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Russian-Norwegian contract on nuclear safety in the Baltic Sea

Governor of Murmansk Oblast Dmitry Dmitiyenko and his Norwegian counterpart Finnmark County Governor Gunnar Kjønnøy last week signed a contract on removal of radioactive strontium batteries (RTGs) in lighthouses in the Baltic Sea.

Location

This was Kjønnøys first meeting with the new Murmansk Oblast Governor, a press release from the Finnmark County Governor’s office reads.

According to the contract, 71 RTGs will be removed from lighthouses in the Gulf of Finland and the coast of Kaliningrad in the period 2009-2012. The RTGs will be replaced be replaced with solar panels or other energy sources. The project has a 55 million NOK price tag. Part of the sum will be granted by Finland through Norway.

Gunnar Kjønnøy for several years cooperated with Ex-governor Yury Yevdokimov on nuclear safety projects in Northern Russia. Since 2001 169 radioactive strontium batteries have been removed from light houses along the coast of the Kola Peninsula and in the White Sea area. Another project the two governors successfully led was infrastructure improvements at the nuclear waste storage facility in Andreeva Bay on the Kola Peninsula.Based on the successful cooperation in the Norwegian-Russian project, Yevdokimov and Kjønnøy were asked to be project leaders in a similar program in the Baltic Sea.

As BarentsObserver has reported, Yury Yevdokimov resigned in March 2009 after the much mentioned election campaign for new Murmansk city mayor. It now looks like Dmitry Dmitriyenko will contribute to the continuation of the good cooperation between the two countries on nuclear safety projects.