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Environmentalists Halt US Rocket Processing Plant in Udmurtia
Monday, March 4, 2002
(19:27)
Gazeta.RU - Combined Report

Image Credit: Atlantic Environmental Training.

“At the governmental level it has been decided to give up the further implementation of the project for the construction of a complex for the utilisation of solid-fuel rocket engines in Votkinsk.”

After several years of staunch protests from the local population and environmental activists, the authorities of the Russian republic of Udmurtia have finally withdrawn from the joint Russo-American project to construct a processing facility for old rocket fuel in the vicinity of Votkinsk. The U.S. Congress and the Russian Aerospace pledged $52 million for the financing of the project back in 1996. However, construction of the facility has still not begun.

In 1996 the US authorities approved the bid of Lockheed Martin to build the processing plant. Lockheed Martin is the biggest military-industrial trans-national corporation in the world and the key contractor for the US Army and NASA. Lockheed Martin won the tender after elaborating unique technology for processing old rocket fuel.

Washington then approached Moscow with the project and offered $52 million for its implementation. In December 1997 Moscow and Washington reached a principle agreement on the project.

Initially the processing facility was to be built in Perm, the first Russian region to launch production of intercontinental ballistic missiles PT-2 (SS-13) but the plans were disrupted after violent protests from local residents and the region’s government. It was then decided to build the plant in the neighbouring Republic of Udmurtia, near the of Votkinsk, which has a population of approximately 100 000.

The rocket fuel processing facility was to be built close to the famous Votkinsk plant, the constructor of the Topol ICBM and in the first three years the new facility was to process 916 solid-fuel rocket engines.

From the very start local environmentalists launched an active campaign to prevent the construction of the processing facility.
(More: Gazeta.RU News Source)
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Dan