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Ecodefense
PRESS-RELEASE
Moscow, October 27, 2004
THOUSANDS OF RUSSIANS DEMAND TO HALT HUNGARIAN NUCLEAR WASTE' EXPORT TO RUSSIA
TODAY Russian environmental groups and 5,000 residents of Chelyabinsk region urged newly appointed Hungarian prime-minister Ferenc Gyurcsany to halt plans of exporting spent nuclear fuel (high-level radioactive waste) to Russia. Appeal signed by thousands of residents from Russian city of Chelyabinsk, where foreign spent fuel reprocessed at disastrous nuclear facility "Mayak", has been presented today at Moscow' Independent Press-center.
On April 29, 2004 - a day before Hungary was joining European Union - authorities of Russia and Hungary signed special protocol allowing future'
contracts in field of spent nuclear fuel. In 2003, Russian and Hungarian nuclear industries started discussion over new contract to transport 1500 ton of spent nuclear fuel to "Mayak". Presently, this deal is delayed under public pressure. In 2002, Russian Supreme Court ruled that last shipment of spent nuclear fuel from Hungary occurred in 1998 was illegal under current legislation.
In 20th century, spent nuclear fuel from Hungarian nuclear plant Paks was repeatedly transported to Soviet Union, and later Russia, for reprocessing and extraction of plutonium. Radioactive waste of reprocessing was partly dumped into open lakes and rivers near "Mayak" through the last 25 years - that caused wide-spread environmental catastrophe. Reprocessing' waste which still stored at this facility have total radioactivity over 1 billion Ci - an equivalent to 20 Chernobyl radioactive releases. Nuclear industry was not able to develop safe technology for utilization of that waste.
In 1996, Finland stopped shipments of spent nuclear fuel to "Mayak" on environmental ground. In 2001, after Russian authorities approved new legislation allowing nuclear industry to import spent nuclear fuel, Germany and USA also rejected Russian proposal on importing foreign high-level radioactive waste. According to the public poll conducted by ROMIR (Gallup group), nearly 92% of Russians opposed to spent fuel import.
"Ecodefense urge new Hungarian prime-minister to make no mistakes of predecessors, and follow example of other civilized countries which rejected an offer to export nuclear waste to Russia. Solving problem of own waste at the cost of lives of Russian people is cynical policy which, we hope, will be avoided by new Hungarian government", said Vladimir Slivyak of Ecodefense, Russian environmental group that was among initiators of the mass appeal to Hungarian prime-minister.
"Many Chelyabinsk residents have been exposed to dangerous radiation in the past and that's why we have always been speaking against nuclear waste import to Russia. In 2002, Supreme Court confirmed that last shipment of Hungarian nuclear waste was illegal. And we demand that such shipments never happen again", said Andrey Talevlin of "Pravosoznanie", environmental group from Chelyabinsk city.
"Sending nuclear waste to Russia would effectively mean that opinion of 92% of our citizens ignored. But I hope that Hungary, as new member of European Union, will respect basic democracy principles, human rights and public opinion of Russians", said Svet Zabelin, member of Russian President'
commission on human rights, and co-chairman of the Socio-Ecological Union International.
For more information in Moscow +7(095) 7766281, 7766546, 2784642
e-mail: ecodefense@online.ru http://www.antiatom.ru
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