Completion and commissioning of the first integrated SNF transshipment/interim storage facility in NW Russia

Large quantities of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) located in Northwest Russia pose environmental and physical security risks to the surrounding Arctic Region. The majority of the SNF in this region is from decommissioned Russian nuclear naval submarines and the Russian civilian icebreaker fleet. The majority of this fuel still remains onboard submarines or is being stored on floating storage vessels or in onshore storage facilities in Northwest Russia. Most of the existing Russian storage facilities, built during the cold war, in Northwest Russia do not meet current health, safety, and physical security requirements. Existing Russian transport infrastructure and reprocessing facilities cannot meet the requirements for moving and reprocessing all of this fuel. Some of the SNF is damaged or is a type that cannot currently be reprocessed. Additional infrastructure and interim storage capacity is required. The removal, handling, interim storage, and shipment of the fuel pose technical, ecological, and security challenges. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction and the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, has working closely with the Russian Federation (RF) Ministry of Defence and the RF Ministry of Atomic Energy (now the RF Federal Atomic Energy Agency) to develop an integrated management system for interim storage of SNF in NW Russia. Under the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Program a two-part project has been completed. The first, the development and licensing of dual-purpose, transport and storage SNF cask was completed in 2000. The second part, the design, construction, and commissioning of an interim-storage transshipment storage facility for the casks is scheduled for total completion in 2005. Completion of this project provides an environmentally sound, physically secure, and accountable integrated solution for expediting the removal and transfer of SNF from decommissioned RF submarines and other storage facilities in the NW Russian Arctic to PO "Mayak" in central Russia or other long-term storage facilities. This SNF management system is equally applicable to the RF Far East Naval Facilities.