By A. Lyutyy, Pravda staff correspondent reporting from London: "The Arctic Ocean--A Nuclear Dumping Ground," [Moscow Pravda in Russian 7 Dec 91 p 4.]

London was recently the scene of the 14th consultative meeting of the parties to the International Convention on Prevention of Oceanic Pollution. Unfortunately, it did not begin on a happy note for the Soviet delegation.

The convention, still known as the London Convention, was enacted in 1975. We are among its 65 signatories. One of the document's passages forbids the discharge of radioactive wastes into the sea from ships, aircraft or other means of conveyance.

Unfortunately, judging by information from the world-famous environmental protection group Greenpeace as well as several of our own environmental movement activists, the USSR was secretly violating the convention, as least right up until 1986...At issue are nuclear waste dump sites at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.

This practice began at least as far back as 1964, according to USSR people's deputy A. Zolotkov, who made a special trip to London at the invitation of Greenpeace. While on the staff of the Atomflot Association, which operates nuclear-powered icebreakers, he had an opportunity to make a through study of the problem and see documents which remain classified to this day.

For example, the deputy is convinced that civilian vessels belonging to Murmansk Shipping Lines regularly dumped radioactive wastes in the Kara Sea for over 20 years. The sea near the island of Novaya Zemlya is especially polluted; for a long time it was one of the areas used for underground nuclear testing.

Zolotkov brought along a map showing that the toxic fuel was dumped in relatively shallow water and could present an ecological hazard even today. He explained the technology of the pollution in a special report.

Here is a tyrical except from that document: "The radioactive wastes dumped in the vicinity of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago consists of containers, metal structures and other equipment from nuclear power plants. The documents on these operations which I saw were very interesting from the standpoint of how the wastes were disposed of. The very term 'container', for example, assumes a hermetically sealed structure which should prevent even momentary contact of its contents with the environment. But it turned out that the containers remained afloat. This problem was solved very simply: two openings were cut and water poured into them, thus ensuring that the containers would sink."

"In 1984," the report continues, "in a certain gulf a container was found which was emitting a radiation level of 160 roentgens per hour. It was successfully sunk after additional work was done on it."

If Zolotkov is to be believed, then in the 1960's several malfunctioning reactor units from the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin" were dumped off the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya. Both Greenpeace and the people's deputy possess other facts indicating what could be termed a serious violation of ecological law and complete disregard for the convention statutes. Yet that convention bears the signatures of our representatives and all these years they have been claiming that no dumping has taken place.

But could Zolotkov be distorting the facts? Let us suppose he is. Then why have there not yet been any official denials, even though this is not the first time he has made this claim? Nor have there been any other explanations, incidentally.

At a press conference held at Greenpeace headquarters journalists naturally wanted to know whether the dangerous practice of disposing of radioactive wastes in this manner continues at the present time. The people's deputy is virtually completely certain that it has stopped insofar as civilian ships are concerned. With regard to military vessels he is less certain.

How can we help Greenpeace? In reply to this question of mine, the Soviet visitor commented that the international environmental organization could use its authority in support of the Union's ecological movement. And that movement is working, firstly, to learn the whole truth about nuclear wastes in Arctic waters and, secondly, to put a stop to this practice and ensure full compliance with the London Convention. In Zalotkov's opinion the whole world has a stake in that because this is a problem that extends beyond Soviet borders.

Greenpeace representatives in turn told me that during the current consultative meeting of London Convention signatories they intent to appeal to our official delegation with a request that it either confirm or deny the people's deputy's statement. Furthermore, they will attempt to win guarantees of compliance with the convention from Moscow.

As for monitoring of the level of radioactivity at the dump sites and a possible cleanup of them. Greenpeace feels that all the signatory countries should render the USSR collective assistance in view of the seriousness of the environmental problems that are heaped upon us.