Moscow will release about 250 million rubles (nine million dollars) this year to improve ecological conditions at Russia’s main nuclear waste plant, the atomic energy agency Rosatom said Wednesday. “If the program works well, we could increase the funding this year and double it or more the following year,” a source at Rosatom told the Interfax news agency.
The funding for the Mayak plant in the Urals is expected to be used to reinforce a dam and install a purification system for contaminated water.
In November local authorities accused the plant of dumping contaminated water into the Techa River.
The management of the plant had said it could not prevent contaminated water from seeping into the river because it did not have the funding to repair the dam.
The Mayak nuclear complex in 1957 was the scene of the one of the biggest nuclear accidents in the former Soviet Union, when the release of contaminated effluent affected 260,000 people and forced the evacuation of several towns.
The plant, built in 1948, can treat up to 400 tonnes of nuclear waste a year.
Source: Agence France-Presse
