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Krasnoyarsk-26 / Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine [MCA] N 56°22' E 93°41' Krasnoyarsk-26, currently Zheleznogorsk, was established in 1950 to produce plutonium for weapons. The facility’s original name was the Combine 815. At present it is known as the Mining and Chemical Combine. Krasnoyarsk-26 is located on the Yenisei river approximately 50 km northeast of Krasnoyarsk. The production facility is located approximately 10 km north of the residential area. Facility workers are shuttled to work from the residential area by an electric train. Krasnoyarsk-26 has a population of 100,000. Of them 8,000 work at the nuclear complex. Several more thousand are employed by the Production Association of Applied Mechanics [NPO-PM] producing communication satellites. The Krasnoyarsk-26 industrial production area (a fenced off area on the surface) is about 17 km2. The sanitary-protection area is 131 km2. The plutonium production complex comprises the reactor plant, the radiochemical plant, the reactor coolant preparation plant, the partially completed RT-2 radiochemical plant, and the engineering plant. A distinctive feature of the plutonium production complex in Krasnoyarsk-26 is that the reactor plant, radiochemical plant, laboratories, and storage facilities are located 200-250 m underground, in a multi-level system of underground tunnels inside a mountain, which include water supply and ventilation systems are located in the mountain. To the north-west of the underground complex are underground reprocessing waste injection wells (the Northern test site). The Krasnoyarsk-26 reactor plant consisted of three graphite reactors (AD, ADE-1, and ADE-2). Two graphite-moderated, light-water-cooled reactors, similar to the U.S. plutonium production reactors at Hanford, WA, were installed more than 200 meters into a mountainside. Both reactors were cooled by water directly from the Yenisey River. The first went into operation on 25 August 1958, and the second in 1961, producing plutonium-239 for nuclear weapons. In 1964, a third reactor went into operation with a closed-loop cooling system, not directly discharging into the river. The AD and ADE-1 reactors, which started in 1958 and 1961, were shut down in 1992. The third reactor generates heat and electricity for the local populations and cannot be shutdown before a replacement source of power becomes available. In 1964, a reprocessing plant began operation at Krasnoyarsk-26. (Between 1958 and 1964, irradiated fuel was reprocessed by the radiochemical plants in Chelyabinsk-65 and/or Tomsk-7). The major process flow of the radiochemical plant includes metal uranium dissolution in nitric acid, multi-stage extraction to separate uranium and plutonium, their decontamination from radioactive fission products and plutonium concentrate sorption. Plutonium dioxide – the final product of the Combine – was transferred to the chemical and metallurgical plants in Chelyabinsk-65 and/or Tomsk-7 for conversion to metal and fabrication into nuclear weapon components. Since October 1994, separated plutonium is stored on-site as plutonium dioxide. The medium- and low-level waste is transported to Severny storage site for deep-well injection into geological formations. The Severny storage site has been used for deep-well injection of low-level waste since 1962 and for medium-level waste since 1967. In 1972, the Soviet Union began the construction of a complex to store and reprocess fuel from light-water power reactors. The construction of the fuel storage facilities, which are located between the old underground complex and the waste injection wells, was completed in 1976. source: globalsecurity.org