18 Jun (NucNet): The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is setting up a fund to deal with radioactive contaminated material resulting from Soviet-era uranium mining and processing in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the bank said in a statement.
The EBRD, an international financial institution, said the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia is being established at the request of the European Commission, which is providing an initial €8 million (about $9 million), with additional funding under consideration.
It said the fund will finance projects to rehabilitate “high-priority sites”.
Central Asia served as an important source of uranium in the former Soviet Union, the EBRD said. This led to a large amount of radioactive contaminated material from the mining industry being placed in mining waste dumps and tailing sites. Most of the mines were closed by 1995, but “very little remediation was done”.
The accumulated amount of radioactive contaminated material in the region is a threat to the environment and to the health of the population, the EBRD said. Many of the uranium legacy sites are concentrated along the tributaries to the Syr Darya River, which runs through the densely populated Fergana Valley, the agricultural centre of the region which is shared by the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Vince Novak, EBRD director of nuclear safety, said in the statement that the fund is recognition of the urgent need to act and of the expertise and know-how the EBRD has accumulated in the area of nuclear decommissioning.
The EBRD has been managing nuclear safety and decommissioning funds on behalf of the international community since 1992, when the G7 decided to create the Nuclear Safety Account to deal with the legacy of Soviet-era nuclear facilities and equipment.
In the following years the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, three international decommissioning support funds for Bulgaria, Lithuania and the Slovak Republic, and the nuclear element of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership Support Fund, were established and placed under the management of the EBRD’s nuclear safety department.
The Northern Dimension is a broad area around the Barents and Baltic seas. The EBRD says the Barents Sea area is the largest repository of nuclear waste in the world. Existing facilities for the management of nuclear waste are obsolete and full, while some leak radioactive material into the environment.
