Environment and Security: Transforming risks into cooperation

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Environment and Security

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for safe use of the land for agriculture and water for drinking and irrigation. In some of the military sites mentioned above military tests and exercises will probably continue subjecting the local environment to fur- ther stress. Lessons learned from the past should be taken into consideration to pre- vent more environmental damage. Uranium production is another feature of the eastern Caspian region. At its peak in the 1980s Kazakhstan was producing more than one-third of Soviet uranium at more than 30 mining sites. The discovery of vast uranium deposits in the deserts of West- ern Kazakhstan led to the establishment and rapid development of uranium extrac- tion and processing around Aktau 54 , with large open-cast mining pits 55 , a processing plant, the Koshkar-Ata tailing site, and the MAEK nuclear power plant. At present more than half of all the radioactive waste in Ka-

zakhstan has accumulated around Aktau, Mangystau province.

The price of uraniumdropped in the 1980–90s reflecting changes inmilitary priorities. Mean- while the uranium concentration in the mines gradually declined and the overall economic crisis in the post-Soviet world of the 1990s cut back output until uranium milling opera- tions in Aktau were finally stopped in 1999. In 1997 the US and Kazakh governments agreed to undertake a joint programme to improve the safety and security of pluto- nium-bearing spent fuel from the BN-350 fast-breeder reactor at Aktau. By the end of 2001 all this material had been inventoried, placed under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, and packed into storage canisters. At the same time the dis- tillation plant supplying water to Aktau was switched to oil and natural gas. At present the highly radioactive spent fuel containing

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