Russian Nuke Plant Officials Accused of Dumping

[jpak]

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050412/2005-04-12T083520Z_01_L12316722_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-NUCLEAR-RUSSIA-DUMPING-DC.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors accused officials at the country's oldest nuclear processing plant of dumping radioactive waste in a criminal case ecologists hope leads to its eventual closure, media reported Tuesday.

The Mayak plant in the Urals has been the site of various accidents since it was opened in 1949, including a radioactive waste tank explosion in the 1950s.

Tens of thousands of Russians living near the facility have been treated for the effects of radiation exposure for years.

Yuri Zolotov, deputy prosecutor general in the Urals region, told NTV television that an investigation showed that liquid radioactive waste had continuously been dumped from Mayak into the Techa river, which eventually flows into Siberia's major Ob river and on to the Arctic Ocean.

<more>