Rada Amended ChNPP Decommissioning Program

The Verkhovna Rada adopted Law “On Amendments to the National Program for Chornobyl NPP Decommissioning and the Shelter Transformation into an Environmentally Safe System”.

With a minimum of 226 votes, 229 deputies in general voted for the adoption of relevant draft Law No. 6624 in the second reading, Ukrinform correspondent reported.

The purpose of the Law is to approve a uniform document defining the activities aimed at ChNPP decommissioning and the Shelter transformation into an environmentally safe system, and budget financing of this activity until 2020.

“The need for approving this law is reduced to the fact that the previous program for 2009-2012 was terminated, but not all the work was completed within the previous periods due to unsatisfactory funding, thus we’ve made a proposal to extend the program. This was discussed in the draft Law developed by the Environmental Policy Committee for the second reading”, the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ostap Semerak noted when discussing the draft Law.

According to him, in order to implement new measures for ChNPP decommissioning and the Shelter transformation into an environmentally safe system, it is necessary to extend the validity period of the National Program should and supplement it with new measures, namely: complete the construction and put the New Safe Confinement into operation, start temporary shutdown of ChNPP units  1,  2,  3, commission the spent fuel dry storage facility and start its transfer to the old type storage facility.

In addition, the Law envisages commissioning of the liquid radwaste treatment plant, starting of its processing, cooling pond commissioning and dismantling completion of Chornobyl NPP Stage 1 turbine hall.

The Law amended the National Program for Chornobyl NPP Decommissioning and the Shelter Transformation into an Environmentally Safe System approved by the relevant law as of 15 January 2009.

The list of the main measures for Chornobyl NPP decommissioning should be specified under the projects of the decommissioning stages: final closure, temporary shutdown and dismantling of Chornobyl NPP units.

The Law also establishes that the amount for activity funding according to the Program at the expense of the state budget is approximately 2,963.22 million UAH.

The Annex to the Program was stated in a new revision as the Measures for Chornobyl NPP Decommissioning and the Shelter Transformation into an Environmentally Safe System by 2020.

Ukrinform