Russia plans to remove radioactive subs, reactors from its Arctic sea floor
Alugoro Submarine (Antara / A Malik Ibrahim).
MOSCOW, Aug 6, 2020, Fox News. Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom is planning to remove the most dangerous radioactive items from the country’s Arctic seafloor, according to a media report, New York Post reported.
State news agency TASS reports that the six most radioactive items will be removed from the seafloor over the next 8 years.
The objects include the sunken parts of an icebreaker, reactors with spent nuclear fuel and nuclear submarines, according to TASS.
Citing Rosatom, TASS reported that the objects create 90% of the background radiation in the Russian Arctic. A spokesperson for the Russian state atomic energy corporation told TASS that these include reactors with spent nuclear fuel from the submarines K-11, K-19 and K-140, the intact subs K-27 and K-159 and spent nuclear fuel from the icebreaker “Lenin.”
Rosatom did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.
On its website, Russia’s nuclear submarine decommissioning organization puts the cost of raising the six objects at 278 million Euros ($327.8 million).
Environmental organization the Bellona Foundation recently reported that nuclear officials from Norway and Russia have met online to discuss raising sunken nuclear subs in the Arctic. Most of the subs were deliberately scuttled by the Soviet military during the Cold War, according to the Oslo-based non-profit organization. K-159 was being towed to a scrapyard when it sank during a storm in the Barents Sea on Aug. 30, 2003, according to Getty. Nine crew members died in the sinking.
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