interesting development which may lead to more political pressure on the military. At least people in the Vladivostok region are beginning to understand the adverse impact of continued military spending on their well- being, and that resources from the military could be used to help the economy. As one local environmental committee member angrily noted, "Before they said there is no money, because we need to build submarines. Now they say there is no money, and they still continue to build submarines." The Soviet Submarine Fleet: Sinister or Struggling? A quite different view of the Soviet submarine threat is beginning to emerge. Rather than a sinisterly large submarine force, if the reports about accidents and enrichment levels of fuel are true, the Soviet Navy may have been struggling for many years just to keep an adequate number of submarines operational. Accidents One of the first group of 30 students graduated from military schools in 1958 to operate nuclear-powered submarines recently provided some interesting insights about the first Soviet nuclear-powered submarines to a Soviet reporter. The first four submarines -- K-3 Leninskiy Komsomol, K-8, K-5 and K-14 -- were constructed at the Severodvinsk yard. Only two were completed, and even then only poorly, when they were sent in 1958 from Severodvinsk to the partially completed base at "Zapadnaya Litsa" or Severomorsk-7. They had to leave without being properly completed in order to fulfil the plan. One of the submarines, the K-5 was given the nickname "Automat." If the submarine left the base, on average it took only one day to come back because of an accident, i.e. it automatically returned. The K-8 was dubbed "Half-Automat," because it spent on average two days at sea before it was forced to return due to malfunctions. Serious restrictions were put on their area of operations. The submarines were not supposed to operate more than 200 kilometers from the base. The 1985 accident was one of the worst of many accidents which have undermined the potency of the Soviet submarine fleet. Serious accidents have removed five submarines from the fleet. Three have sunk: a November in 1970, a Yankee in 1986, and the Mike in 1983. Two more are no longer operational: a raised Charlie-submarine which sank in 1983 and the exploded Victor submarine. Serious accidents continue to occur. A Typhoon ballistic missile submarine suffered a missile launch failure in the White Sea in late September 1991. With such a safety record, the Soviet Union's large nuclear-powered submarine fleet, either may have been constrained by its reliability, or, with its frequent accidents, may have been partially necessitated to keep an adequate number of reliable submarines at sea. The prospects for improvements in the future are not good. The naval officers in the Vladivostok region expressed special concern about more refuelling accidents. One Vladivostok region naval officer said, "in principle, and in practice," the possibility of accident like the 1985 disaster could not be excluded. With decreasing resources negatively affecting training and the availability of materials, the chances of accidents occurring may even increase. Fuel enrichment levels and refuellings Older submarines seemingly have much lower fuel enrichment levels than U.S. submarines. Experts in Moscow and the Northern Fleet indicated the fuel in older submarines is enriched to 40-60 percent uranium-235 (the newest subs reportedly have levels comparable to the U.S., i.e. greater than 90 percent). The 1985 accident Victor submarine's fuel reportedly was only enriched to 20 percent. Refuellings of submarines may occur much more frequently than in the west. The naval officers in Vladivostok said older submarines are refuelled every 5-10 years. But experts in Moscow and the Northern Fleet, said four years, and sometimes less, between refuellings is not atypical. The low level of enrichment of Soviet fuel casts a different light on the size and pattern of operations of the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine force, and its availability for operations. Other things being equal, such low levels of enrichment means a larger force of two reactor submarines with an average low operating tempo would be needed to keep a required number of adequately fuelled submarines at the ready. Conversely, subs that were operating at high levels, would be undergoing frequent refuellings, limiting their availability and increasing the chances they suffered a refuelling incident. =end=