Bolshoi Kamen
Bol'shoi Kamen / Bol'shoy Kamen'
43°08'00"N 132°20'00"E
Shkotovo-17 Fokino [aka Tikhookeanskiy] 42°59'01"N 132°24'17"E Shkotovo-22 Dunai [aka Dunay] 42°52'00"N 132°22'00"E Shkotovo-26 Putyatin 42°51'43"N 132°25'02"E
Bolshoi Kamen on the Sea of Japan is a military town of 30-50,000 residents. it is located 12 miles northeast of Vladivostok across Lazurnaya Bay. Primorskii Krai lies in the southern part of the Russian Far East occupying 165,900 sq km along the coast of the Sea of Japan. Over 60% of the engineering sector in Primorsky Territory is engaged in the ship industry, the centers of which are Nakhodka, Vladivostok, Bolshoi Kamen and Slavyanka. Defence-oriented engineering production is being converted to manufacture of fishing vessels, refrigerated vessels, tankers and timber vessels.
The most dangerous environmental threat for Primorskiy Kray today is probably radioactive waste. The Russian Pacific Fleet and its arsenal, located in mainly in Vladivostok and nearby Russkiy Island, has both nuclear weapons, ship borne nuclear reactors, and radioactive waste. About 100 vessels list in the harbors around Vladivostok, and some 40 aging nuclear submarines are docked at Bolshoi Kamen.
Zvezda Shipyard
Zvezda, a sprawling military shipyard at Bolshoi Kamen, is a subordinate facility of Dalzavod, headquartered in Vladivostok. The Zvezda Shipyard repairs Russian Navy nuclear-powered submarines, but the government has said that it will also repair conventional attack submarines sold to foreign navies, as well as build and repair merchant vessels. Zvezda is used to repair second-generation submarines, and the staff and equipment are preparing for the fourth-generation subs. In 1998 the 190 million rubles earmarked for Zvezda to repair submarines was slashed to just 6 million. The submarine construction complex, with 3,000 workers, also repairs navy and private vessels and builds smaller boats.
Socio-economic problems within Russia led to significant local unrest in the shipyards and harbors containing the laid up nuclear submarines. Basic social services were curtailed and salaries went unpaid. In March 1997 some 2,000 workers at the Zvezda submarine repair facility blocked the highway connecting Vladivostok and Nakhodka. They were demanding both their back wages and the resignation of the government. In November 1996 the mayor of Bolshoi Kamen warned the population they might have to move elsewhere during the winter to keep warm because the city had used up all its fuel reserves and could not buy any more until the Ministry of Defense paid its debts. The cash-strapped Zvezda facility, entrusted with storing the town's winter fuel reserves, had used them for its own needs and failed to obtain a bank credit to purchase new fuel.
In late July 1997 Zvezda Shipyard received 10 billion Russian rubles from the central government to pay wages owed since December 1996. On 01 July 1997, employees blocked the Trans-Siberian Railway to demand their wages, and were promised 20 billion rubles. The second half of that promise was secured after a 20-day strike that ended 21 July 1997. The central government still owed at least 60 bilion rubles in salaries to the yard.
Zvezda has been able to exploit its position as one of the best submarine repairing facilities in Northeast Asia and has secured an order to repair two Chinese submarines. In addition, Zvezda, Dalzavod, and another MIC ship-repairing facility, Eastern Shipyard, are participants of the Primorskii Krai administration’s very ambitious program for the RFE to build several hundred small- and medium-sized fishing boats using these military facilities. This program would serve the dual purposes of helping these shipyards overcome the effects of the late 1990s econmic crisis and renovating the obsolete fishing fleet.
At three major naval bases in Russia--near the northern cities of Severodvinsk and Murmansk and the far eastern city of Bolshoi Kamen, near Vladivostok--the Cooperative Threat Reduction [Nunn-Lugar] Program is providing equipment which the Russians are using for actual destruction of their strategic missile-launching submarines. The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency is paying the shipyard $8 million to chop up submarines.
Current US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) projects address solid radioactive wastes as part of the dismantlement and disposal of targeted Russian ballistic missile submarines and their reactor components. CTR has provisions to process solid radioactive wastes only at Zvezdochka near Severodvinsk and Zvezda near Vladivostok in the Far East. The Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation Program (AMEC) solid radioactive wastes processing system will be established at facilities on the northeastern portion of the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk, which are more than 500 miles from Severodvinsk.
Responsibility for decomissioned nuclear-powered submarines was transferred from the Defence Ministry to the Ministry of the Atomic Energy in late 1998 under Government Resolution No.518. Consequently, all the operations for the dismantling of nuclear-powered submarines and ships was transferred totally to the industrial sector -- the defence enterprises Zvezdochka and Nerpa located in the North, and Zvezda in the Far East -- the three Russian enterprises that scrap old submarines.
The Zvezda plant planned to double the number of dismantled submarines in 1999, to four, increase the number of jobs at the enterprise to 1,000 or even 1,200. The modernisation of the Zvezda plant, planned to be carried out before 2003 and financed by the US within the framework of the military conversion program, will make it possible to start the creation of new production capacities for the repair of ships and shipbuilding.
As of October 1999 the Nuclear Ministry was searching for places for temporary storage of the spent fuel from nuclear-powered submarines. It was considering bases on the Kola peninsula, the Andreyeva inlet, Gremikha, the Nerpa ship-repairing plant near Murmansk, and Kamchatka.
The Japanese have commissioned a radioactive wastewater treatment facility at Bolshoi Kamen. The Japanese government decided to fund construction of the plant after it was revealed that Russia dumped some 800 tonnes of radioactive waste from dismantled nuclear-powered submarines into the Sea of Japan. The Federal Security Service sought to prosecute treason charges against Capt. Grigory Pasko, who revealed the dumping of liquid radioactive waste in the sea.
Funding for the liquid waste storage and processing plant was provided by the Japanese government as part of an October 1993 agreement with the Russian Federation to assist in the environmentally safe reduction of its nuclear defense systems, including the dismantlement of part of the Russian nuclear submarine fleet. This sophisticated plant mounted on a 213-by-77-foot barge which is capable of treating 1.8 million gallons per year. The processing system extracts waste contaminants from water used in the submarine decommissioning and dismantlement process. The low-level nuclear waste is mixed with concrete, placed in specially-designed containers and placed in secure storage pending ultimate geologic disposal. The treated water, which meets most drinking water purification standards, is returned to the sea.
The Babcox and Wilcox Division of McDermott, working with Russian partners in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Bolshoi Kamen, conducted this project. McDermott teamed with Amur Shipbuilding Yard (Komsomolsk-on-Amur), and Zvezda (Bolshoy Kamen) to build a the nuclear waste storage and processing barge at Bolshoi Kamen. The barge itself was designed and built at Amur Shipyard. Mcamur Construction Services, a joint venture between McDermott and Amur provided on-site management. McDermott provided design and purchased components for the liquid waste processing system and other auxiliary systems from U.S. companies. Final testing and installation was completed at Zvezda Shipyard in Bolshoi Kamen. A second Bolshoi Kamen project to address disposal of high-level radioactive waste is expected to be awarded.
References
- Zvezda Shipyard archive @ Vladivostok News
