TL: RADIATION DANGER ON THE ATLANTIC SEAFLOOR
SO: by Jochen Vorfelder (GP) Greenpeace Germany
DT: May 1992
Keywords: ussr russia nfs nuclear submarines accidents norway
radiation problems risks weapons reactors /
 [translated from German]
A Russian research ship will try to find out how the wreck of the
Komsomolets can be salvaged. The Soviet attack submarine sank in
April of 1989 off the coast of Norway with a load of nuclear
torpedoes and highly toxic plutonium in its reactor.

Kaliningrad at the end of May, 1992

When the marine biologist Vadzim Paka comes into his office in
the morning, he turns on his old IBM computer and loads his
calculation program with the newest rouble exchange rate.
Yesterday a dollar cost 100 roubles, today he has to fork out 110
roubles for the expensive currency. The depressing sums are a
signal that his institute is about to fold up: he is the director
of the Atlantic Division of the Oceanographic Institute in
Kaliningrad and in charge of five research ships, four of which
are tied up in the harbour for lack of money and fuel. His budget
for excursions abroad has dropped abysmally in the last months.
"Do you know anybody who wants to rent a research ship?", Paka
asks me. He knows I work for the environmental organization
Greenpeace.  "You must need a boat. We'll do any work for 10,000
dollars and diesel."

Inflation gallops. Nobody wants to pay for research anymore, so
right now only the Akademik Matislav Keldysh is out on the high
seas. In the middle of May, Russian Navy headquarters in Moscow
chartered Paka's flagship and put it under the military command
of Admiral Alexander Sokov until the end of June. He will be
directing the third reconnaissance of the Komsomolets, about 175
sea miles off the northwest coast of Norway: the largest under
water attack submarine of the former Soviet Navy, Typhoon class
with a titanium hull, 122 meters long, 12 meters wide and dis
placing 7,000 tons, has been lying 1600 meters deep on the Atlan
tic ocean floor since April 7, 1989, with 42 crew, nuclear torpe
does and two kilos of highly toxic plutonium in its propulsion
reactor.

The tragedy on the high seas was documented by fragments of
radio messages overheard by a Norwegian listening post: "Fire on
board... An explosion in the maschine room. Heavy list - we're
trying to surface..."  While the boat was operating underwater, a
fire caused by a short circuit in the electrical system broke out
around 3 a.m.; after 15 minutes the submarine surfaced. For five
and a half hours, the crew of the Komsomolets tried to put out
the fire and keep the boat on the surface. It was futile - of the
69 crew on board only those 27 seamen could be saved who had
survived the fire and rescued themselves in two inflatable is
lands at three to four degrees (centigrade) water temperature.
The sinking of the Komsomolets was only the most recent major
catastrophe involving a nuclear submarine. According to Green
peace research, at the beginning of 1991 there were not only 167
Soviet submarines, but also 122 American, 22 British and 11
French subs flying their respective flags. China has seven sub
marines and India has launched one Soviet model.

Some of these diving tubes can - if they are loaded accordingly -
fire off 20 intercontinental missiles, each carrying 10 nuclear
warheads.  This explosive power, more than 7,000 times that of
the  Hiroshima bomb, is enough to level 200 cities. But in
peacetime  it's not the weapons that are the primary cause for
concern, but  rather the nuclear propulsion systems using highly
developed  water pressure reactors that threaten land and sea.
Limited to  the smallest possible space, submarine reactors
operate with  extremely high temperatures using highly enriched
uranium 235.  The very dense nuclear charge in the core
considerably shortens  reaction time during an emergency. Since
the American Nautilus,  the first nuclear-propelled submarine to
cross the North Pole  underwater, launched the myth of "supple,
black and sinister",  these manned missile silos have written a
history of more than  one hundred known leaks, collisions, fires
and explosions.

How many nuclear submarines are really lying on the ocean floor
is still a military secret; only seven cases have reached the
public ear.  In April of 1963 the USS Thresher sank off the
American east coast with 169 crew on board; in 1968 the USS
Scorpion followed her down. In the same year the Soviets lost a
fully manned submarine near Hawaii. In 1970, a Soviet attack
submarine was in distress 300 sea miles northeast of Spain; its
nuclear propulsion system had broken down. The boat had to be
abandoned. The next Soviet Navy boat disappeared in June 1983
east of Petropavlovsk near the Pacific Kamchatka Peninsula; for
mysterious reasons, with no radio contact. Three years later, in
October of 1986, a Soviet submarine with two nuclear torpedoes
sank 600 sea miles northeast of Bermuda. Both boats, their crews,
their nuclear weapons and their reactors disappeared without a
trace.

Since 1989, two research voyages that were accompanied by the
Keldysh have documented exactly where the Komsomolets lies. "The
wreck has bored its bow deep into the mud, the stern juts out at
an angle and is lying on rocks", explains Vadzim Paka. Through
the extreme temperature differences between fire and seawater
while the boat sank, its titanium hull has apparently burst in
several places. It is this damage, which has considerable
influence on the stability of the hull, that the technicians on
board the Keldysh want to examine. The Keldysh is equipped with
two mini-submarines that, with a crew of three, can dive 6000
meters deep and inspect the damage to the Komsomolets through a
glass shield. It's a open question whether their mission will be
successful: the mini-subs will contend with a seabed current that
flows at a rate of three meters per second. It's completely dark
around the wreck, even searchlights don't illuminate more than
five to ten meters ahead.

The dives are dangerous for another reason too. "We don't know
what the water pressure at this depth has done to the casing of
the torpedoes and the watertightness of the reactor", Wadzim
Paka reflects, although he doesn't want to know if radioactivity
has already percolated out of the nuclear grave. Other scientists
are more sure: Torolf Berthelsen, a Norwegian radiologist, was on
board the Keldysh during its last reconnaissance trip in August
1991. He reports that the radioactive decay products cesium 134
and cesium 137 were found in higher concentrations in the
sediment around the Komsomolets. The concentrations could only
come from the leaky reactor; but the strong underwater current
allows no conclusions on the length and intensity of radiation
that threatens one of the main fishing grounds of Norway and the
EC.

Amongst naval circles in Moscow, where in the meantime underwater
photos of the Komsomolets are being passed around, 1995 is
considered the latest date for salvaging the submarine. Of the
present plans to prevent the threatening plutonium contamination,
Vadzim Paka says: "We have two alternatives, both of them will be
checked out after the Keldysh voyage. I'm expecting a decision in
the fall."  Along with the Russian Navy Ministry, the Netherlands
salvage firm Smit Tak is involved in one of the alternatives.
Smit Tak, known for its salvaging of the British ferry Herald of
Free Enterprise in Zeebrugge, suggests that a hugh floating crane
lower a metal construction that is packed around the submarine
like a corset, and that brings up the wreck meter for meter until
it's just below the surface. Then it's towed underwater to a
harbour. This has its dangers. In 1975, the United States tried
to salvage a Soviet submarine from the Pacific seafloor in the
same way. Halfway up, the wreck broke apart and dropped to the
bottom again. The British submarine specialist John Large, who
analyzed the Smit Tak plan for Greenpeace, said: "The idea is
extremely dangerous, but still better than leaving the
Komsomolets where it is. If the two kilos of plutonium are
released down there, it will have a catastrophic effect on the
food chain of the North Atlantic."

In the meantime, the Russian government is being diplomatically
pressured by Norway, concerned about its fishing grounds, to do
something and to accept the Netherlands offer as soon as
possible. But Moscow hesitates: Smit Tak has calculated that the
whole operation, lasting 18 months, would cost about 300 million
- not roubles, but US dollars. Vadzim Paka says: "Look at the
inflation. Where do we get currency like that from?"  It's clear
to him that nothing will happen without foreign assistance and
that the Komsomolets will lie where it is for awhile yet. But out
of the corner of his eye he looks at his tied up fleet and says
sadly: "Wouldn't they need a ship like the Keldysh for such an
operation?"

[Greenbase Inventory July 1, 1992 ]

=======##=======