Radioactive Waste in the Nordic and Far East Seas; a Soviet Legacy with International Environmental and National Security Repercussions.

摘要

Between 1959 and 1991, the Soviet Union engaged in an aggressive initiative to design, develop, and deploy nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs in support of national security objectives. The single-minded approach of the Soviet's nuclear effort, and the urgency of their developments rejected any considerations of cost: financial, human, or environmental. As a result, radioactive waste management received virtually no attention, and nuclear waste disposal was conducted in a criminally negligent fashion. Deliberate dumping of numerous Soviet civilian and military nuclear reactors into the Northern and Far East Seas; radioactive waste leak-off from Russian nuclear reactors like those at Silamae and Paldiski, Estonia, into the Baltic Sea; and liquid/solid radioactive waste dumping into several of the world's oceans have created an environmental legacy that will affect all nations who use those waters for commerce, transportation, and recreation. Despite a growing body of evidence that unimpeded radioactive waste dumping is ecologically unsafe, the existence of several prohibitory international treaties to which the USSR/Russian Federation has agreed, and an expanding list of nuclear reactor accidents, the Russian Federation has elected to continue operating the nuclear power program it inherited from the Soviet Union in a 'business as usual' manner. Continued Russian radioactive waste dumping at sea will provoke regional tensions amongst the Arctic countries, exacerbate tenant/landlord relationships and fears within the former Soviet Republics in the Baltics, and force aggressive Japanese economic and defense counteraction in the Far East. A clear understanding of the sources of Soviet and Russian radioactive pollution, the international legal framework on nuclear waste dumping, and scientific assessments of its ecological impacts will allow the U.S. to determine what policy initiatives it will pursue to resolve the issue of Russian nuclear waste dumping at sea.