Duma tentatively approves nuclear waste imports

MOSCOW - Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry on Thursday won preliminary approval of its dream of earning as much as $20 billion by importing other countries' nuclear waste for processing - up to 21,000 tons of it over the next decade.

Environmentalists say it will turn Russia into the world's nuclear dump.

The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, on Thursday approved by 319-38 the proposal to bring spent nuclear fuel rods to Russia. It must clear two more readings, pass the upper chamber and be signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law.

Proponents stressed that Russia should take advantage of its Cold War-era nuclear and scientific facilities, that it could make up to $20 billion over 10 years, and that the money could help clean up radiation spills in Russia.

''We'll get financing and won't disgracefully beg the International Monetary Fund for money as we do now,'' Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov said.

Russian and foreign environmental groups said Russia should treat its own nuclear waste before importing more radioactive material.

The environmental group Greenpeace described the promise to use profits for cleanup as a public relations ploy.

''We see this as a disaster for the Russian people,'' Greenpeace spokesman Jon Walter said. ''It will create another Chernobyl generation, whose lives will be cut short by radioactive contamination.'' Chernobyl was the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine.

The Atomic Energy ministry wants to get Western funds to expand the Russian nuclear industry, ''whose disregard for safety and the environment is starkly demonstrated'' by past mistakes, Greenpeace said in a statement.

The program to import waste foresees a market in Europe and Asia for the service, which would solve temporarily the problem of spent fuel rods piling up at civilian nuclear reactors.

Nuclear power stations around the world have about 200,000 tons of waste in temporary storage.

For a fee, spent fuel would be sent by armored train to Russia's Mayak facility near Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains for reprocessing.

The recycling process extracts useable nuclear material from the spent rods while reducing their potential to be used in weapons, the Nuclear Ministry has said.

Mayak has been the site of several accidents, including a 1957 waste facility explosion that contaminated 9,200 square miles. The region has been called the most radioactive place on the planet because of Soviet-era nuclear waste dumping into lakes and rivers.

France and Britain are the only countries now operating commercial reprocessing plants.

A 1992 law forbids importing nuclear materials from countries other than former East Bloc nations with existing contracts. Russia now imports spent fuel rods from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary for reprocessing, a system established during Soviet times.