Kamchatka Shipyard : Kamchatskiy Morskoy Zavod (Seldevaya Bay) (Vilyuchinsk)

 shipyard, radioactive

Also known as Site 49K and the Gornyak (Miner) Shipyard, the Kamchatka Shipyard (Kamchatskiy Morskoy Zavod) at Krasheninnikova Bay. Photo shows the large (234m long) floating dry dock at this location capable of carrying out work on the largest ships in the fleet.In this GE satellite image the large ship in this dock is the SS "Alagez" an Elbrus Class Large Submarine Salvage/Rescue Vessel and the largest ship of its type in the world at 175m l.o.a.

Seldevaya Bay is home to several tankers that house liquid radioactive waste (LRW). As of 1 January 2000, the TNT-23 service ship, also docked in Vilyuchinsk, housed 678.66m3 of LRW emitting 37.51 curies of radiation, while Kamchatka Shipyard's PKDS-60 had 73.5m3 of LRW (well over its nominal capacity of 50m3) and emitted .46 curies of radiation (the total amount of radiation emitted by all ship-board LRW in the Russian Far East is 5853.85 curies), according to a Russian report.[1] Spent fuel on the PM-32, a service ship that in March 2002 was called the most dangerous radioactive object in the fleet, leaking radiation from the 126 damaged fuel rods on board, was finally unloaded in 2002. [2,3]

The vessel was the subject of local concern for many years. In 2000, a Kamchatka Oblast official said that the regional Committee on Ecology and Natural Resource Management had appealed to the Russian president and the head of the armed forces for assistance, but the only result was the strengthening of the guard forces around PM-32. The status of LRW on PM-32 is unclear. As of 1 January 2000, PM-32 had 47m3 of LRW emitting 5,556.58 curies of radiation.[1]

Solid radioactive waste (SRW) is stored on the following vessels in Seldevaya Bay: BTB (833.5m3 emitting 1599.9 curies), TNT-23 (1.2m3 emitting .7 curies), and PM-32 (5m3 emitting .9 curies). There is also 20.6m3 of SRW on the PKDS, at the town of Primorskiy, emitting 1.81 curies of radiation.[1] As of 1 January 2000, five defueled nuclear submarines in Seldevaya Bay awaited dismantlement.[1]

Sources:
[1] V.A. Danilyan, V.L.Vysotskiy, A.A. Maksimov, and Yu. V. Sivintsev, "Vliyaniye utilizatsii atomnykh podvodnykh lodok na radioekologicheskuyu obstonovku v Dalnevostochnom regione," Atomnaya energiya, Vol. 89, No. 6 (December 2000), pp. 454-474.
[2] Mikhail Rybyanov, “Boris Reznik: Voyennyye skryvayut yadernykh otkhodov,” Izvestiya online edition, www.izvestia.ru, 1 March 2002.
[3] Nadezhda Brazhina, "Podvodnyye lodki teryayut plavuchest," Vladivostok online edition, vl.vladnews.ru, 18 September 2002.{Updated 1/12/2003 CC}


www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/kamc...