Russia Offers Cleanup Plan for Nuclear Sub

Russian experts Friday unveiled a new plan to prevent a potentially disastrous leak of radiation from a sunken atomic submarine off Norway but said other countries would have to help pay for the operation.

They said Russia had scrapped a proposal to raise the Komsomolets, a secret experimental submarine that sank in April, 1989, with the loss of 42 lives, and did not want to recover its nuclear torpedoes or atomic reactor unless it had to.

Nikolai Borisov, head of a new committee for carrying out special underwater work, said experts now want to seal off the torpedoes and reactor by covering them in a special foam that would absorb any leak of radiation.

“This seems to be a very attractive way of (solving the problem), but a final decision will be possible only after expert examination,” he told a news conference.

The committee estimates that the operation would cost around $70 million, as opposed to the $500 million needed to lift the submarine and millions more to bury it.

“We need a lot of financing. Each operation is very expensive. We can’t do it by ourselves,” Borisov said.

Russia worries that plutonium could leak from the torpedoes, causing major environmental damage, but Norway says Moscow is exaggerating the extent of the problem.

The submarine’s reactor has been leaking nuclear fuel for more than a year, but Norway says there are no signs of radiation in fish.

Norwegian officials Thursday said Russia planned to lift the torpedoes out separately, but Borisov said this could be put off for decades if the special foam--which sets into a glass-like substance--could be pumped into the submarine.

“We would like to preserve the submarine on the seabed and not raise anything at all,” he said after the conference.