Summary
The technical support vessel Lepse presents the biggest nuclear and radiation risk of all retired nuclear service ships in Russia. In 1988, the vessel was taken out of service, and, in 1990, it was assigned the category of "laid-up vessel." The Lepse's SNF storage holds (in casks and caissons) 639 spent fuel assemblies (SFAs), and a significant portion of them is severely damaged. Extraction of the SFAs from storage holds would present a radiation risk and be a complex technical operation, the framework for which has still not been worked out. The ship is presently laid-up at Atomflot, which carries out service on nuclear powered icebreakers. Atomflot is located in the Kola Bay, two kilometres from the boarder of Murmansk city, which has population of 400,000. The ship is operated by joint stock company Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCo).

The necessity of decommissioning the Lepse was determined by Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union No. 1095-296 signed September 10th 1989. The work was financed by the MSCo, but was stopped in 1994 when funding dried up.

In 1994, international organizations stepped into the Lepse project. In 1995, the Lepse problem was included in the plans of the European Commission. But due to the lack of bilateral and multilateral agreements among donor countries and international financial institutions, the project showed no visible progress until 2003.

In 2003, after all agreements had been signed, westerns donors pledged EUR 13m for defuelling of the Lepse's waste storage holds. The price tag for decommissioning the whole ship will be over $30m, according to Russian estimates.

In 2004, an array of disagreements surfaced between the French company SGN, which is responsible for the technical aspect of the project on the western side, and the MSCo, which manages the project from the Russian side.

The Russian side claims that SGN insisted on development of a so-called baseline report—a document that does not meet the requirements of the Russian regulatory rules—and ignored the requests from Russian nuclear authorities to work up documents needed to approve the project in Russia.

Moreover, the baseline report takes into account only one aspect of the Lepse's remediation—defuelling the ship's storage holds. SGN has still not provided the baseline report even though it was scheduled for delivery in late 2004.

Western donors, on the other hand, insist on the necessity of developing a baseline report, as this document is required so that decision on earmarking funds for the Lepse project can be made. They also insist on developing a baseline report for a remediation variant that does not take into account the extraction of spent nuclear fuel from Lepse's storage holds. The Russian side was asked to develop such report, but such a report has never been done.

The Lepse project is facing impediments. The misunderstanding between SGN and Murmansk Shipping Company has reached critical levels.

Bellona believes that, at this stage, the main wrench in the works of the Lepse project is its management. Technology and decommissioning methods should be developed in Russia in accordance with Russian regulations, with the participation of western experts and application, if necessary, of western technologies. Instead of a baseline report, western experts should evaluate Russian-produced project documentation similar to the baseline report. Such western expert evaluation should be sufficient basis for the western donors to earmarking funds for the project. The financial management of the project should be carried out by donors.

Bellona also believes that it is necessary to evaluate at least two variants of the Lepse's remediation—one that weighs the option of defuelling the ship and one that does not—before the project itself is developed. Both variants should pass both state and public environmental assessments.

The cross-section drawing of spent nuclear fuel hold onboard the Lepse.

1. Description of the problem
The technical support vessel Lepse presents the biggest nuclear and radiation risk of all ships in Russia. At present, not a single nuclear-powered submarine that has been taken out of naval service contains as much spent nuclear fuel (SNF) with such a high degree of activity as the Lepse.

Construction of the Lepse as a dry-cargo motor ship began at the Nikolaev shipyard in 1934. A special project called for the ship to be reequipped as a technical support vessel at the Admiralty shipyard some 40 years ago. For 20 years, the Lepse was responsible for refuelling nuclear-powered icebreakers. The Lepse's SNF storage hold (casks and caissons) contains 639 spent fuel assemblies (SFAs), including those unloaded from the reactor of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin following an accident aboard that vessel in 1964.

The SFAs in casks and caissons in the storage hold of the Lepse are corroded, deformed, and damaged by the leakage of the fuel composition, making it impossible to easily extract them from the storage hold in using conventional methods. Extraction of the SFAs from the caissons would present a radiation risk and would be a complex technical operation, the framework for which has still not been thought through.

The activity of the SNF in the storage hold is currently about 2.5 x 10¹⁶ Bq (680,000 curies), which is commensurate with the radioactive waste that was spilled during the accident at the Mayak nuclear complex in 1957. It has been calculated that the fuel contains, in total, 260 kilograms of uranium-235, 156 kilograms of its fissile products, and 8 kilograms of the fissile isotope plutonium-239. The gamma radiation dose rate in the storage hold, and the adjacent areas, exceeds the amount of radiation found in nature by hundreds of thousands of times. The vessel contains 50 cubic meters of solid radioactive waste (SRW), which is located in containers, with varying levels of activity. Other compartments store specialized equipment that was used to conduct work that presented a radiation risk and, as a result, are contaminated with radionuclides.

In 1988, the vessel was taken out of use, and, in 1990, it was categorized as a "laid-up vessel" (though its main engine has been maintained in working order). Following repairs at the Nerpa dry dock in 1999, the vessel was classed as "laid-up", that is, non-self-propelled.

Since then, the ship has been moored at Atomflot in the Kola Bay, near heavy ship traffic. Despite all the measures taken to ensure safety, the likelihood of a navigation incident (such as another ship colliding with it) is high. With the existing physical wear and tear and the aging of the vessel's hull, the consequences of corrosive seawater, a collision with another ship would sink the Lepse, causing an ecological disaster in the waters of Kola Bay.

Ioanis Palaerokrassas (right), EU commissioner; Kaci Kullman Five, Norwegian parliamentarian, and Frederic Hauge (left), President of the Bellona Foundation, visiting the Lepse in 1994.

Bellona archive

2. Solving the problem of decommissioning the Lepse (a brief history)
The necessity of decommissioning the Lepse was determined by Decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union No. 1095-296 on September 10th 1989 and by the Decision of the Military-Industrial Commission of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union No. 132 of April 25th 1988, by the initiative of the Murmansk Shipping Company. At that time, shipping specialists and scientific and design organizations considered the question of decommissioning as the complete decommissioning of a technical support vessel. Solutions for the SNF problem and for the decommissioning of the vessel were among the main issues considered.

In 1992, the All-Russian Scientific Research and Design Institute of Complex Energy Technologies (of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy, or Minatom), together with scientific and construction organizations, began to develop the scientific-technical basis, the goal of which was the creation of a complete plan for handling the Lepse. The work was financed by the MSCo but was stopped in 1994 because of a lack of funds.

Taking into account the environmental significance of the problem of decommissioning this vessel and the high cost of the work, both on the decommissioning itself and with respect to developing the project, the problem was included, at the initiative of the MSCo, in the "Federal Target Program for Handling Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Materials, Their Decommissioning and Disposal During the Period 1993-1995 and Prospects up to 2005." This proposal was included as one of the top priorities. Financing of activities, however, did not get off the ground due to a lack of budgetary funds.

At Bellona's initiative, a pilot project for decommissioning the Lepse was included in the work plan of the Euro-Atlantic (Barents) region for 1994-95.

In 1995, the Lepse problem was included in the plans of the European Commission, and the project gained international status. At the stage of discussing the international "Project for the Complete Decommissioning of the Technical Support Vessel Lepse," western investors suggested earmarking financial resources to resolve the problem. Within the framework of the TACIS program, two reports were prepared by the France's SGN Consortium (France) and Great Britain's AEA/T (1996-97). Russian project participants considered these reports as pre-project studies of the problem.

In 1998, a plan for decommissioning the Lepse was included in an agreement between the government of Norway and the government of the Russian Federation "On Co-operation in the Sphere of Environmental Protection in Relation to the Decommissioning of Russian Nuclear-Powered Submarines in the Arctic Region".

In subsequent years, a practical solution to the problem of decommissioning the Lepse was halted because financing ran out, both on the Russian side and on the side of western investors. Among the reasons was the lack of bilateral and multilateral "agreements on civil and nuclear liability" between Russia and the involved foreign donors.

In accordance with the conclusions of experts from the Atomenergo company, which prepared an "Analytical Note on Determining the Labour Intensity, Duration of Implementation, and Cost of Decommissioning the Technical Support Ship Lepse, Including the Removal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Liquid and Solid Radioactive Waste. Project No. 325"—which was approved by the Inspectorate of the Russian Marine Register for Atomic Vessels—the project for the complete decommissioning of the ship should be completed by 2008, that is, before the expiry of the period of validity of the Register's documentation.

3. Agreements signed, funds earmarked
In 2000, the French Development Agency (AFD) and the MSCo concluded an agreement (No. CRU 1001.02 A) to provide financial support to carry out the Lepse project. The sum earmarked within this agreement is EUR 1,372,040.

On May 21st 2003, Russia and donor countries signed the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR). The signing of this agreement paved the way for important agreements regarding the Lepse project.

In July 2003, the MSCo and Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation (NEFCO) signed the "Grant Allocation Agreement. Project to extract fuel from Lepse." The signing of this agreement has set international project implementation in motion. NEFCO has gathered its funds, as well as funds from Norway and Netherlands amounting to EUR 4,623,530.

The European Commission pledged EUR 6,032,430, thus the project budget of EUR 12,028,000 was met.

On October 6th 2003, the MSCo and SGN signed "Agreement on Engineering Services Within the Frames of Spent Nuclear Fuel Removal Project, Phase 1A." The agreement, which went into force on March 2nd 2004 and expired in November 2004, stipulated preparation of the baseline report, technical task (TZ), and the foundation for investment (OBIN)—the latter two document are required by the Russian regulations. The donors provided the financial means to develop these documents to SGN.

According to estimates by Russian experts, the total cost of decommissioning the ship comes to $30.7m, including the development of technical plans, which comes to $3.3m.

To minimise the exposure to radiation of the personnel onboard the Lepse, Bellona delivered in 2001 a set of housing containers.

Bellona archive

4. Work performed within the Lepse project
Since financing for the project is not foreseen within the framework of the latest version of Russia's Special Federal Programme "Nuclear and Radiation Safety in Russia" for 2000-2006, the Russian Transport Ministry allotted 50m rubles in target funds from the state budget to the MSCo to ensure the safe mooring of the Lepse and to carry out work on the vessel.

In 2002, in accordance with the "Plan for the First Activities With Respect to Handling the Technical Support Vessel Lepse," approved by Minatom in May 2001, the "Program for Ensuring the Environmental Safety of Mooring the Lepse and a Set of Activities for Ensuring the Long-Term Storage of the SNF and Management of the Radioactive Waste" was developed.

Within the framework of this programme, the following scientific and technical works were carried out:

• A preliminary assessment of the effects of radiation on personnel when unloading the SNF (NII PMM, St Petersburg);
  
• An analysis regarding the determination of the labour intensity and the duration of implementation of decommissioning the Lepse, including the removal of the SNF and radioactive waste (Atomenergo, St Petersburg); and
  
• Work on draining the water from Circuit B of the Lepse's SNF storage hold (Kurchatov Institute, Moscow).
  

The following activities have been conducted in order to normalize the level of radiation on the ship:

• Decontamination and placing of protective film covers in special areas;
  
• The construction of engineering and immobilization barriers in compartments of Cistern 1 and in the cistern itself;
  
• Removal and processing of highly active liquid radioactive waste from this cistern; and
  
• Preparatory works for removing cooling water from Circuit B.
  

To minimise the exposure to radiation of the personnel onboard the Lepse, Bellona delivered in 2001 a set of housing containers. Before that, the ship's crew was holding shifts onboard the ship.

Accompanying this, there is an agreement between the MSCo and the Mayak Chemical Combine in the southern Urals to accept (for the purpose of further reprocessing) the SNF extracted from the storage hold of the Lepse and on the cost of its processing.

5. Implementation of the project to decommission the Lepse
In Bellona's opinion, the following should be among the main issues considered when deciding how to resolve the problem of decommissioning the Lepse:

5.1. How should the problem of spent nuclear fuel be resolved?
Throughout the process of resolving this problem, two approaches for deciding the fate of the SNF have been considered since the beginning:

Not removing the fuel from the storage hold
This option foresees the creation of additional engineering barriers to ensure safe (from the point of view of nuclear safety), long-term storage of the fuel in the storage hold of the Lepse. With this goal in mind, the MSCo performed practical work on the basis of decisions made by supervision organisations, which assume the responsibility for transferring the SNF into the category of radioactive waste:

• The space between the tanks in the storage hold was filled with concrete;
  
• A method for filling in Circuits A and B with special hardening mixtures was developed; and
  
• Thermo-technical calculations were made to determine the heat generation when performing the above-mentioned work, thereby creating the possibility for implementation.
  

Removing the fuel from the storage hold
This option foresees the removal of the fuel from the storage hold and the decommissioning of the ship in accordance with an approved project.

A final decision has not been made with respect to which of these options will be used for the decommissioning of the ship. When developing the project, it would be expedient to look at all aspects of each option and to submit them to expert testing by interested organizations.

Lepse service ship moored at Atomflot base in Murmansk.

Thomas Nilsen

5.2. Where should the work be conducted?
From the environmental point of view, where the decommissioning of the Lepse and, most importantly, where the removal of the SNF will take place, is one of the most important issues in this international project. Lacking the technology to perform all the different stages of the work, and, most significantly, the removal of the SNF, it is not possible to determine the labour intensity with respect to each selected option, or to evaluate the effects of radiation on personnel and the environment.

According to the preliminary assessment of experts from the Scientific Research Institute of Industrial and Maritime Medicine (NII PMM), the removal of the SNF will result in a collective exposure dose of 100 Sieverts, which, in line with Russian norms (20 mSv per year) and for a period of three years will require the participation of 1,700 workers, if the regular defuelling technology is used.

During the lack of action to implement the Lepse decommissioning project, Russian engineers proposed to carry out decommissioning of the ship at the Nerpa shipyard, located on the Kola Peninsula two kilometres north of Murmansk. An interesting point that should be noted in their proposal is the cutting up of the entire body of the ship into segments and placing the block with the SNF storage hold and other large blocks into an onshore structure for storing the reactor compartments of nuclear-powered submarines in Sayda Bay—the construction of which is being carried out with the participation of western investors (Germany). The second issue that is foreseen is an area for storing large packing blocks from atomic and technological maintenance ships (ATM ships).

Considering the experience in removing defective fuel gained by both military and civil workers, it would be preferable to decommission the Lepse at this enterprise, which has the experience and equipment necessary for decommissioning nuclear-powered ships (for example, nuclear-powered submarines).

In the opinion of several experts, the best place to remove the SNF would be this enterprise, which is located far from large cities, and not at Atomflot, which is on the edge of Murmansk.

Lepse's spent nuclear fuel storage hold lid.

Bellona archive

5.3. What sort of project should be selected?
Bellona also supports stance of the MSCo that the project to decommission the Lepse should be all-encompassing, that is, it should involve all stages of the vessel's decommissioning. The plans for removing the SNF itself should be included as a separate part of this project.

Western investors want first to finance only the removal of the SNF and they insist on the development and carrying out of only this phase of the work.

In accordance with Russian legislation, expert evaluation and, consequently, a project licence require a full set of documents. Among the important points from the environmental point of view is the development of other aspects of the project: the technical grounds for safety (TOB) and an evaluation of the effects on the environment (OVOS)—both documents are of Russian format—which will be finalised only following a study by the design organisation conducting the technical phase of the project (one or more scenarios).

In this matter; according to the MSCo, western partners (SGN, first and foremost) have failed to understand Russian conditions. Russian experts consider the documentation that western partners are working on (baseline report), and on which they have spent much time and money, to be pre-project documentation, which cannot be used by supervisory agencies to draw conclusions.

The project should satisfy the requirements of Russian legislation and should be developed, while taking into account the resulting practice along with observance of the various stages: the technical task (TZ), the technical-economic grounds (TEO), the technical project (TP) etc. The project should contain all documentation parts required in order to start its practical implementation.

For several years, there have been lengthy discussions and consultations between Russian and western partners that have not advanced the idea of the project toward its final goal.

At present, experts from SGN are preparing a baseline report. Such a document, according to their Russian partners, is not necessary, and its preparation would be a waste of time and money.

Here, one should also take into account that, in the words of the project's Russian partners, SGN had already prepared such a foundation report in 1996, but it has not been put to any practical use.

The agreement of March 2004 between the MSCo and SGN foresees the preparation of three documents: a technical task (TZ), the foundation for investment (OBIN)—these two are Russian format documentation—and a baseline report. Up to the present time, SGN has not provided any information on the readiness of the first two documents, and, as a result, there are no prospects for any further realistic advancement of the project, as the Russian participants see the situation.

Western participants in the project believe that the baseline report is a necessary step that will help donors to decide whether they fund the project. Only after such decision is taken will it be feasible to finance preparation of the whole documentation package required by Russian rules and norms. It is suggested to prepare baseline report for several principal variants of the Lepse's decommissioning—with and without unloading of spent nuclear fuel. The Lepse Steering Committee, which consists of all the donors, suggested that the MSCo submits its variant of Lepse decommissioning, but no answer was received.

5.4. Who should develop the project?
In accordance with applicable Russian legislation, project work in the sphere of nuclear energy may be developed only by organizations that have a license for such activities. In this case, the western partners of the project should obtain such a license (there are examples of western organizations' obtaining licenses in Russia) or work jointly with Russian organizations that have such licenses. Such licence, however, is not required for SGN within the frames of the current bilateral agreement.

For too long there has been a lack of understanding of this matter, during which there has been needless correspondence, according to the Russian side, who cite this as an example of an unnecessary delay to finding a solution to the problem.

In the opinion of the MSCo, the best option for resolving the planning phase of the decommissioning of the Lepse would be for a Russian design organization to prepare, in accordance with the technical task of the MSCo (with the participation of foreign partners), the technical-economic basis of all the options for the complete decommissioning of the ship with the subsequent agreement on this document with the supervisory agencies. The preparation of the technical phase of the decommissioning of the ship, as a whole, and the agreement of this phase with the supervisory agencies would follow.

The participation of Russian and western partners in the development of the project could be marked by the creation of a joint consortium for developing and conducting all of the activities with respect to the decommissioning of the Lepse, Russian project participants say.

Otherwise, according to the MSCo, it is impossible to avoid delaying the process and using financial resources irrationally.

The existing documentation and experience using Russian equipment gained by Russian partners during similar work in the Far East (decommissioning of a military service ship PM-80) will, in all likelihood, not be included in the baseline being prepared by SGN.

Answering these Russian claims, western participants argue that numerous requests to the Russian side to provide information on the Russian technologies to manage damaged spent nuclear fuel, including the Far East experience, have gone unanswered.

5.5. No-go of the project
For a long period, the project customer (the MSCo) has been troubled by delays in implementing the planning phase of resolving the decommissioning of the Lepse. The customer has established a list of Russian-designed organisations that could develop the project (its component parts), and there exist drafts of the initial project documentation preceding the technical phase; the list of these organizations has been given to SGN. Up to the present time, this firm has not had a single Russian partner in preparing its documentation.

Russian participants explain such a position by a desire not to have Russian organizations participate in the project. Western participants point to the fact that, first of all, baseline reports are required in order to get the approval for funding from donors, and then the Russian format documentation can be developed.

The outcome of this is a vicious circle on the no-go in the project.

Lepse service ship--a view from helicopter.

Alexander Raube

6. Conclusion
As of today the required funding is in place. There is a Steering Committee, comprised of donor country representatives. Russia has concluded the necessary agreements with all of the participants of the international Lepse project. The Russian side has determined those who would participate in developing the project and the stages of developing the project and of the implementation and cost of works (approximately) for decommissioning the Lepse. The matter of principle regarding the management of SNF removed from the Lepse's storage hold at the Mayak Nuclear Complex has been resolved, in the case that the fuel will be extracted from Lepse.

Nevertheless, the project is being blocked. The situation is getting critical, as the international funds allotted for the project should be put into use by 2005.

Bellona believes there is a great need for the management reform for the project.

1. The project itself should be carefully designed, and consider at least two variants of implementation: extraction of the fuel from Lepse's hold, and without extraction. There should be environmental impact studies in place and risk assessment for selecting one of the variants and the place for implementation of the project.

2. The management of the project should be reformed. It is now clear that the baseline report is not the document that allows full evaluation of environmental risks. That is why the most efficient and cost effective way to do it would be to develop the project using Russian documentation formats similar to the baseline report and evaluate them accordingly. The Russian documentation can in turn be evaluated by the western experts. Such evaluation could be enough for the donors to take the decision about funding one of the variants.

3. It is necessary to conduct public environmental evaluation of the project (or of independent segments) in accordance with Article 20 of the Federal Law "On expert opinions in ecological matters."

4. It is necessary to change partner for the Murmansk Shipping Company. The disagreements between the Murmansk Shipping Company and SGN have reached the critical level, which does not allow further productive cooperation between these two companies.