Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Valeriya Lutkovska has asked Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavytsky to conduct a state environmental assessment of reactors Nos. 3 and 4 of Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).
The executive director of the international public interest environmental law organization Environment-People-Law (EPL) addressed Lutkovska, claiming the development and adoption of the draft law on the deployment, design and construction of power units Nos. 3 and 4 of Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant was groundless, the commissioner’s press service said.
When conducting its inquiry, the commissioner found proof that Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Ministry as the developer of the above-mentioned law, failed to meet the requirements of international treaties in force, particularly the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context.
When submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for consideration, the law had neither a state environmental assessment of the feasibility study of the NPP facilities nor consent by certain local government agencies and local communities situated in the target area of new power units’ construction, the commissioner’s press service said.
“Given this, the human rights commissioner made a submission to Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavytsky to suggest taking measures to conduct a state environmental assessment of the facilities and to inform the public of its results in order to avoid disastrous consequences for the environment and human health caused by the operation of power units Nos. 3 and 4 of Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant,” Lutkovska’s press service said.
In addition, it is suggested that laws on the deployment, design and construction of facilities with high environmental hazards be developed in accordance with legal requirements, and in line with international treaties ratified by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government’s commissioner for cooperation with Russia, CIS and EurAsEC Valeriy Muntiyan in early January listed the completion of the project to build power units Nos. 3 and 4 according to Russian designs, and the construction of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, of a hydropower plant and a pump-storage hydropower plant among possible major energy projects with Russian funding.
According to him, these agreements were negotiated at a meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian interstate commission in December 2013. He estimated that the loans to be provided were worth $6 billion.
Ukraine and Russia signed an intergovernmental agreement on June 9, 2010 on cooperation in building units Nos. 3 and 4 of Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant. The agreement says that Russia will provide the funding necessary to develop the project and commission the reactors.
In early October 2010, Russia’s Sberbank informed Ukraine’s energy corporation Energoatom that it could provide a $1 billion loan to do the first-priority workload to finish the construction of the third and fourth power units for three years against state guarantees and on condition that Ukraine will put at least 15% of the project’s estimated value into the construction.
Russia’s initial loan proposals for Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant involved a state, not a commercial loan with a lower interest rate.
Energoatom said in May 2011 that the Sberbank-proposed terms, including a rather high interest rate, did not suit it.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian Cabinet approved the results of the competitive tender declaring Russia’s OJSC TVEL the winner of the tender to select technologies for the construction of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant in September 2010.
Shareowners are to invest $100-120 million into the project in equal shares. In the future, after the shareholders’ investments under the emission the issue of raising loan funds will be discussed with due regard for the company’s financial economical model.
