Original Material
Environmental threat hanging over Severodvinsk
From the uncovered nuclear-power guided-missile cruiser "Admiral Ushakov", which reactors have been not unloaded for 33 years, the environmental threat emanates on Severodvinsk and its inhabitants. It was stated by CEO of the ship repairing center "Zvezdochka" Vladimir Nikitin.
According to the director, the ship came to "Zvezdochka" in 1997. It was thought to be repaired. Money for this work wasn’t found those days, and the cruiser is still in a cold stack with plugged reactors. The ship was removed from active service of Navy. The nuclear fuel hasn’t been unloaded from its reactors since 1980.
"One can concede that a definite threat emanates from this ship on Severodvinsk and its inhabitants. Terms of docking and repair of hull has become due, so today it is not only costly, but also unsafe to keep it afloat on the waterfront," the press-service of the enterprise quotes Nikitin. "We apply to Ministry of Defense and Rosatom to resolve its safe disposal issue."
"It’s needed to unload spent nuclear fuel, to bring the cruiser in a safe state, to remove from the aquatic area and release a quayside area, which is not enough for the shipyard at today's core charge," General Director of "Zvezdochka" said.
According to the specialists' research, dismantlement of a nuclear cruiser will cost about 10 times more expensive than the dismantling of the largest nuclear submarine, as there is no technology and experience of the utilization of such courts in Russia yet.
Note:
Nuclear-power guided-missile cruiser "Admiral Ushakov" (until May 1992 — "Kirov"), was built in 1980 at the Baltiysky Shipyard in Leningrad. Since 1990, a ship was out a repair and didn’t participate in naval campaigns. According to published sources, cruiser of the project 1144 "Orlan" has a length of 251 m, width — 28.5 m, draft — 9 m and a displacement of 28 tons. Propulsion machinery consists of two atomic reactors.