December 14, Ukraine honors the Chornobyl accident consequences liquidators.
The date to honor the liquidators is chosen not without reason. On November 30, 1986, the sarcophagus construction over the Unit 4 was completed, and two weeks later, on December 14, the main CPSU newspaper “Pravda" and other central publications of USSR published the Statement of the Central Committee of CPSU and the Council of Ministers that the State Commission had been commissioned the complex of protective structures of ChNPP Unit 4. Namely the date of this statement publication became “Day of Chornobyl accident consequences liquidation participants honoring”.
Despite the fact that the Liquidators Day was officially established only in 2006, it is commemorated in Ukraine since 1986, when the NPP’s accident consequences liquidators gathered together to celebrate their first victory.
IAEA mission was held at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which addressed the issues of buildings and structures decommissioning, decommissioning methods, as well as processing of radioactively contaminated concrete and waste generated, including radioactive ones.
Although the final state of Chornobyl NPP site does not include a large-scale dismantling of existing buildings and structures, a considerable amount of reinforced concrete waste will be formed during the Central Halls hipped roof reconstruction and the equipment dismantling. Another source of its generation will be Shelter object unstable structures dismantling. All this right now requires consideration of such waste decontamination and processing in order to minimize its volume. Existing at Chornobyl NPP decontamination system today is not intended for large-scale decontamination, does not allow to decontaminate firmly fixed contamination and leads to formation of a large volume of secondary waste.
Assemblies Chornobyl Shelter Fund and the Nuclear Safety Account contributors was held in London.
Ukraine was represented by the Head of the Committee on Environmental Policy, Natural Resource Management and Chornobyl Accident Consequences Elimination - Andrei Dyriv, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ostap Semerak, Head of the subcommittee Ivan Rybak, head of SAMEZ Vitaly Petruk, head of the State Nuclear Regulation Inspectorate Grigory Plachkov, SSE ChNPP Acting General Director Valeriy Seyda. Vladimir Kashtanov, the Chief Engineer of the Shelter Implementation Plan Project and Andrii Savin, the Chief Engineer of the Safety Improvement Project participated as technical experts.
Representatives of the Ukrainian delegation in their presentation expressed their gratitude to international partners for their efforts in implementing projects to improve safety at the Chornobyl NPP industrial site and informed the meeting participants about the fulfillment of obligations undertaken by Ukraine. It was specially noted that funds for operation of NSC and ISF-2 facilities are provided in the State Budget of Ukraine starting from 2019.
On 30th November, there was a regular visit of TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.) representatives to the Chornobyl NPP site. The Japanese delegation was headed by Mr. Shigemitsu Suzuki, Vice President of TEPCO.
Experts from TEPCO visit the ChNPP site on a regular basis. The Japanese nuclear engineers are interested in experience of ChNPP in the field of the accident consequences elimination, and decommissioning practices as well. We have similar problems and issues. You will recall that the tsunami-induced nuclear accident happened at Fukushima NPP in 2011.
Currently, TEPCO is dealing with the decommissioning of its own Plant — Fukushima NPP. This time the Japanese specialists visited the space under the Arch of New Safe Confinement (NSC) with the purpose to study remotely handling equipment, cranes and life support systems of the NSC.
International Scientific-Practical Conference with a focus on discussion of the most relevant issues of the Shelter Object transformation into an environmentally safe system started at the Chornobyl NPP on the threshold of 32nd anniversary of the Shelter construction completion.
Dismantling of the Shelter Object’s unstable structures will commence after the NSC commissioning that is expected next year. These works are planned to be finished by 2023. Such circumstances require now proceeding with the detailed elaboration of long-term measures on the Shelter Object transformation into the environmentally safe system. This is actually the main task of the Conference.
The Conference was opened by Valeriy Seyda, Acting General Director of SSE ChNPP, and Oleh Nasvit, First Deputy Head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM).