From August 16 to 20, 2021, pursuant to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated December 4, 2018 No. PP-4048 “On measures to accelerate the construction of a nuclear power plant on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan” and the “Road map” approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated On March 27, 2019, No. 06 /
“UzLITI Engineering” is the executor of Ecological Site Survey for the selection of the NPP construction site (Agreement No. UZLI-02-2019 dated 07.01.2019).
Ecological Site Survey for the selection of the NPP construction site were carried out in accordance with the approved Ecological Site Survey Program for the selection of the NPP site, which was developed by all interested ministries and departments and approved by the Uzatom Agency.
Based on the uniqueness and complexity of the planned work, an Ecological Site Survey management system was organized to integrate all ecological studies. Integrator UzLITI Engineering provided the general management system for Ecological Site Survey, which includes organization, planning, coordination, quality control and work execution schedule, verification and documentation of all actions in accordance with the established requirements and in accordance with the IAEA recommendations.
The scope of research of the Ecological Site Survey technical report meets the requirements of Program and Sets of Rules of Russian Federation 151.1330.2012
None of the 3 site-candidates have bans according to the environmental legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan — there are no exclusion criteria. However, there are a number of environmental conditions that need to be considered when selecting a site. Performed Ecological Site Survey determined the current state of the environment and environmental conditions at the NPP site.
One of the important conditions is the implementation of the Ramsar Convention (2001, the Republic of Uzbekistan ratified the convention). According to Resolution XI.10, Appendix F.10.iv and Appendix G.20 of the Ramsar Convention, an EIA was developed for the site selection of a NPP on the shores of Lake Tuzkan, where no impact on the wetland was found. After receiving the conclusion of the Environmental Expertise, these documents will be sent to the Secretariat of the Convention (in accordance with Article 3.2).
Criteria related to site and environmental characteristics that could affect the transfer of radioactive material were investigated.
On the basis of comparative assessments of the environmental conditions of site-candidates with the priority of biodiversity conservation and taking into account the limiting factors specified in the environmental legislative and regulatory documents, site No. 1 is optimal (preferable) from an environmental point of view.
The results of the work performed on the Ecological Site Survey were applied to the environmental impact assessment (EIA) at the stage of site selection and the Ecological Site Survey at the stage of the technical design.
IAEA experts gave a positive assessment of the work performed by FDI LLC “UzLITI Engineering” on IEI at the stage of site selection.