Ukraine’s Parliament Approves Chernobyl Bill

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada adopted bill #2635 aimed at a national program for decommissioning the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and turning the “Shelter” covering Reactor 4 into an ecologically safe system. The decision was approved by 354 of 441 deputies present for the vote. The law, approved on its first reading, also provides language for budgeting the finances for these activities.

According to Ukraine’s legal framework, the decommissioning of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant must include the following items:

• Cessation of operations (the preparatory phase of decommissioning) - removal of nuclear fuel and moving it to the spent nuclear fuel facility intended for long-term storage. Completion of this stage is expected no earlier than 2012.
• Final closing of the reactor and conservation of the plant. At this stage, there will be conservation of the reactors and the most radioactively contaminated equipment (2013-2022).
• Extract reactor facilities during the period in which the natural decline in radioactivity to an acceptable level occurs (2022-2045).
• Dismantling the reactors. At this stage, the equipment will be dismantled and the site cleaned in order to maximize the lifting of restrictions and regulatory control (2046-2064).

Making the "Shelter" into an ecologically safe system includes:

• Reducing the risks of the influence of ionizing radiation.
• Creation of additional protective barriers, particularly those that will ensure proper conditions for work in the next stage.
• Withdrawal from the "Shelter" of fuel-containing materials and high-level radioactive wastes, transferring them in safe condition, intermediate-controlled storage and disposal in deep repositories (stable geological formations) in case of early deterioration(approximately 30-50 years). An alternative method to ensure safe storage of materials at the "Shelter" site was not proposed.