Shuvalov visits nuclear waste storage facility on Primorsky Territory
VLADIVOSTOK. Aug 22 (Interfax) - Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who is on a working trip to the Primorsky Territory, has visited the Far Eastern Center for Radioactive Waste Management (DalRAO), where he met the staff - the residents of the closed town of Fokin.
"Before meeting with the company staff, the first deputy prime minister, accompanied by governor of the Primorsky Territory Sergei Darkin, toured the enterprise's facilities to see for himself the safety of the structures intended for the long-term storage of nuclear submarine reactors," the Primorsky administration said on Monday.
DalRAO chief Nikolai Lysenko told the first deputy prime minister and the Primorsky governor about the work, which was carried out on two unserviceable submarines: "This work is technically complicated. Currently, the background radiation around the storage facilities is normal. You can see it for yourself."
Shuvalov is visiting the DalRAO facilities as Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Rosatom, the press office said. He was particularly interested in the safety of radioactive waste storage and processing.
Shuvalov announced plans to make big investments in the Primorsky Territory infrastructures and to conduct major international events there. This will require ecological responsibility and raising local people's awareness about the work being carried out at these technologically sophisticated facilities, he said.
In the spring of 2010, the DalRAO facilities were inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, DalRAO chief Lysenko said. "International experts gained access to carry out an inspection. They were satisfied with DalRAO's safe operation and high professionalism of its employees," he said.
After the meeting, the first deputy prime minister and the Primorsky governor laid flowers to the obelisk to Navy sailors, who were killed in the line of duty in 1985.
The Far Eastern Center for Radioactive Waste Management, a subsidiary of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise for Radioactive Waste Management, was founded in 2000.
The enterprises specialize in conducting ecological rehabilitation of Far East-based radioactive facilities and operations, which involve the handling of nuclear fuel, solid and liquid radioactive wastes that accumulate and develop during the disposal of nuclear submarines and nuclear propelled ships.