Lake Karachay – the Most Polluted Place on Earth

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Lake Karachay – The Most Polluted Place on Earth Lake Karachay is definitely not a place to spend your next vacation. Located in the southern Ural Mountains in eastern Russia, it is considered to be the most polluted spot on Earth. For decades the lake was used as a dumping site for radioactive waste. Spending only five minutes at the shore of Lake Karachay is enough to receive a deadly dose of radiation. The radiation level at the shore of the lake is 600 röntgens per hour, and it accumulates some 4.44 exabecquerels (EBq) of radioactivity. The Chernobyl disaster released 5 to 12 EBq of radioactivity. The radiation from Chernobyl was widely distributed while Lake Karachay concentrates the entire radioactivity in a single location, thus making it more deadly. History During the 1950s, the Soviet Union started using the lake to dump waste from Mayak, a nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility. Mayak was built in 1945-48, in a great hurry and in total secrecy, as part of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapon program. Vast quantities of radioactively contaminated lakes and rivers near the plant. Working conditions at Mayak resulted in severe health hazards and many accidents, including a major explosion on September 29, 1957. During the 1960s, the lake began to dry out and the wind carried radioactive dust away, irradiating half a million people with 185 petabecquerels of radiation, which is comparable to the effect of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Consequently, the lake was filled with concrete from 1978 to 1986. It is not yet known if it will ever become possible to clean the contaminated area. Some experts even fear that the radioactivity could be lead to the Techa River and then to the Arctic Ocean. Lake Karachay, Russia Filled with concrete .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Chernobyl Template.Qxd 16/09/2019 11:08 Page 39
9Chernobyl_Template.qxd 16/09/2019 11:08 Page 39 39 Chernobyl On 3 February 1987, during a lecture trip to Japan, I was invited to meet five members of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. Zhores Medvedev They wanted to discuss my book, Nuclear Disaster in the Urals, which described the consequences of the Kyshtym disaster, an On 8 August 2019, a explosion at a nuclear waste site in the deadly nuclear explosion Soviet Union in 1957. took place in northern The book, published in New York in 1979 Russia in the vicinity of and translated into Japanese in 1982, was the Nenoksa weapons then still the only published description of testing range. At least five this accident. The Kyshtym disaster was not people are said to have yet included in a list of nuclear accidents died. Subsequently, a prepared by the International Atomic Russian state weather Energy Agency (IAEA). Top of this list, agency confirmed release recorded at a topofthescale 7 in severity, into the atmosphere of was Chernobyl, Three Mile Island was strontium, barium and scale 5, and the fire at Windscale in other radioactive isotopes, England, in 1957, was scale 3. (The indicating that a nuclear International Nuclear Event Scale was reactor was involved in revised several times, subsequently, and the the explosion. fire at Windscale is now reckoned to be Zhores Medvedev died scale 5.) in 2018, before this recent In 1987, I had already started to study the explosion. Back in 2011, available information on Chernobyl he charted a trail of because I was not satisfied with the Soviet nuclear disasters from Report to the IAEA, which blamed mainly Kyshtym in the the power station personnel for gross Cheliabinsk region of operational errors.
[Show full text]
History of Radiation and Nuclear Disasters in the Former USSR
History of radiation and nuclear disasters in the former USSR M.V.Malko Institute of Power Engineering National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Akademicheskaya Str.15, Minsk, 220 000, Republic of Belarus E-mail: [email protected] Abstracts. The report describes the history of radiation and nuclear accidents in the former USSR. These accidents accompanied development of military and civilian use of nuclear energy. Some of them as testing of the first Soviet nuclear, Kyshtym radiation accident, radiation contamination of the Karachai lake and the Techa river, nuclear accidents at the Soviet submarine on August 10, 1985 in the Chazhma Bay (near Vladivostok) as well as nuclear accidents on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl NPP were of large scale causing significant radiological problems for many hundreds thousands of people. There were a number of important reasons of these and other accidents. The most important among them were time pressure by development of nuclear weapon, an absence of required financial and material means for adequate management of problems of nuclear and radiation safety, and inadequate understanding of harmful interaction of ionizing radiation on organism as well as a hypersecrecy by realization of projects of military and civilian use of nuclear energy in the former USSR. Introduction. The first nuclear reactor in the USSR reached the critical state on the 25 December 1946 [1] or 4 years later than reactor constructed by Enrico Fermi [2]. The first Soviet reactor was developed at the Laboratory N2 in Moscow (later I.V.Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy). This was a very important step in a realization of the Soviet military atomic program that began in September 1942.
[Show full text]
An Assessment of the Flux of Radionuclide Contamination Through the Ob and Yenisei Rivers and Estuaries to the Kara Sea
NO9700007 An Assessment of the Flux of Radionuclide Contamination Through the Ob and Yenisei Rivers and Estuaries to the Kara Sea THERESA PALUSZKIEWICZ1, LYLE F. HIBLER1, MARSHALL C. RICHMOND2, DON J. BRADLEY2 ''Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory, 1529 West Sequim Bay Road, Sequim, WA 98382, USA . 2Pacific Northwest Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA 99352, USA. Introduction Extensive radioactive contamination (about 63,000 PBq) has been discharged to the environment of the West Siberian Basin. The former Soviet Union (FSU) nuclear program has been operating for the last 50 years; most of its facilities are located in the West Siberian Basin. These nuclear facilities include three sites for reprocessing spent fuel from the FSU's production reactors: Mayak, Tomsk-7, and Krasnoyarsk-26 (Fig. 1). These are believed to be responsible for the majority of the radioactive contamination that is in the major river systems, the Ob and Yenisei, which feed into the Arctic Ocean through the Kara Sea. Extensive radioactive contamination has been reported in surface water reservoirs, and large amounts of radioactive contamination have been discharged to injection sites that are adjacent to tributaries of the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. A massive release of radionuclide contaminants could result if floods, reservoir failures, or containment failures were to occur (Foley, 1991; Bradley, 1991, 1992a, 1992b; Bradley and Schneider, 1990). The Ob River system consists of the contaminant release sites (FSU nuclear defense sites on land), the terrestrial, ground, and surface waters that link the contaminant release sites to the rivers, the Ob River, its tributaries, the estuary, and the confluence region where the estuaries of the Ob and Yenisei mix and flow into the Kara Sea (Fig.
[Show full text]
The Plutonium Challenge-Environmental Issues
Plutonium Overview The Plutonium Challenge Environmental issues he environmental concerns about plutonium stem from its potentially harmful effects on human health. Unlike many industrial materials whose Ttoxicity was discovered only after years of use, plutonium was immediately recognized as dangerous and as requiring special handling care. Consequently, the health effects on plutonium workers in the United States and the general public have been remarkably benign. Nevertheless, the urgency of the wartime effort and the intensity of the arms race during the early years of the Cold War resulted in large amounts of radioactivity being released into the environment in the United States and Russia. These issues are being addressed now, especially in the United States. Science and international cooperation will play a large role in minimizing the potential health effects on future generations. Environmental Consequences of the Cold War The environmental problems resulting from wartime and Cold War nuclear operations were for the most part kept out of public view during the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. On the other hand, concerns over health effects from atmospheric testing were debated during the 1950s, leading to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear testing everywhere except underground. The U.S. nuclear weapons complex was not opened for public scrutiny until the late 1980s, following a landmark court decision on mercury cont- amination at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facilities of the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1984. In the Soviet Union, all nuclear matters, including environmental problems in the nuclear weapons complex, were kept secret.
[Show full text]
Subsurface Behavior of Plutonium and Americium at Non-Hanford Sites and Relevance to Hanford
PNNL-17386 Subsurface Behavior of Plutonium and Americium at Non-Hanford Sites and Relevance to Hanford KJ Cantrell RG Riley February 2008 DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor Battelle Memorial Institute, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or Battelle Memorial Institute. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY operated by BATTELLE for the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830 Printed in the United States of America Available to DOE and DOE contractors from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, P.O. Box 62, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0062; ph: (865) 576-8401 fax: (865) 576-5728 email: [email protected] Available to the public from the National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, VA 22161 ph: (800) 553-6847 fax: (703) 605-6900 email: [email protected] online ordering: http://www.ntis.gov/ordering.htm This document was printed on recycled paper.
[Show full text]
Radioactive Contamination at Chelyabinsk-65, Russia
AM". Rev. EJlerv EJlwOIt. 1993. /8:507-28 Copyrjgh' @ /993 by Annual Rrnewl III". AU righlS relerved RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION AT CHELYABINSK-65, RUSSIA Thomas B. Cochran, Robert Standish Norris, and Kristen L. Suokko Natural Rewurces Defense Council, Washington. DC KEY WORDS:radioactive waste. Mayak, nuclear accidents. Lake Kamchay. plutonium production INTRODUcnON _. 507 WASTE MANAGEMF.NI ACTlVmES _ _ _ _ . 510 Discharge of Waste Into the Tecba River _ . Sit Lake Karaehay (Reservoir 9) .... _ . 515 Lake Slame Bololo (Old Swamp; Reservoir 17) _ '. 519' WilSIe Explosion in 1951 ..•.............. _ . 520 WASTE MANAGEMENT TODAY • . • . • . • . 522 Storage ~ .Hi~LeveI Waste Tanks " _ _ '. 523 Waste VltnficatlOll ...•......•.............•••...•.•...... 523 Solid Waste Burial . • . 524 CONCLUSION _ . 52S APPENDIX-BASIC UNITS OF IONIZING RADIATION _ . • . 5~ Fifteen k.ilometerseast of the city of Kyshtym, on the east side of the Ural Mountains, sits the once secret complex of Chelyabinsk-65. home of the Mayak Chemical Combine. The Mayak facility housed the fonner Soviet Union's first industrial nuclear reactors, and produced the material for the country's first atomic bomb beginning in 1948. Over four decades of nuclear materials production and processing, the Mayak.facility discharged effluents containing more than 123 million curies (MCi) of long-lived radioactivity into an open storage lake and other sites, from which some millions have leaked into the general environment. Although the facility has adopted a number of new procedures for managing the waste, serious problems remain. 507 Chelyabinsk-65 did not receive foreign visitors, and was not on maps of the Soviet Union until 1989. Prior to about 1990, it was called Cbelyabinsk- 40.
[Show full text]
Techa River, South Urals, Russia
Scenario T Radioactive Contamination of the Techa River, South Urals, Russia ABSTRACT The Techa River Scenario is based on data from the Techa River area, Ural region, Russia. The main source of radioactive contamination of the Techa River is the Mayak Nuclear Materials Production Complex. During the period 1949-1952, about 1017 Bq of liquid radioactive wastes were discharged into the river system Techa-Iset’-Tobol-Irtysh-Ob’. The input data for the scenario include environmental parameters and estimates of discharges of 90Sr and other radionuclides into the Techa River. Available test data include measurements of 90Sr concentrations in water, sediments, and the floodplain downstream from the site of radionuclide discharge; measurements of 90Sr and 137Cs concentrations in local agricultural products and in fish; and estimates of doses to biota and to inhabitants of riparian settlements situated downstream along the Techa River. INTRODUCTION A number of factors have contributed to the radioactive contamination of the Techa River and the surrounding area (Table 1) (Nikipelov et al., 1990; Romanov, 1995; Kryshev et al., 1997; Sources, 1997): - dumping of radioactivity from PA “Mayak” into the hydrosphere (1949-1956); - the radiation accident at PA “Mayak” in 1957 (Kyshtym accident); - wind resuspension of radionuclides from the banks of a reservoir for liquid radioactive wastes (Lake Karachai) in 1967; and - current releases and dumping from PA “Mayak”. The main source of radioactive contamination of the Techa River, and the primary focus of this scenario, is the dumping of liquid radioactive wastes from the Mayak Nuclear Materials Production Complex (PA “Mayak”). This complex was put into operation in 1948.
[Show full text]
Making the Russian Bomb from Stalin to Yeltsin
MAKING THE RUSSIAN BOMB FROM STALIN TO YELTSIN by Thomas B. Cochran Robert S. Norris and Oleg A. Bukharin A book by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Westview Press Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford Copyright Natural Resources Defense Council © 1995 Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................. List of Tables ................................................... Preface and Acknowledgements ..................................... CHAPTER ONE A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SOVIET BOMB Russian and Soviet Nuclear Physics ............................... Towards the Atomic Bomb .......................................... Diverted by War ............................................. Full Speed Ahead ............................................ Establishment of the Test Site and the First Test ................ The Role of Espionage ............................................ Thermonuclear Weapons Developments ............................... Was Joe-4 a Hydrogen Bomb? .................................. Testing the Third Idea ...................................... Stalin's Death and the Reorganization of the Bomb Program ........ CHAPTER TWO AN OVERVIEW OF THE STOCKPILE AND COMPLEX The Nuclear Weapons Stockpile .................................... Ministry of Atomic Energy ........................................ The Nuclear Weapons Complex ...................................... Nuclear Weapon Design Laboratories ............................... Arzamas-16 .................................................. Chelyabinsk-70
[Show full text]
Assessment of Various Types of Uncertainty in the Techa River
PNNL-18913 Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830 Assessment of Uncertainty in the Radiation Doses for the Techa River Dosimetry System BA Napier LR Anspaugh MO Degteva NB Shagina October 2009 DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor Battelle Memorial Institute, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or Battelle Memorial Institute. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY operated by BATTELLE for the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830 Printed in the United States of America Available to DOE and DOE contractors from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, P.O. Box 62, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0062; ph: (865) 576-8401 fax: (865) 576-5728 email: [email protected] Available to the public from the National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, VA 22161 ph: (800) 553-6847 fax: (703) 605-6900 email: [email protected] online ordering: http://www.ntis.gov/ordering.htm This document was printed on recycled paper.
[Show full text]
Speech-97-004:JOINT AMERICAN-RUSSIAN RADIATION
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Public Affairs Washington, DC 20555 Phone 301-415-8200 Fax 301-415-2234 Internet:[email protected] No. S-97-04 NOTE: The graphics included in this speech may be obtained from the NRC’s Office of Public Affairs. The speech with the graphics is available on the NRC’s web site: <http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/gmo/nrarcv/s-97-04.htm>. JOINT AMERICAN-RUSSIAN RADIATION HEALTH EFFECTS RESEARCH Commissioner Greta Joy Dicus U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Presentation to the joint meeting of American Nuclear Society, Washington, D.C. Section and Health Physics Society, Baltimore-Washington Chapter January 16, 1997 INTRODUCTION Thank you for inviting me to address the joint meeting of the Baltimore-Washington area chapters of the American Nuclear Society and the Health Physics Society. My subject is the unique opportunity to learn about radiation health effects from studies of Russian workers and populations in the southern Urals area of Russia who were exposed to radiation as a result of the operation of a Russian nuclear complex located in the southern Urals region. This opportunity was brought to the attention of the U.S. government in 1992 when then NRC Commissioner Gail de Planque wrote to the Department of State, stating "The political changes that have occurred in the former Soviet Union have opened up a unique opportunity to study and greatly increase our understanding of...health effects of radiation." As a result of Commissioner de Planque's initiative, the Russian Federation and the United States governments entered into an agreement to conduct joint research of radiation health effects.
[Show full text]
The World's Worst Polluted Places the Top
The World’s Worst Polluted Places The Top Ten A Project of the Blacksmith Institute October 2006 The World’s Worst Polluted Places The Top Ten The Blacksmith Institute New York City September 2006 This document was prepared by the staff of Blacksmith Institute with input and review from a great number of experts and volunteers, to whom we are most grateful. Special thanks to: Tracy Grant, University of Idaho Jordan Bonomo, researcher Meredith Block The Blacksmith Institute Technical Advisory Board David Hanrahan Jennifer Spiegler For questions, comments and feedback, please contact Blacksmith Institute in New York City at the following address: Blacksmith Institute 2014 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10035 (646) 742 0200 [email protected] Media enquires should be directed to Richard Fuller [email protected], in New York, or to David Hanrahan [email protected] in London. This report is also available online at www.blacksmithinstitute.org World’s Worst Polluted Places – the Top Ten Page 2 of 57 September 2006 The Unfinished Challenge of Pollution After decades of effort and attention, industrial pollution is now only an occasional worry for most of the developed world. Although there are a few remaining threats, pollution is generally regarded as a problem that is carefully regulated, managed and watched over by many. This is not the case in the poorest countries. There, pollution continues to be a major source of death, illness and long-term environmental damage. Across the developing world, pollution kills thousands of people indiscriminately, shortens lives, damages children’s development and growth, and creates a background of chronic illnesses that makes strong economic development nearly impossible.
[Show full text]
5Th Uranium Festival Program Quebec 2015
5th INTERNATIONAL URANIUM FILM FESTIVAL 2015 A Film Festival about Nuclear Power Festival International du Film d'Uranium Un festival du film sur l'énergie nucléaire FESTIVAL PROGRAMME CANADA /QUEBEC APRIL 2015 Quebec City April 15 - 25 Montreal April 23 Mistissini April 18 FROM RIO DE JANEIRO TO QUEBEC CITY, MISTISSINI & MONTREAL The International Uranium Film Festivals has reached its 5th year. In his short history it screened hundreds of nuclear and atomic films in Rio de Janeiro and other cities. The festival already traveled to 3 continents and 6 countries. It was guest in the capitals Amman, Berlin, Lisbon, New Delhi, Washington, Window Rock and important cities like New York, Santa Fe, Munich, Mumbai, Hyderabad or São Paulo. Now in 2015 the 5th International Uranium Film Festival starts for the first time in Canada, Quebec. It is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the first explosion of an Atomic Bomb and the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1945. The festival runs from April 15 to 25 in Quebec City, Concorde hotel, together with the World Uranium Symposium. In addition special screenings will also happen April 18 in Mistissini, the largest community of the James Bay Crees in Quebec, and April 23 in Montreal. The films selected for the Uranium Film Festival 2015 compete for the festival's "Yellow Oscar Award" in different categories. The winners will be announced on Saturday evening, April 25th, at Award and closing ceremony of the festival in Quebec City. After the festival in Quebec, the International Uranium Film Festival continues in July in Rio de Janeiro, in August in Sao Paulo and in October in Florianopolis (Brazil).
[Show full text]