Background

Zvezda is a state enterprise also known as “The Star” situated in the small town of Bolshoy Kamen, a closed city of approximately 41200, is situated on the west side of the Shkotovo Peninsula, about 35 kilometers east of Vladivostok. Bolshoy Kamen is situated on the coast of the Japanese Sea, which is the most southern of Russia’s far-east seas. The shores of the Japanese Sea are predominantly mountainous including the Sihote Alin, West Sahalin, and East Korean mountain chains.

Wind direction is from land to the Pacific Ocean in the winter and vice versa in the summer producing small amounts of snow in the winter and warm and humid summers. The average temperature in January ranges from –12 to –24°C and in July from 14 to 21°C. The annual precipitation is 600 to 900 mm.
 

Figure 1. Map of the Bolshoy Kamen Region


Bolshoy Kamen has two plants built to service nuclear-powered submarines, the Zvezda and Vostok shipyards, and it supports submarine service and nuclear waste transport ships. The Zvezda shipyard was included in a 1996 list of 480 Russian defense enterprises for which privatization was prohibited. While the Zvezda shipyard continues to refuel, repair, decommission, and dismantle nuclear submarines, the Vostok shipyard has undergone defense conversion. The Vostok shipyard once outfitted nuclear-powered submarines constructed at Komsomolsk-na-Amure, but after cessation of production at Komsomolsk-na-Amure, Vostok turned to commercial ventures. At the Zvezda site, nuclear powered submarines are continued to be serviced, repaired, and decommissioned.

Problem Description

There are a number of activities at the Zvezda site that have the potential for releasing significant amounts of radiation into the environment with a wide regional impact:

1)    Zvezda Far Eastern Shipyard's primary tasks involve the repair and dismantlement of nuclear submarines. Decommissioning and dismantlement of nuclear-powered submarines consists of the following stages:

a.       removal of the submarine from active status;

b.      removal of missiles;

c.      extraction of the spent nuclear fuel and disconnecting of nuclear reactor circuits; transport

         of spent fuel for reprocessing;

d.      containment of the low- and high-level radioactive wastes;

e.      dismantlement of the ballistic missile launch tubes (for SSBNs);

f.       removal and recovery of reusable equipment and metals;

g.      separation of the reactor compartment from the rest of the hull;

h.      sealing of the reactor compartment for long term storage;

i.       and scrapping of the remaining parts.

2)    The Zvezda shipyard also houses underground storage facilities for liquid radioactive waste. In the mid-1990s, serious problems arose at the    facility due to inadequate capacity and a lack of filtration equipment to reduce the volume of the liquid wastes from submarines. These problems were addressed by the construction of ship- and land-based liquid and solid radioactive waste processing facilities. The site has the capacity to process approximately 3000 m³ of liquid radioactive waste (LRW) and 200 m³ of solid radioactive waste (SRW) annually. Four types of liquid solutions are processed: Reactor Primary Loop Coolant, Biological Shielding Water (water is used for radiation shielding purposes on Russian submarines), a mixture of the aforementioned solutions (which includes organic-based decontamination solutions), and Radiological Laundry Wash/Rinse Water  (from the uniform washing facility).  Three types of SRW are handled: Combustible Waste (e.g., rags, protective clothing), Plastic-like Material (e.g., hoses, cable), and Metal (e.g., metal scrap). Tritium (H-3) and fission products (e.g. Cs-137) constitute a significant fraction of all waste types.

3)      Sufficient spent fuel handling and storage capabilities are required to enable environmentally safe submarine decommissioning. A new spent fuel handling and temporary storage facility is being completed at the Zvezda shipyard that will significantly reduce the environmental risks associated with the site.  Despite this new facility, inadequacies in spent fuel storage space persists because of the slow pace of Russia's submarine decommissioning and transfer of the spent fuel to the RT-1 reprocessing facility at Mayak.  It is estimated that it takes three to five years before all spent fuel is removed from a decommissioned, laid-up submarine.  This problem has caused decommissioned submarines and service ships in the Russian Far East to become long-term de facto spent fuel storage facilities.

In short, the large inventory of nuclear materials and accumulated fission products, combined with complexities of decommissioning, waste storage, and disposal raise the possibility of a major nuclear incident.

Proposed Transparency Project

One approach for alleviating the regional concerns regarding the nuclear activities at Zvezda and to increase confidence in operational capabilities of the site is to deploy a number of radiation monitors around the site that relay their data automatically to a central data bank. After processing and review, the data could be posted on a web site to demonstrate transparency of the site nuclear activities. The process may be started using a password controlled web site until confidence is gained in instrument performance and the environmental background is established.

A preliminary arrangement of detectors, as shown in figure 2, would consist of two buoyed detectors located at the entrance to the Bolshoy Kamen bay, two air monitoring stations on the North West and South East sides of the facility, and effluent monitors placed at the processed liquid and sewer discharge points to the bay.

Figure 2. Layout of Radiation Monitoring Stations


Each buoyed gamma detector would consist of a total gamma detector, signal processing electronics, power supply, and communication gear. One example for a total gamma detector is a commercially available system that consists of two halogen quenched G-M tubes in a water proof package and a cable reel assembly. The detector has a sensitivity of 0.1 R/hr (1 nGy/hr) over an energy range of 80 to 3000 keV.
 

Figure 3. Left to Right: Water Proof Gamma Detector (Quenched GM Tubes), NEWNET Air Monitoring Station (Met Instruments plus HPIC), Environmental Continuous Air Monitor (Alpha Detector)

 The first air monitoring station would consist of a set of meteorological instruments for measuring the wind speed, direction, air pressure, rain fall, and humidity, a gamma detector (e.g. high pressure ion chamber), and an environmental alpha detector that draws air in for continuous analysis of alpha emitting isotopes by a surface barrier detector. Alternatively, meteorological data from a nearby existing station may also be used which will reduce costs. Assuming the weather conditions are reasonably constant over the site, the second air monitoring station will house only the radiation detectors. The effluent monitors would consist of a NaI gamma detector that can be placed by an effluent pipe to monitor the discharged radiation in real time. This system can be configured to record either isotopic information and/or total gamma levels. Some of the deployment issues to be considered are optimization for the regional climate, data analysis and review procedures, communication options, and determination of optimal detector locations.

All the instrument stations will be configured to automatically upload their data to a central server for analysis and review. After completion of data review per approved procedures, data will be sent to a web site for publication. The publication process can be initially password controlled until normal fluctuations in data are understood and the site operators are comfortable with the transparency process. The site security planners will be consulted to assure that no data with negative impact on site security is being recorded or released.

 References

1.      Zvezda (Star) Site: Risk Assessment Analysis, J.H. Saloio, J.A. Jones, And C.A. Aas, Sandia National Laboratories Technical Publications, 2000.

2.      Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Organization, Russia: Bolshoy Kamen, http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/bolshoy.htm#zvezda

3.      The CSCAP Nuclear Transparency Web Site, http://www.cscap.nuctrans.org/.

4.      Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, Report on Arctic Poluttion Issues, Oslo, 1998, p. 525-620.