12-07

In September 1996, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Norwegian Minister of Defence, and the Russian Minister of Defence launched a cooperative effort called Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC). They signed a historic Declaration calling for contacts and cooperation among the parties to jointly address critical concerns in the Arctic. AMEC is a forum for dialogue and joint activities among U.S., Norwegian, and Russian military and environmental officials. AMEC Project 1.4 involves the application of Western technologies to supplement Russian technologies in the Russian Navy’s task of storing solid radioactive waste from decommissioned submarines. This project was approved in December 1996, and is currently in the demonstration phase. The U.S., Norwegian, and Russian Project Managers have decided to demonstrate three technologies: a coating for concrete and metal; waste storage and transportation containers; and various materials used in handling and storage, such as disposable clothing. If these technologies are successfully demonstrated in the environmental conditions of the Russian Arctic, then the U.S. and Norway plan to work with Russia to implement these solid waste management technologies on a larger scale.

On July 31, 1991, President George Bush of the United States (U.S.) and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union signed the START I Treaty. This treaty entered into force on December 5, 1994, and the U.S. and the former Soviet republics, including Russia, are now actively engaged in implementing the provisions of the treaty, which require each side to reduce the size of its deployments down to 6,000 strategic warheads. The elimination of weapon delivery systems necessary to comply with the treaty must be carried out by the end of 2007.

On January 3, 1993, Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the START II Treaty between the U. S. and the Russian Federation. This treaty has been ratified by the U.S. Senate and is under consideration by the Russian Duma. If it is ratified and enters into force, then both sides will further reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 3,500 each.

In order to satisfy the START I Treaty provisions and verification requirements, Russia is reducing the number of its deployed strategic weapon systems across the board, including its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). As the number of SLBMs is reduced, the number of submarines for launching them are also being reduced. All of these submarines are nuclear-powered, so their dismantlement or conversion to other missions represents a major source of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste for the Russian Navy.

In addition to the submarines being dismantled under the START I Treaty, the Russian Navy is also dismantling other nuclear-powered submarines as they reach the end of their design lives or as the Navy decides they are no longer necessary. As of June 1996, some 80 nuclear submarines had been removed from service in the Russian Northern Fleet,¹ but about 50 are still awaiting defueling,² which is the first non-arms-related step in the dismantling process. Adding to the complexity of this decommissioning program is that a proportion of this backlog of non-defueled vessels has been stored afloat for 5-10 years or more after being taken out of service.³ If the START II Treaty enters into force, the Russian Navy will dismantle even more nuclear-powered submarines.

The Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) is responsible for spent fuel and radioactive waste management in Russia. Historically, when the Russian Navy generated spent fuel and radioactive waste, Minatom or its predecessor ministries would take these materials from the Navy for safe, secure management. On several occasions, however, large amounts of radioactive waste and damaged spent fuel were disposed of at sea, a practice which has now ceased for environmental and political reasons. The relationship between the Russian Navy and Minatom (or its predecessor ministries) functioned fairly well until the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s. This created a financial crisis in the new Russian Federation, which caused Minatom to gradually slow its receipts of spent fuel and radioactive waste to a trickle.

Thus, for most of the 1990s, the Russian Navy has been struggling with vastly increased spent fuel and waste generation rates and vastly decreased spent fuel and waste management support services from Minatom. The result has been a rapid accumulation of radioactive materials on Russian naval bases.

Most of the spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste has accumulated in northwest Russia, at the naval bases on the Kola Peninsula. The estimated quantities of radioactive materials are as follows: up to approximately 24,000 spent fuel assemblies; 7,000 cubic meters of liquid low-level waste; and approximately 8,000 cubic meters of solid low-level radioactive waste. ^1,4 Another reference gives a higher estimate for the liquid waste: 12,400 cubic meters, with 70 percent of that volume being low-level liquid radioactive waste and 30 percent being medium-level liquid radioactive waste.⁵ The average generation rate for solid radioactive waste is about 1,000 cubic meters per year.¹ Most of this spent fuel and radioactive waste is stored at Andreeva Bay,⁴ which is on the west side of the Litsa Fjord, near the Norwegian border. In addition to the Russian Navy, several other official agencies inside Russia recognize these materials and their storage conditions as priorities.⁶

Recognizing that the Russian Navy’s radioactive materials represent the potential for negative impacts on the Arctic environment, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Norwegian Minister of Defence, and the Russian Minister of Defence signed the Declaration on AMEC on September 26, 1996. This Declaration called for contacts and cooperation among the parties to jointly address military environmental concerns in the Arctic. AMEC is a trilateral forum for dialogue and joint activities among U.S., Norwegian, and Russian military and environmental officials.

The AMEC program traces its origins to Norway. In 1989, accidents on two Soviet nuclear submarines in the Norwegian Sea were widely publicized in Norway. Media attention was later also directed to the nuclear waste situation at Soviet Navy bases as well as Soviet civilian nuclear installations on the Kola peninsula. After assessing the situation, the Norwegian Government issued a Plan of Action in 1995 focusing on: i) safety at nuclear installations; ii) treatment, storage and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel; iii) radioactive pollution of the Northern areas; and iv) weapons-related environmental risks. Priority was given to initiatives in northwest Russia that would gain wide international cooperation both technologically and economically. A recognition of the need to involve the military establishment of Russia motivated the development of a separate agreement between the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the Russian Ministry of Defence, and the U.S. Department of Defense. The successful establishment of AMEC, therefore, has given an opportunity to address several waste management issues arising in the arms reduction process, hopefully improving environmental security and relieving public concern. In addition to AMEC, the Norwegian Government is sponsoring important nuclear safety related projects in direct cooperation with Russia and in cooperation with the European Commission and individual European Union member countries.

Although the AMEC program is still fairly young, this initiative appears to be somewhat analogous to the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. The CTR program is a series of bilateral agreements between the U.S. and several nations which were formerly part of the Soviet Union, including Russia. The agreements are designed to provide financial assistance to these nations primarily for the purpose of eliminating weapons in accordance with the commitments of the START I Treaty. The CTR program may expand its work in Russia if the START II Treaty enters into force. Thus, the CTR and AMEC programs both relate to the START treaties, either directly or indirectly, and they both involve safe reductions in Russian weapons systems. The CTR program has investigated U.S. and Russian technologies for practical application in Russia and is now in the implementation phase. Although the AMEC program will be much smaller than the CTR program, it may develop along similar lines.

The AMEC dialogue officially began with the Declaration in 1996 and has continued through numerous meetings. The dialogue has produced plans for joint activities, which are organized into projects. Six AMEC project plans have been approved since the Declaration was signed, as shown in Table I.

Project	Project Number
Development and Manufacture of a Prototype Container for Spent Naval Nuclear Fuel	1.1
Design and Construction of Treatment Systems for Solid Radioactive Wastes Generated and Accumulated During the Decommissioning of Russian Nuclear Submarines	1.3
Advanced Interim Solid Radioactive Waste Storage Technologies	1.4
Cooperation in Radiation Safety	1.5
Remediation Methods for Released Materials at Arctic Military Sites	2.1
Design and Construction of a Vessel for Collection and Processing of Waste Discharges from Navy Ships	2.2

Project 1.4 began at the first AMEC technical experts’ meeting in Moscow in November 1996, during initial discussions of the challenges facing the Russian Navy. The three project officers drafted an initial project plan and submitted it for approval by the AMEC Principals. The project was approved on December 19, 1996. The objective of the project is to identify and transfer technologies for solid radioactive waste storage to the Russian Navy.

Information on a variety of relevant technologies was collected and discussed at the next AMEC technical experts’ meeting in Dombo s, Norway in February 1997. In May 1997, the U.S. issued an invitation for a Project 1.4 experts’ meeting in the U.S. to study existing U.S. technologies. The Norwegian delegation then made a similar offer, and the meeting was scheduled for June 1997. A group of experts from the Russian Navy visited solid radioactive waste storage facilities in Norway and the U.S. from June 20 through June 27, 1997.

At this meeting, the U.S. and Norwegian parties presented specific, practical technologies for consideration and the Russian party selected three in particular as being the most useful in the near term. The three delegations agreed that Norway and the U.S. would purchase the following types of materials, equipment, and services and deliver them to Russia:

Also at this meeting, the parties further agreed to a one-year demonstration phase, with quarterly reports to be written the by Russian participants. Shortly after this meeting, the Department of Energy decided to procure the first technology above, and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment decided to procure the second and third technologies above. The U.S. may also perform some laboratory tests on the first technology.

The next AMEC technical experts’ meeting took place in Brookhaven, New York in September 1997. At this meeting, the participants made progress by establishing a schedule and naming implementing entities, which will sign contracts and execute the transfer of the technologies. The technical experts also decided that the location for the one-year technology demonstration will be Andreeva Bay, the Russian Navy site with the largest inventory of solid radioactive waste.

On the Russian side, the state-owned company Nuklide, which is part of Minatom, is the implementing entity. The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment is the implementing entity in Norway, and Brookhaven National Laboratory is the implementing entity in the U.S. The U.S. procurement process began with the issuance of a Request For Quotations on November 4, 1997, and a vendor contract followed in December 1997. Another contract also was signed between the U.S. and Russian implementing entities in December 1997. The Norwegian procurement process is also moving forward. Vendors of solid radioactive waste containers, respiratory protection gear, and disposable anti-contamination clothing have already been selected for the limited quantities included in the demonstration phase.

The three technologies are scheduled to be delivered to northwest Russia in May 1998 and the demonstration phase will begin at that time. Nuklide, in collaboration with the Russian Navy, will write four quarterly reports on how well the technologies perform under actual operating conditions in the Arctic environment. The format and technical content of these reports are still being developed. The demonstration phase is scheduled to be finished in the spring of 1999.

The future course of AMEC Project 1.4 could take several directions. If the demonstration phase is judged by all parties to be successful, then the U.S. and Norway may opt to procure larger quantities of the three types of technologies listed above for delivery to the Russian Navy. Other technologies may also be investigated. If the three parties agree that any new technology has a high probability of providing practical benefits, then it could be included in a future demonstration phase. In addition, the Russian Navy has expressed interest in constructing a new modular building for storage of solid radioactive waste. U.S. and Norwegian engineering firms are cooperating with Russian design institutes on the conceptual design of such a facility. In a pending governmental agreement between Norway and Russia, the Andreeva Bay Navy Base has been identified as a likely site for such a new facility.

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, under Contract Number DE-AC22-94PC92100, and by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Defence, under the Norwegian Government Plan of Action for Nuclear Safety Issues contract RUSS 7224.