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Environment and Security

52

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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