Year
1995
Abstract
The Department of Energy, under a government-to—government program, hosted the first visit with the Russian Federation to exchange information and technologies for special nuclear material control, accounting, and physical protection at a plutonium storage facility. The Russian specialists toured a storage facility at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, and were shown the physical protection and materials control systems that DOE employs to protect excess nuclear materials. Technical discussions included topics associated with protective forces and their operation, perimeter and interior intrusion detection and assessment equipment/systems, vulnerability assessment demonstrations, and the vault monitoring and materials control systems. In October, the Russian Federation hosted a reciprocal visit to the Mayak Enterprise civil plutonium storage facility, previously known as Chelyabinsk—65. The U.S. specialists participated in technical discussions on the protection and control of plutonium and supported an evaluation of safeguards and security at the Mayak storage facility. The U.S. specialists suggested equipment that could be used to enhance the protection of nuclear materials at Mayak. A follow-up visit to the Mayak Enterprise was to be conducted in February to complete the equipment demonstration and to hold further technical discussions concerning the prevention of the theft or diversion of nuclear materials. This visit has been postponed even though the demonstration equipment was delivered to the Mayak Production Enterprise in April. This presentation will discuss the exchange visits and related safeguards and security equipment demonstrations.