Nuclear vessels can pose a real threat to human life

Nuclear vessels accidents hardly get publicized, yet they pose a serious threat to human life and the environment, writes Martin Khor in an Inter Press Service analysis.

PENANG, Malaysia (IPS): A recent nuclear-armed submarine collision off the south-eastern coast of the United States involving a nuclear-armed submarine strengthens the anti-nuclear movement's case that such vessels can pose a real threat to human life and the environment.

On May 17, a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine collided with a Saudi Arabia merchant ship in the Atlantic off Norfolk. While one control plane on the submarine, the Jacksonville, was damaged, there were no reports of internal water leakage or damage on the nuclear-power plant.

Even so, this was the latest in a string of navy accidents this year, and the Jacksonville has had two previous collisions in the same area. In 1982, it hit a Turkish freighter near Cape Charles and in 1984 it collided with a navy barge at Chesapeake Bay, damaging its sonar dome.

These little-publicized incidents are the tip of an iceberg of a dangerous pattern of accidents involving nuclear-powered and nuclear weapon carrying ships. Such is the observation of the Washington-based International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA), which is actively pursuing a "Nuclear-Free Seas Campaign".

Should a major accident take place and the nuclear facility/weapons of these vessels are damaged or, a nuclear explosion occurs, horrifying environmental damage endangering life of species could follow, CTA officials note.

According to a study of the U.S.-based Environmental Studies Institute, up to 21,000 people could die from cancer if a nuclear weapon accident occurred on a ship at Yakosuka port in Japan, for example. It would affect cities like Tokyo and Yokohama which are within a 100 km radius.

In a severe accident involving a naval propulsion nuclear reactor, there would be 77,530 deaths from latent cancer fatalities alone and an equal number of people suffering genetic damage.

In recent interviews with IPS, CTA Executive Director, Andrew Kimbrell, and Defense Policy Director, Kay van der Horst, said that nuclear naval vessel operations pose the most serious danger to the global environment and human safety.

"The end of the Cold War did not end the nuclear threat," said Kimbrell. "Even as the superpowers negotiate the dismantling of their nuclear arsenals, escalation in the manufacture and deployment of nuclear submarines continues."

The CTA has compiled a report 'The Threat of Nuclear Submarine Operations to Global Security and Environmental Safety', which is one of the first comprehensive attempts to catalog accidents involving the world military powers' lethal nuclear weapons.

It shows that since 1965, there have been at least 15 direct collisions between U.S., Russian, French, British, and Chinese nuclear submarines and military surface ships.

During that period, 43 Soviet and 7 U.S. nuclear warheads, as well as seven nuclear reactors have been lost at sea in submarine sinkages, according to the CTA report.

Other published CTA statistics show that there have been 612 accidents involving U.S. nuclear submarines alone and that 19 Russian and U.S. nuclear reactors and two reactor screens from damaged nuclear submarines have been dumped at sea from damaged submarines.

The report concluded: "Nuclear attack submarines are the most environmentally dangerous vessels to global environmental safety. They are more likely to suffer from severe accidents which could potentially result in catastrophic consequences."

Nuclear missile submarines are the second nuclear vessels most likely to suffer from severe accidents. They pose a similar or greater risk than nuclear attack submarines because of the number of nuclear weapons they carry.

On behalf of the CTA, Kay van der Horst has been leading a tireless campaign bringing these and other facts to the attention of the European Parliament and the United Nations.

"There have been too many accidents, and one day a real catastrophe may occur," he says. "The world's policymakers must take a note and do something before this happens."

The CTA has found a sympathetic hearing in Malaysia. In April, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, Malaysia's permanent representative at the UN warned a Disarmament Commission that "mishaps and many accidents have occurred involving nuclear submarines but have been blanketed in secrecy".

"There are no studies yet revealing their impact on the environment," he observed. "Given a situation where nuclear strategic doctrine seems to be shifting from deploying land-based systems to sea-based systems, Malaysia believes it is vital for this Commission to consider this issue in its entirety."

There are two major types of accidents involving nuclear vessels: nuclear attack submarine accidents, and non-engagement nuclear submarine accidents.

Many of the nuclear attack submarine accidents involve ships belonging to opposing camps, thus heightening the danger of war.

For example, the CTA report documents the following:

*In Nov. 1969, a Soviet submarine collided with a U.S. submarine that was on an intelligence mission near the Arkhangelsk submarine facility in the former Soviet Union. Both were damaged.

*In March 1984, a Soviet submarine collided with the USS Kitty Hawk in the Sea of Japan.

*In Feb. 1992, the USS Baton Rouge nuclear attack submarine collided near Kildin Island with a nuclear attack submarine operated by the Commonwealth of Independent States, which groups most of those nations that formerly made up the Soviet Union.

*And in March 1993, a Russian Delta III submarine collided with the USS Grayling in the Barents Sea.

Other than direct engagement accidents, submarines suffer from non-engagement accident including fire, explosion, flooding, sinking, grounding, weapons damage and heavy weather damage.

During the 1980s alone, U.S. nuclear powered submarines experienced 612 reported accidents, according to the CTA report.

"Many accidents involving both U.S. and non-U.S. submarines have been significant, including several major catastrophes with Chernobyl-like potential," says the CTA report, referring to the 1986 nuclear plant accident in the Ukraine.

Altogether, the Soviet Union has lost at least five submarines with more than 40 nuclear warheads.

In 1986, a Soviet ballistic missile submarine sank in the Atlantic off Bermuda, taking down 16 missiles with a total of 32 nuclear warheads and 2 nuclear reactors.

In 1968, the K-129 submarine sank with at least three nuclear missiles and two nuclear torpedoes off Hawaii.

And in 1989, the Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian Sea after a fire. Its two nuclear torpedoes and one nuclear reactor were lost. The amount of radioactive pollution from this is still unknown.

"Environmental disasters caused by sinking of Soviet missile submarines are difficult to control," says the CTA. "Nuclear weapons aboard sunk Soviet and Russian submarines cannot be removed, since they are attached to a self-destruction device."

U.S. nuclear submarines have also been involved in significant accidents. In 1980, an accident involving a strategic missile submarine caused radioactive material from the reactor's cooling system to escape into the atmosphere.

In 1963, the nuclear-powered USS Thresher imploded and sank 100 miles east of Cape Cod in 8,500 feet of water, killing all 129 people on board. In 1968, the USS Scorpion sank 400 miles south-west of the Azores in 10,000 feet of water, killing all 99 crewmen and taking down two nuclear torpedoes.

Armed with these statistics, the CTA is pressing governments and the United Nations to investigate the accidents and to take mitigating actions.

Last November, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the main naval powers to provide information on nuclear weapons and reactors lost at sea. It asked for international negotiations to start immediately to halt the global danger emanating from lost nuclear weapons at sea.

The CTA chalks that up as one victory. But its eventual aim is to get a worldwide ban on the operations of nuclear weapon carrying vessels.

-- IPS

Window: Armed with these statistics, the CTA is pressing governments and the United Nations to investigate the accidents and to take mitigating actions.