Deformed Fish Being Found In Heavily Fished Area, Contaminated by Nuclear Waste

Murmansk, Russia is home to 20,000 fuel rods, 12,000 cubic meters (about 333,360 cubic feet) of nuclear waste and 11,000 containers that the Russian navy has simply dumped into the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea, both in the Arctic Ocean. The Barents Sea sea is where a majority of commercial fish and crabs are fished for the world, especially for Northern Europe.

During the Cold War, up to 150 nuclear submarines were stationed in the Murmansk region at any given time. Each sub had two reactors, and contained between 248 and 252 nuclear fuel rods. Most of these giants, some as long as 170 meters (558 feet), have been decommissioned in the past 15 years.

But at least 40 still contain their reactors, complete with radioactive fuel rods. Like rusted whales, these floating potential environmental disasters sit at anchor in the Kola fjords, waiting to be stripped of their radioactive bowels.

Most of the region’s highly radioactive fuel rods are stored in concrete containers in Andrejeva Bay. Many of these now-crumbling containers, intended only as temporary storage for nuclear waste, are kept on three freighters in Murmansk harbor.

The biggest of the three ships, the 79-year-old “Lepse,” carries significant amounts of uranium 235, plutonium 259 and various fissionable byproducts. To cram as much waste as possible onto the ship, workers used sledge hammers to force individual fuel rods into the hollow containers. The “Lepse” constantly has to be pumped up with compressed air to prevent it from sinking.

Despite the ship’s close proximity to downtown Murmansk, the radiation level displayed on an early-warning panel at the city’s main bus station is always zero. As of 2015 350 cubic square feet of radioactive waste has been removed from the area.

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http://icitizennews.net/defomed-fish-being-found-in-area-contaminated-by-nuclear-waste/