There is concern about radioactive contamination from nuclear waste the former Soviet Union dumped in the sea and the effect this will have on the marine environment. According to an official "White Paper" report compiled and released by the Russian government in March 1993, the Soviet Union dumped six nuclear submarine reactors and ten nuclear reactors into the Kara Sea between 1965 and 1988.[25] Solid high- and low-level wastes unloaded from Northern Fleet nuclear submarines during reactor refuelings were dumped in the Kara Sea, mainly in the shallow fjords of Novaya Zemlya, where the depths of the dumping sites range from 12 to 135 meters, and in the Novaya Zemlya Trough at depths of up to 380 meters. Liquid low-level wastes were released in the open Barents and Kara Seas. A subsequent appraisal by the International Atomic Energy Agency showed that releases are low and localized from the 16 naval reactors (reported by the IAEA as having come from seven submarines and the icebreaker Lenin) which were dumped at five sites in the Kara Sea. Most of the dumped reactors had suffered an accident.[26]
The Soviet submarine K-27 was scuttled in Stepovogo Bay with its two reactors filled with spent nuclear fuel.[27] At a seminar in February 2012 it was revealed that the reactors on board the submarine could re-achieve criticality and explode (a buildup of heat leading to a steam explosion vs. nuclear). The catalogue of waste dumped at sea by the Soviets, according to documents seen by Bellona, includes some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.[28]
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