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May 2000
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Armenia Bulgaria Czech Republic Hungary |
Kazakhstan Lithuania Russia Slovakia |
Ukraine United States Cross-Cutting Activities Planned Activities |
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New program director conducts first review of project sites in Ukraine
 Dr. Jim Turner and other U.S. team members pause in front of the Chornobyl Shelter while touring the Chornobyl site. From left to right are Sally Kornfeld, U.S. Department of Energy attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv; Dr. Jim Turner, director, Office of International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation, U.S. Department of Energy; Dan Couch, program manager; Andrei Glukhov, project manager; and Alex Sich, manager, Kyiv Adjunct Office, all of the International Nuclear Safety Program, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. |
 Dr. Jim Turner (left), Sally Kornfeld, and Dan Couch view one of the heavy equipment "graveyards" within the Chornobyl 30-kilometer exclusion zone. The equipment–1,621 vehicles and 30 military helicopters–was used in mitigating the consequences of the 1986 Chornobyl accident and remains highly contaminated with radioactivity. |
 Sally Kornfeld, Dr. Jim Turner, and Dan Couch at entrance to Chornobyl NPP. |
Dr. Jim Turner traveled to Ukraine during May for the first time in his new role as director of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation. As part of the trip, Dr. Turner held discussions in Kyiv with high-level Ukrainian officials on U.S.-supported projects including the dry cask spent fuel storage system at Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (NPP), the replacement heat plant at Chornobyl NPP, and the Ukraine nuclear fuel qualification effort.
In Slavutych, Dr. Turner and his party toured the Slavutych Laboratory for International Research and Technology. He also met with directors of the International Chornobyl Center, who provided briefings on the center’s operations.
Dr. Turner and his group then toured the Chornobyl site, including the exclusion zone, the heat plant, and Chornobyl Unit 3. They also visited the closed city of Prypyat. The group then traveled to Zaporizhzhya NPP, the site of several U.S.-supported nuclear safety projects including configuration management, simulators, training, and the dry cask storage system for spent nuclear fuel, for introductions and discussions with Zaporizhzhya management. There, the U.S. delegation received a tour of several plant areas to view the dry cask storage system and cask transporter and the Unit 5 control room with its U.S.-provided full-scope simulator and safety parameter display system.
Dr. Turner was accompanied on his Ukraine visit by the U.S. Department of Energy attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv as well as several members of the U.S. team from the Department of Energy and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (Richard Reister, DOE, 301-903-0234; Dan Couch, PNNL, 509-372-6415) 
