News of Norway, June 23, 2003
The first measure took place in the United States Senate, where the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously voted to spend US$17 billion on international assistance programs. The second measure occurred in Stockholm, Sweden, where ten nations signed the so-called MNEPR agreement, which makes it easier for countries including Norway and the United States to secure nuclear waste in Russia’s Northwest.
Radiation and terrorism - Vital threats
Why are these two events important for the future of the planet? Radiation and terrorism.
When the Cold War ended, the world was in many ways a more dangerous place than when the Soviet Union was still ruled under one government. When the union dissolved in 1990, its many nuclear plants, storehouses, facilities and vehicles were scattered across several young nations.
Thirteen years later, the former Soviet nations are starting to gain control over the radiological material, but help is still needed from other countries. Not only because the material is highly toxic, but also because nuclear waste can be used by terrorists to create so-called “dirty bombs.”
“Russian stockpiles of weapons and materials are the most likely source for terrorists attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” says U.S. Senator Dick Lugar (R-Ia).
“Destroying these weapons at the source is imperative to our national security.”
Together with former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, a democrat from Georgia, Senator Lugar has worked non-stop since the end of the Cold War to prevent nuclear weapons and materials from falling into the wrong hands.
In 1991 their initiative, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, became law. Since then, the program has deactivated more than six thousand nuclear warheads. More than 22,000 scientists formerly employed in producing weapons of mass destruction have been employed in new, more peaceful, fields of industry.
An urgent matter
But there is still work to be done.
“Continuing the program is important to do as quickly as possible for national security and cost reasons,” says Lugar.
Which brings us back to May 21 and the two events that occurred on that day. Senator Lugar, head of the Foreign Relations Committee, initiated the approval of the US$17 billion international assistance deal. The passage of the legislation was in fact historic – it had been 18 years since the last time the Committee unanimously approved of the agenda for American foreign policy spending.
Among the projects planned through the legislation, which has yet to be approved by the Senate, is a plan to spend US$15 million on changing nuclear fuel in the many lighthouses on the Northern coast of Russia.
Norway has long had an interest in removing the dangerous batteries from the more than 1,000 lighthouses stretching from the Kola Peninsula to Vladivostok. So far, the country has spent a little more than US$1 million on replacing nuclear fuel at five such lighthouses with sun-powered cellular panels.
“A strontium battery from such a lighthouse measures only around 30 by 10 centimeters and weighs about 30lbs,” Per-Einar Fiskebeck, a staffer in the environmental section of the Regional Commissioner’s office in the northern Norwegian province of Finnmark told the local newspaper Sør-Varanger.
“Now wrap this battery in some dynamite, and you have a terror bomb. It would probably not kill many people, but it would destroy an area completely through the radioactive exposure.”
Staff from Senator Lugar’s office visited northern Norway in August last year and in January this year, where they were informed of the threat posed by the lighthouses.
International challenges - International solutions
The second measure taken on May 21 involved cooperation between Russia and the countries that wish to help control the radiological waste and weapons. Until recently, the Russian government insisted on taxing disarmament equipment brought into the country.
This tax, set at up to 20 percent, prevented many governments and NGOs from sending equipment to Russia. After four years of debate, the issue was finally resolved by the signing of the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program for Russia (MNEPR) by nine European countries and the United States. The agreement nullifies Russian value-added tax and opens the door for interested parties to help solve Russia’s nuclear problems.
“The signing will be a milestone in the work concerning nuclear safety in our close vicinity,” said Norwegian State Secretary Kim Traavik.
“We will now have a legal framework that will indicate how we can conduct the multilateral initiatives in Russia concerning nuclear safety. This will strengthen the international initiatives on things like destroying nuclear submarines, securing radiological material and removing used uranium fuel and radiological waste from former military bases and storage facilities,” he said.
Environmental hazards
One of the key focal points for the Norwegian government concerns the destruction of nuclear submarines. Many of these rusty submarines have been out of use for decades. Some of the submarines docked in Murmansk, close to the Norwegian border, function as storage facilities for nuclear waste.
The potential threat to the fish banks north of Norway is one of the reasons why Norwegian government officials and NGOs are working hard to rid Russia of these environmental hazards. So far, Norway has agreed to finance the destruction of two decaying submarines in Andrejev Bay on the Kola Peninsula.
According to the Norwegian environmental group Bellona, there are 191 laid-up nuclear submarines in Russia, 115 of them located at the Northern Fleet bases close to the Norwegian border. 130 reactor cores are still onboard the retired submarines. For the last 20 years, spent nuclear fuel from these 115 submarines has been kept at two temporary storage facilities.
A change of attitude
With the signing of the MNEPR agreement, Russia is taking a step toward allowing others to help the country solve the problem of the retired, potentially dangerous submarines.
“We have seen a change of attitude from the Russian government,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen said at a seminar in Washington, D.C. in April this year.
“They are now showing a greater degree of openness, and they acknowledge the enormous problems they have to deal with and the importance of international cooperation.”
Since 1995, Norway has spent around US$100 million on securing the nuclear threat in Northwest Russia. For 2003, the government is planning to spend an additional US$18 million.
On a mission to increase nuclear safety
Other members of the international community are also opening their wallets to deal with the problem. In June 2002, members of the G8 countries met in Kananaskis, Canada, where they pledged an astounding US$20 billion over the next ten years to help Russia address its nuclear problems.
Tagged “The G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” the initiative committed the members to “prevent terrorists, or those that harbor them, from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons; missiles; and related materials, equipment and technology.”
Norway, having been active in working with Russia’s nuclear threat for some time, has been invited by the G8 nations to participate in the initiative.
“We will now be able to participate in coordinating a broad international initiative aiming at increasing nuclear safety in places like the Kola Peninsula,” said State Secretary Traavik.
Many challenges remain in Northwest Russia before the threat will disappear.
“There are literally dozens more environmental and non-proliferation projects to pursue before so much as a dent is made in the Soviet nuclear legacy,” claims Charles Digges of Bellona.
After May 21, we are two steps closer to removing the threat.