On July 5 German Minister for Protection of the Environment and Nuclear Power Units Safety JЯrgen Trittin reported at the second Chornobyl Containment Fund Conference held in Berlin that 335.5 million euros has been collected for the project. The total amount collected by the two conferences is $715 million, he said, which is more than 90% of the sum needed ($768 million).
Under previous arrangements, $45 million will be contributed by countries other than G-7. Ukraine, for its part, will provide services and materials worth $50 million for converting the containment into an ecologically safe facility. Zinovy Butsko, the Premier’s advisor, is quoted by Interfax Ukraine as saying that the Cabinet has thus far allocated a mere UAH 23 million for the construction of the boiler house.
Be it as it may, the key objective, for the sake of which the Ukrainian delegation attended the conference, was reached, perhaps largely due to President Kuchma’s statement that Chornobyl will be closed on December 15, 2000, and also due to the international community’s fears. In fact, Mr. Kuchma compared Chornobyl to a time bomb. The fact that the containment was built under the Soviet regime has long caused foreign ecologists much headache. Their studies show that quite a few radioactive elements have leaked through the cracks in the protective shell over the years.
According to plan, the containment’s reconstruction is to begin in 2002. The new structure, with sufficient capacity, is expected to be ready three or four years later and will last another 50-100 years.
Are Ukraine’s radiation prospects really cloudless? Ecologists criticized international containment reconstruction projects, saying a new containment should be built. Greenpeace energy expert Weit Burger is convinced that the stated solution to the Chornobyl problem should be regarded as only temporary.
Numerous analysts (perhaps the most pessimistic) predict that Kyiv will confront yet another problem: money already declared but still to be received. Simple arithmetic shows that the available funds constitute one half of the amount to be issued. In other words, it will be some time before the money on paper will become money on hand. Also, the Containment Project will take more than one day to complete. Time is needed to prepare for the station’s closure (hopefully before the December 15 deadline). Looking for someone to blame for any additional problems is useless, because the guilty parties are generally known: Ukraine taking its time announcing the closure date and the West taking its time raising Containment funds. It is important that the donor countries demonstrate closer cooperation, lest they lose the money contributed and waste no time after several years of negotiating the Chornobyl problem. This applies to G-7 and EU countries. Five years ago, they promised to provide credit to finish the construction of Khmelnytsky and Rivne power units, yet the issue remains open.
