Secrecy vs. the Need for Ecological Information: Challenges to Environmental Activism in

by Thomas Jandl

OWHERE IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND NATIONAL SECURITY CLEARER THAN IN THE case of weaponry as a polluter. Even within this category of environmental threats, there is a hierarchy. N At the top, both in terms of environmental priorities and international security, are weapons of mass destruction. They represent not only classic environmental problems— health hazards and threats to species— but also create an obstacle to economic well-being. Plus, they tend to affect neighboring nations to the same degree as the country on whose soil they are produced or stored. Nuclear, biological, and chemical accidents are truly global polluters, through transportation of contaminants in ocean currents and in the atmosphere. Both East and West are grappling with their Cold War legacies, and more specifically with the cost of safe- guarding and storing nuclear waste. In the prevailing economic situation, the obstacles to dealing adequately with the Cold War heritage are even more significant for Russia than the West. It is in this context that the Norwegian NGO, the Bellona Foundation, initiated its analysis of the Soviet Cold War legacy on and around the Kola peninsula. Two major reports—Sources of Radioactive Contamination in and Arkhangel’sk Counties, and The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination—re- sulted from this effort. The reasons for focusing on this region are not solely environmental. ’s interest in the Northern Fleet’s nuclear legacy stems from the country’s vicinity to the storage sites and is thus as much inspired by national security as by pure environmental concerns. This issue has transcended like few others the realms of classic environmental problems and related health hazards, moving into the fields of diplomacy and international security. Russia reacted strongly to Volume II of the report, arresting co-author Alexandr Nikitin. This article will, through the Nikitin case, explore how an individual environmental organization ventured through the minefields of international security and diplomacy, forging obvious as well as unlikely alliances along the way. For environmental organizations, there are two lessons to be learned: One, the increased mixing of national security issues with environmental concerns makes it more dangerous to work in the field by widen- ing the range of problems environmentalists can encounter. Two, environmental groups have to build relation- ships in a much wider range of areas than environmental policy alone. Bellona USA’s fax list includes the state department, the national security community, the international affairs community in Congress, the congres- sional human rights caucus, and a group of opinion leaders in the areas of democratization and economic trans- formation from a planned to a market economy. There is also a lesson to be learned for politicians and national security specialists. While the globalization of trade is hotly debated, the spreading of environmental problems into the commons—the oceans and the atmo- sphere—is well under way. The separation of these international environmental cases from international secu- rity policy, for semantic or ideological reasons, invariably comes back to haunt us. The earlier these problems are addressed in international negotiations, the better.

THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM

With the end of the Cold War, questions pertaining to the degradation of the global commons, transboundary pollution, and the depletion of resources of importance to neighboring nations have become more prevalent topics of international discussions than nuclear annihilation. Few debate the merits of this change in priorities. The probability of a nuclear strike against American soil is more remote than ever. By contrast, the risk of an

Thomas Jandl is the Director of Bellona USA, the Washington-based sister organization of the Norwegian Bellona Founda- tion. For additional information, access their website at http://www.bellona.no.

Environmental Change and Security Project Report, Issue 45 Features - Thomas Jandl

environmentally disastrous accident as a consequence exists, in the form of actual weapon systems (warheads, of Cold War activities is much higher than previously bombs, mines, etc.), related items such as nuclear sub- known—or admitted. marine reactors, and other contaminated materials. The Environmental and national security concerns be- U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense are wrestling come most directly intertwined when the military and with these problems, and more specifically the cost of its activities and systems create the environmental haz- decommissioning nuclear waste. The world’s largest ard. The inadequate storage of nuclear weapons and defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, is unable to ful- other contaminated materials raises questions of how fill its contract on agreements that require cleaning up far secrecy in military affairs can legitimately be main- a contaminated storage site in Idaho Falls. The cost tained. vastly exceeds the 1994 estimates of $179 million: for a A large amount of nuclear and chemical hazards single site of low-level materials, cost estimates now

A CHRONOLOGY OF THE NIKITIN CASE 5 October 1995: The FSB, Russia’s federal police, raids the 10 October 1996: Bellona employees are denied visas to Rus- Bellona office in Murmansk and confiscates all research ma- sia to prevent participation in the defense of Nikitin. terials. Bellona employee Alexandr Nikitin is questioned. 19 October 1996: The Bellona report is banned in Russia; 5 December 1995: The Ministry of Defense forms an ex- the first book to be banned in the post-Soviet era. pert committee to evaluate information in the Bellona re- port with respect to state secrets revealed therein. The com- 11 December 1996: The Deputy Director General of Public mittee declares it is not competent to evaluate the sources Prosecution orders Nikitin’s release from pretrial detention. for the information. 14 December 1996: The FSB falsely claims the case was al- 6 February 1996: Alexandr Nikitin is arrested by the FSB ready in court and Nikitin cannot be released. The and accused of espionage for his work on the Bellona Prosecutor’s office insists. Nikitin is released. Foundation’s report on The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination, an environmental document 10 February 1997: The Council of begins to investi- about radioactive waste in Northwest Russia. gate the human rights violations in the Nikitin case.

27 March 1996: The Constitutional Court rules that Nikitin’s 23 April 1997: Another Ministry of Defense committee is attorney does not have to request security clearance as sug- formed. No conclusions yet. gested by the FSB. 9 September 1997: The FSB files final charges based on 11 April 1996: Nikitin is indicted, but the text of the indict- secret decrees and laws that entered into force when Nikitin ment remains classified. was in pretrial detention. The FSB removes files document- ing the false information given to the Procurator on 14 De- 24 June 1996: The Ministry of Defense forms a second com- cember 1996, but is later ordered to restore them. mittee. The results mirror the findings of the first. The Min- istry of Atomic Energy sets up a committee. This commit- 12 November 1997: The FSB’s chief investigator in the tee finds no state secrets in the Bellona report. The Ministry Nikitin case, Boris Utkin, is dismissed and replaced. of the Defense Industry forms a committee, which finds it is not competent to respond to the questions posed by the 28 November 1997: Nikitin holds a press conference in Mos- FSB. cow. This marks the first time Nikitin is allowed to leave his internal exile in St. Petersburg since his arrest. 17 July 1996: The Environment Committee of St. Petersburg concludes the report has no relevance to environmental 24 January 1998: The FSB presents Nikitin with a new set of problems in the region. charges; the sixth since the beginning of the case. Although based on one additional decree, the entire accusation is still August 1996: Amnesty International adopts Nikitin as the based on secret and partly retroactive decrees issued by the first prisoner of conscience since Andrei Sakharov. The In- Ministry of Defense. ternational Helsinki Committee sets up a Nikitin commis- sion. The UNHCR reviews the Nikitin case. 5 March 1998: Twenty-two members of Congress urge Vice President Gore to raise the Nikitin case with Russian Prime 17 September 1996: A Ministry of Defense committee finds Minister Chernomyrdin during the Gore-Chernomyrdin that the damages caused by Nikitin are $1 million. meeting in Washington. This is the third congressional let- ter on behalf of Nikitin sponsored by Rep. David Skaggs 30 September 1996: The FSB bases its charges against Nikitin (D-Colo.). on secret Defense Ministry decrees. The Russian Constitu- tion holds that no citizen may be charged with laws that 10 April 1998: Procurator General Yuriy Skuratov extends have not been duly published. the investigation into the Nikitin case for an unspecified time.

46 Secrecy vs. the Need for Ecological Information: Challenges to Environmental Activism in Russia are in the $600 million range (Mintz, 1997). The American experience offers a good indicator nvironmental and national secu- about the challenges in Russia, where the government rity concerns become most directly has to deal with an even larger number of submarines, E bombers, and missiles than the Pentagon and DoE. In intertwined when the military and its ac- addition, Russia’s economy is in transition. Even the tivities and systems create the environ- most optimistic assessments do not suggest that Rus- sia will be able to pump as much money into its cleanup mental hazard. The inadequate storage program as the . At present, Russia falls of nuclear weapons and other contami- far short of funding even the most basic needs. In the immediate future, it is clear that the cost of a reason- nated materials raises questions of how ably safe cleanup of Russia’s nuclear waste must be far secrecy in military affairs can legiti- underwritten by the international community. To increase the world’s interest in confronting this mately be maintained. “Russian” problem, the Bellona Foundation initiated its analysis of the Soviet Cold War legacy on and around the Kola peninsula. In 1994 and 1996, Bellona published two volumes of a report on nuclear contamination in secrecy. Scientists who want to measure radioactivity northwestern Russia (Nilsen & Boehmer, 1994; Nilsen, around these containers next spring will do so at the Nikitin & Kudrik, 1996). The reasons for focusing on risk of being accused of espionage and treason. this region are not primarily environmental; Norway’s To exacerbate the problem, only 35 percent of all interest in the Northern Fleet’s nuclear legacy stems as funding for the Northern Fleet’s nuclear safeguard much from the security aspect of the problem as from work was actually allocated to the navy. Most of the pure environmentalism. money was used to cover salaries and pensions. Bills So far, the Russian Northern Fleet has taken out of go unpaid for long periods of time. At one point, a operation approximately 130 nuclear submarines. Ap- storage facility commander had to send an armed pla- proximately 150 more will follow within the next half toon to an electric power plant to restore at gunpoint decade under the second part of the Strategic Arms the power supply for the essential cooling systems. The Reduction Treaty (START II). A total of 18 percent of all facility had not paid its electricity bills (Jandl, 1995). nuclear reactors in the world are located on the Kola The director of the Atomic Icebreaker Fleet in Peninsula, giving the area the distinction of accommo- Murmansk, who is also responsible for some of the on- dating the highest concentration of nuclear materials board storage of radioactive waste, calls the storage worldwide. Solid radioactive waste is stored in eleven policy of the Northern Fleet “fraught with disaster” facilities along the Kola coast. All are full, and at sev- (Roukcha, 1997). Policymakers must therefore think of eral sites waste is stored openly in drums or containers the implications of a START III treaty where more sub- without any protection against the elements or theft. marines were taken off line without assuring proper There is no intermediate or permanent storage site in funding of the cleanup after dismantlement. the area. In fact, all waste is supposed to be shipped to With all the makeshift storage facilities along the the Mayak reprocessing plant in Siberia. At the rate the coast of the Barents Sea, within a 100-mile radius of trains are going, the transportation of the existing waste the Norwegian and Finnish borders, environmental would take more than fifteen years, without even tak- risks are inevitable to Russia’s neighbors as well. An ing into account the newly decommissioned subma- accident will have catastrophic consequences not only rines that will add to the nuclear wastepile over the for hundreds of thousands of Russians, but also for next years. In addition, the Mayak plant is not capable those in neighboring states. In addition, any accident of accommodating all the waste, and would be over- will impact the Barents fishing grounds, and, through whelmed if all the material supposed to be reprocessed water streams and ice movements, can potentially were really to arrive. The abysmal state of the rail sys- transport radioactive particles all across the Arctic to tem makes it highly unlikely that all the waste will go places as far away as Alaska. The issue has thus tran- through Mayak. scended, like few other environmental matters, the In addition to the solid nuclear materials, liquid realms of classic environmental protection and related waste is stored in unguarded concrete containers. Since health hazards, diplomacy, and international security. the 1997 federal budget for the first time did not in- The questions come down to these: how much access clude money for container maintenance, Russian ex- to military facilities can an international organization perts have publicly stated that winter frost will cause demand in the name of global interests? And if the already existing cracks to widen and cause leakage of West funds the cleanup effort, doesn’t the West have a low-level radioactivity next spring (Nilsen, 1997). The right to see what its money is funding? government’s response was to tighten laws on state The Russian reaction to Volume II of the Bellona

47 Features - Thomas Jandl

report has added an unintended fourth realm: human formation to post-Soviet restrictions on information rights and democracy. Russian security police arrested whose publicity is explicitly protected in the Constitu- one of the contributors to the report for alleged national tion. Bellona got caught somewhere in the middle, af- security breaches. Since that time, Bellona has forged ter having worked in Russia throughout the post-com- alliances with groups not traditionally known for en- munist era. vironmental work, such as Amnesty International and Bellona learned many valuable lessons in the Human Rights Watch. Similarly, traditional environ- course of this case. The key ones are discussed below. mental groups have added human rights to their line For small environmental groups as well as grassroots of work, as exemplified by the Sierra Club’s Human activists in Russia, the key question is, how can one Rights program and, albeit not by choice, Bellona continue the work without the support of a western through the defense of its employee, Alexandr Nikitin. group with relatively deep pockets and international friends? The obstacles and opponents appear over- THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM whelming. Based on the Nikitin experience, Bellona will set up an Environmental Rights Center in St. Peters- In the period of 1989 to 1991, Russia was in a state burg. A joint venture with the Russian civil rights of euphoria. Everyone wanted to talk to westerners, group, Citizens’ Watch, the Center will support Rus- journalists, scientists, or environmentalists. After de- sian environmentalists with legal problems, and also cades of secrecy decreed by the authoritarian commu- serve as a clearinghouse for contacting like-minded in- nist regime, the door had opened and the tides of ternational groups and activists as well as the funding change seemed to sweep a country eager to catch up community. Small groups with niche issues are impor- on interaction with like-minded foreigners. tant, but they cannnot survive in a perilous environ- Between 1991 and 1994, Russia knew no rules. The ment. They need, just as Bellona did in the Nikitin case, old order was dead, and nobody had bothered to re- coalitions and support groups to stand up to an over- place it with a new one. Not surprisingly, the remnants powering state security apparatus. of the old days tried to hold on. After 1994, the old guard had reorganized itself sufficiently to clamp down LESSON ONE: IT’S ALL POLITICS NOW on the new-found liberties. The Federal Security Ser- vice (FSB) interviewed Bellona’s Igor Kudrik about his The environment once presented a less contentious work on the problems stemming from the storage of area where the military superpowers could seek coop- nuclear fuel from the Northern Fleet’s submarines in eration, but it is now increasingly the realm of diplo- the Kola region. At first, there were no allegations about matic, political, and even military players. With the telling state secrets, only questions of loyalty and na- demise of their Cold War patrons in the East or West, tionalism. Why would a son of Russia work with for- smaller nations have fewer geopolitical restraints eigners? Not coincidentally, the only Bellona employ- against going to war with one other. The same is true ees ever harassed by the FSB are the two Russian na- for internal strife. Resource scarcity is considered by tionals on the staff, Kudrik and Nikitin. Kudrik had to some to be a contributory cause of displacement of leave Russia and now works for Bellona in Norway. millions of people and subsequent armed conflict. At that time, the FSB paid visits to numerous ac- NGOs, such as the World Resources Institute, study tivists. On one occasion, the office of the newspaper the connection between resource availability, migration Moscow News was ransacked after the paper published and conflict. Universities have opened departments for the research of Vil Mirzoyanov, a scientist, on chemical similar research. One of the first and best-known envi- weaponry. Russia had just signed the chemical weap- ronment and security researchers, Thomas Homer- ons convention. Mirzoyanov got off easily. There was Dixon, drove home the point of the interplay of these no written law on state secrets at that time, and Mos- fields in an interview in 1995—less by what he said cow News was an influential paper. Nevertheless, after than where he said it: he appeared in Defense News, one the incident Mirzoyanov decided to move to the United of the defense industry trade papers (Homer-Dixon, States. But Bellona bore the brunt of the security appa- 1995). ratus’ wrath, maybe because Nikitin’s “betrayal” of the While resource scarcity could be identified as an motherland weighed heavier due to his military past. economic issue traditionally related to national secu- He was a former navy captain. In 1995, a state secrecy rity, Bellona’s work in Russia is based on pollution, al- law was passed, and in 1997, the law was amended to beit pollution stemming from military nuclear reactors. give the FSB sweeping powers to decide, without Hence, the lesson could be simple: stay away from proper judicial review, what information on nuclear military issues and you are safe. Two problems become weapons and nuclear storage and safety, should be evident, however. First, the military nuclear complex deemed secret. represents an enormous environmental hazard, both The pendulum had swung full circle from Soviet in NATO and in the former Warsaw Pact nations. Sim- authoritarianism to quasi-libertarian freedoms of in- ply declaring it off-limits to inspection and criticism

48 Secrecy vs. the Need for Ecological Information: Challenges to Environmental Activism in Russia would create an unacceptable national security risk for military’s omerta, similar to the Mafia’s unwritten code populations in the nuclear countries themselves, as well that you never criticize your own, whatever the conse- as in nations in close range of a nuclear storage facility quences. or weapons production site. Second, the new Russian law on state secrets is so broadly worded that, in theory, LESSON TWO: FORMING NEW COALITIONS activists or NGOs could be accused of breaching na- tional security laws if they simply measure the radia- The “military secrets” Bellona’s report revealed tion levels around civilian “nuclear power installations were the storage conditions of old, decommissioned and special physical installations which have signifi- submarine reactors and spent nuclear fuel of a genera- cance for defense” (Law on State Secrets, 1993). While tion of years past. It is difficult to believe Russia feels Russia, of course, has a right to protect its national se- threatened by revelations of this kind. In fact, the curity, this definition of security infringes on other nuclear materials as analyzed in the Northern Fleet countries’ own environmental safety and, given the report are of so little importance to the nation’s defense power of the atom, touches on global security concerns. that Russia is trying hard to get rid of them, but cannot Furthermore, the law directly contradicts the Russian afford to do so. Clearly, the driving force behind the Constitution, which states that no condition endanger- obstinate FSB prosecution of Nikitin is elsewhere. In- ing the health of the population can be kept secret. deed, one military source told a western expert travel- The Russian side claims that the broad wording of ing in Russia that the Northern Fleet does not have a the state secrecy laws allows all sorts of existing inter- problem with Bellona’s work. Its issue lies with Nikitin national cooperation projects to continue. Indeed, these and it is personal. laws are not aimed at U.S. military officials who help While the navy may want to punish a whistle- their Russian counterparts comply with arms control blower, the FSB has more rational motivations. Briefly treaties, such as START. State secrecy restrictions will disbanded in the new Russia, the KGB was revived as probably not be invoked against Pentagon officials who the FSB, with the goals to fight organized crime, pre- bring millions of dollars in Cooperative Threat Reduc- vent terrorism, and perform counter-espionage func- tion money, better known as Nunn-Lugar funding tions. The Russian mafia has proven to be beyond the (Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor, 1997). These re- FSB’s reach. Chechnya has hurt its reputation as an strictions will not stop the work that the Russian side anti-terrorism force. It needed a success on the espio- is interested in pursuing. But they will put a hold on nage front. The navy’s angry reaction to Nikitin’s role private watchdog groups and individuals in research in the Bellona report was an opening. In two years of facilities who, through their work, try to make their investigations, the FSB has not been very successful in power plant, town, oblast, or country a better place to bringing to light illegal behavior. But too many partici- live. And the restrictions might be used as a means of pants in this legal drama have staked their careers on applying pressure on foreign officials when disputes the Nikitin case to let it go. So they delay, in the knowl- arise during the implementation of a cooperative edge that going to court with the evidence that is avail- project. able would lead to certain defeat. When Procurator Bellona has a large number of friends in the Kola General Skuratov dismissed the chief investigator, Boris region, mostly researchers and academics who used Utkin, and replaced him with an official with no prior Bellona’s help to continue their important work. In turn, participation in the case, he took the first step towards they helped Bellona to gather information for the first a fair review. Only an investigative team with no per- systematic analysis of nuclear waste in the area and its sonal stake in a conviction can bring this case to an end. storage conditions. These researchers and activists are The case has even wider implications than now put in a situation of legal limbo. They no longer Alexandr Nikitin’s personal fate. The FSB’s activities know for sure what they can do and what could land mirror the behavior of security forces in many nations them in jail. in their interaction with inconvenient opposition Alexandr Nikitin was the first to be targeted for groups. The environment is often a point of contention going too far. Bellona, as his employer, supports between those in power and those without power. Nikitin’s claim that he broke no law. Bellona has, in Grassroots action starts most frequently over issues of cooperation with Nikitin’s legal team, prepared docu- vital importance, such as the use of land in a subsis- mentation to show that his activities are fully covered tence community, or a parent’s fight against unsafe by common law and the constitution, which spells out nuclear storage which threatens a child’s future. unambiguously that all information pertaining to se- Of course, aside from these merely personal issues, vere public health risks cannot be kept secret, and that there are also philosophical questions pertaining to every citizen with knowledge about such hazards must democracy, the rule of law, and basic human rights. The bring them to the public’s attention (Gauslaa, 1996, Nikitin case touches on all of these. It is thus not sur- Gauslaa, 1997). But Nikitin learned about these risks prising that throughout the fight for a fair trial or a dis- as a navy captain. By speaking out, he broke the missal, Nikitin and Bellona have worked with many

49 Features - Thomas Jandl

non-environmental constituencies. Bellona has talked sary by the move of environmental issues into the dan- to many a U.S. senator or representative with no love gerous politico-military realm. And, NGOs remain lost for the environmental movement. Dear Colleague small and relatively powerless vis-à-vis a totalitarian letters circulated in the House and Senate received wide system. Russia appears to have turned the tide towards bipartisan support, and no clear ideological current is a democracy and the government is not indifferent to discernible among the signatories. Senator Ted Stevens criticism. But the Nikitin case is only the beginning. (R-Alaska) is as supportive as Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.)—two gentlemen undoubtedly on the oppos- MONEY TALKS ing ends of the political spectrum. In the House, de- fense hawk Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) has To break the indifference some nations exhibit to helped as much as environmentalist Representative political pressure, or to improve the effectiveness of lob- David Skaggs (D-Colo.). Vice President Al Gore has bying from the NGO side, coalitions should include taken up the Nikitin case in private with then Russian players from outside the field of talkers and thinkers. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, while Canadian Money talks, and most authoritarian regimes stay in Prime Minister Jean Chretien has done so in public. power because it is financially attractive for the des- Everything is in a name. Bellona showed good pots. Nigeria is a case in point. The military regime political instinct when the organization—despite the would not hold on if the oil revenues did not go right founders’ wild days as youth activists—embarked on into the elite’s pockets. When environmental activist a pragmatic path, building coalitions rather than shock- Ken Saro-Wiwa was sentenced to death, he received ing and alienating. The group is committed to envi- support from the highest political and moral dignitar- ronmental protection and unashamed of calling itself ies around the globe. Nevertheless, Saro-Wiwa was an environmental organization. But by addressing en- hanged. It is more likely that Nigeria would have let vironmental protection in a scientific way, Bellona has Saro-Wiwa go if Shell’s president Cornelius Herkstroter gained a reputation that allows its staff to talk to politi- had made his company’s financial support of the Ni- cians who would not normally interact with most other gerian government contingent upon adherence to ba- environmental organizations. Greenpeace, just to name sic human rights. one, has done important work in bringing environmen- Bellona therefore works with industry to create a tal concerns to the attention of a mass audience. coalition between a public policy goal on the one Greenpeace also performs a wide range of serious aca- hand—environmental protection and nuclear safety— demic research on environmental issues. Nevertheless, and financial interests on the other. The cleanup needs its reputation is one of sensationalism, regardless of the in northwestern Russia are enormous and Western com- merits of a specific report or campaign. In the Nikitin panies should get a large share of contracts due to their case, Bellona has managed to paint a picture of gen- know-how and technologies. The delay now is politi- eral, international political interest over the green back- cal. How can the U.S. and European governments over- ground upon which it operates. Broad support was come differences over work share and supervisory au- easier to obtain on such a foundation. thority; how can the West’s concerns over liability in Amnesty International has adopted Nikitin as a case of an accident be taken into account; how can fund- prisoner of conscience, and Human Rights Watch is ing be made available in a climate of increasing skepti- working the case from its Moscow office. The Sierra cism towards foreign aid? Bellona and other NGOs will Club’s human rights campaign is working hard on the tell lawmakers why this issue is important to national issue, and democracy groups and former dissidents security. Industry will be better in convincing a con- support Nikitin from within Russia. Many de facto U.S. gressional representative that cleanup funding for officials support Bellona by taking the banned North- nuclear storage sites in Russia is not a waste of money. ern Fleet report to Russia or using its analysis and num- American technology exports are creating jobs at home, bers in their argumentation. The report is the first and while at the same time making the world a safer place only book to be banned in post-communist Russia. to live—both in terms of disarmament and the envi- Prominent Russians, like former Yeltsin science adviser ronment. Alexey Yablokov, are openly supportive of Nikitin and Companies like Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, Bellona. General Electric, and Babcock and Wilcox are the best No environmental group can take on the Russian lobbyists for the economic message in the United States. security apparatus. This is why environmental organi- Furthermore, they possess more financial resources and zations will have to forge alliances with other organi- have fewer restrictions than NGOs when lobbying zations to increase their leverage. Bellona’s coopera- Congress. French, British, Norwegian, and Swedish tion with a host of human rights advocates, supporters nuclear cleanup companies are focusing on the busi- of democratization and economic conversion in Rus- ness opportunities presented by the Russian storage sia, and international relations experts, is an early mess. On this issue at least, environmentalists and busi- model of this new coalition. It has been made neces- nesses are natural allies. Should environmentalists go

50 Secrecy vs. the Need for Ecological Information: Challenges to Environmental Activism in Russia to bed with the ”enemy” called the nuclear industry? tab, at the latest when the first irradiated fish are found Business is pragmatic enough to work with NGOs that in Alaska. This debate is reminiscent of the one that in past times have chided the industry for its practices. surrounds health care. Prevention is cheaper than the Environmentalists should be pragmatic enough to work cure. Politicians and the public would prefer not to pay with business when the environmental bottom line the cost of the cleanup. But eventually we will have to. shows a change for the better. That does not mean that The earlier we do it, the cheaper it will be and the less environmental NGOs should look the other way over damage will be done in the process. abuses by their new partners elsewhere. It just means There is an additional benefit. Some Russian com- that where interests overlap, environmentalists should panies are indeed quite good at what they are doing, stretch out their hands. When interests clash, NGOs and they do it for much less than their Western coun- will speak up as always. terparts. In one project currently under consideration, Ideology is dead. Pragmatism is in. Bellona has the Western partners would transfer technology to their pursued the art of pragmatic environmentalism in its Russian joint venture company. The Russians would industry partnership program. Companies sponsor one produce nuclear waste storage casks for use in the Kola Bellona program, while Bellona sues them in another. region. If the project works well, these casks could be But why not? Defense contractors sue the Pentagon used in the U.S. cleanup program as well, a mutual with great regularity, just to see the program managers benefit for the Russian and American partners. they had just denounced as incompetent award them The Clinton administration, in general friendly to yet another billion-dollar contract. Bellona’s approach the idea of environmental cleanup, has not managed of cooperation may not be suitable for every environ- to prioritize the environmental legacy of the Cold War. mental organization, but all parties with interest in in- Ken Luongo, former advisor for nonproliferation policy ternational work will inevitably have to find innova- to Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary and director of tive solutions to doing business. the DoE Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, stated that “[w]hile Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED, LIKE IT OR NOT Yeltsin would publicly announce their common aims, achievement of those goals was hampered by bureau- Globalization is well under way. For the environ- cratic staff on both sides who still harbored misgivings mentalists, that means that if we do not change our about the other’s intentions.” Luongo also blamed ways of operating, we will be left in the cold. This jour- Congress and the administration for their “perceptions nal will receive submissions on the global impact of of the cooperative programs as foreign aid rather than CO2 emissions reductions. There will be discussions as an investment in U.S. security.” He said that the on the exploitation of the oceans, and eventually about United States needed “a cabinet secretary that cares. the use of resources in space. Every issue related to re- Secretaries Albright, Cohen, or Peña need to take on source use will increasingly be defined in terms of na- this issue [of nuclear safeguards] as their own. Only tional security. Trade and access to markets and re- then will the bureaucracy move. We’ve been lulled into sources will rapidly replace military influence and ideo- a false sense of security because people think we’ve logical infighting. accomplished much more than we have” (Luongo, This being said, it is anachronistic that many poli- 1997). ticians still do not understand the importance of a prag- Potential problems need to be addressed in the matic approach to issues of global reach. Ideology ap- early stages of a project. As mentioned above, the Cold pears to be the driver in an amendment to the success- War did not leave the developers of nuclear weapons ful Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction pro- much time to ponder the environmental consequences gram, prohibiting funding of environmental projects. of their work. But today, the world is safe enough to To be sure, Nunn-Lugar is a disarmament program. Yet, take a minute to reflect and think issues through. START nobody asked for money to plant flowers. On the other III, the next round of the Strategic Arms Reduction hand, one potential catastrophe replaces another if Treaty, needs to include provisions for dealing with the nuclear submarines are decommissioned with U.S. dangerous side effects of the disarmament process. money, but no funds can be spent on the final storage There are many. Proliferation and safe storage are top of the spent nuclear fuel from those subs. priorities, but experts in different fields will add to the Funding nuclear cleanup is good business in list. If the biggest threat to the safe storage of dismantled America. The nuclear industry in the United States had nuclear weapons is the social situation in Russia, then to survive without a domestic nuclear power plant or- it must be in the purview of START III to address is- der for two decades. Contracts will be commissioned sues such as unpaid salaries for those who guard stor- for cleaning up and safeguarding nuclear sites. U.S. age facilities. If environmental considerations turn out companies have made large investments and want to to be of importance, as most experts are convinced they recoup their money. Russia is a vast market, but Rus- will, resources must be made available to deal with sia cannot pay. Eventually the West will pick up the them. What will history say about those who in the

51 Features - Thomas Jandl

name of Cooperative Threat Reduction created one threat Nilsen, Thomas. Nuclear Waste Storage in Andreeva Bay. from another, spending billions of taxpayer dollars in the Bellona Fact Sheet 87: , Norway, 1997. process? Nilsen, Thomas, and Nils Boehmer. Sources of Radioac- tive Contamination in Murmansk and Arkhangel’sk Counties. Oslo, Norway: Bellona Foundation, 1994. BIBLIOGRAPHY Nilsen, Thomas, and Igor Kudrik, and Alexandr Nikitin. The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Con- Gauslaa, Jon. The Nikitin Case. Oslo, Norway: Bellona Foun- tamination. Oslo, Norway: Bellona Foundation, 1996. dation, 1996. Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor. “U.S.-Russia ______. The Prejudication of Alexandr Nikitin. Oslo, Norway: Nuke Sub Programs Not Affected by New Secrets Law.” Bellona Foundation, 1997. 25 November, 1997, 3. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. “One on One.” Defense News, 27 Roukcha, Viatcheslav. Comments at the Norwegian- March - 2 April 1995, 46. U.S.-Russian Initiatives for Environmental Cooperation in Jandl, Thomas. “Russian Submariners Seize Power Plant.” North-West Russia: Management, Treatment and Disposal of Navy News & Undersea Technology, Oct. 2, 1995, 6. Nuclear Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel conference. Washing- Luongo, Ken. Presentation at the Committee on Nuclear ton, Dec. 4, 1997. Policy, The Henry Stimson Center. Washington. 23 September Rossyskaya Gazeta. Moscow, 21 September 1993. 1997. Amendments passed by the Duma on 19 September 1997, Mintz, John. “Lockheed Martin Mired in Toxic Mess and signed by President Boris N. Yeltsin on 6 October 1997. Cleanup.” Washington Post, 5 October 1997, A14. Translated by Bellona.

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