Novaya Zemlya Means “New Land” Dumped

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barren islands. Summers are still harsh, terials in this region for more than 40 as frost and freezing temperatures can years. occur every month of the year. During According to these authors, the brief summers, mosses, flowers and grass nuclear waste came from nuclear power green the tundra surface, providing for- plants and nuclear-powered submarines age for a few herds of domestic reindeer and icebreakers, as well as from nuclear and migrating birds, as well as suste- weapons testing. Some waste also flowed nance for foxes, walruses, seals and occa- into the seas from land-based nuclear sional polar bears. plants, but most was intentionally Novaya Zemlya means “new land” dumped. in Russian. Russian fishermen and ex- These authors used the geographic plorers have known about the islands for information system (GIS) ArcInfo to map NUCLEAR more than 1,000 years, but they remained the sites of known ocean dumping, as uninhabited until 1877. During this colo- well as other land-based sources of radio- WATERS: NOVAYA nization period, the Russian government activity in the region from the Kola Penin- built a few small villages on the southern- sula to east of Novaya Zemlya. Overlay- ZEMLYA most island for hunting and trapping and ing these sites with meteorological, Russia abounds with environmental raising reindeer. oceanographic and bathometric data disasters. No other people in the world Although the islands have some (ocean depths) helps researchers assess are as continuously assaulted by cancer- known coal deposits, the Russians colo- contamination risks to the food chain from causing agents as the Russians. The com- nized the islands to protect their claim to nuclear waste. The largest concentration mand Marxist government of the former the land and keep other countries from of waste creates a major radioactive Soviet Union left them this legacy and the encroaching on Russian shores. The vil- hotspot in the Kara Sea. assault will continue for generations to lages also served as an early warning “The possibility of radioactive con- come. system during the Soviet/American Cold tamination caused by these facilities is When the Russian nuclear subma- War, which lasted from 1947 until 1990. real and could affect not just this area but rine Kursk sank last fall in the Barents Sea The Soviets saw Novaya Zemlya’s the whole Arctic region,” according to the off the Kola Peninsula, it added two more isolation and barren landscape suitable authors. Although localized hotspots had sources of nuclear material to very high radioactive levels, the huge Soviet/Russian nuclear Contaminated Waters the authors found regional Atlantic dumping ground in the Arctic USA levels of radioactivity to be Ocean Arctic Ocean Ocean. Contrary to early deni- surprisingly low. als, the Russian military recently Nonetheless, worries are announced that, in addition to NOVAYA ZEMLYA that that ocean currents and Pacific the submarine’s reactor, there RUSSIA r a S marine animals may be spread Ocean a e a were also nuclear weapons K the contamination and that aboard. such studies may not be ob- Recent news reports claim taining accurate data. For ex- t s ample, how might radioactive that Norway will help the Rus- NORWAY r e n a isotopes ultimately become sian navy retrieve the Kursk B e a from the ocean floor this sum- S distributed through the Arc- mer. But what about all of the tic Ocean’s food chain? At what point might they begin other Russian nuclear waste on Kola the floor of the Arctic Ocean, Peninsula Ural concentrating in humans? particularly around the island Mountains Novaya Zemlya increasingly will become the testing of Novaya Zemlya? RUSSIA Nuclear Waste Site Novaya Zemlya (NOH- 0 2 50 mi ground for studies involving Kursk Site vuh-yuh zem-lee-AH) is the 0 250 km Source: ArcUser 1999 health implications of nuclear dumping and abandonment name of two very large and re- Geography In the News 04/13/01 ©2001 maps.com mote islands belonging to Rus- in the ocean. sia. The islands represent an extension of for nuclear testing and the neighboring Such threats may be but a small con- Russia’s Ural Mountains into the Arctic ocean for dumping spent nuclear waste. cern to most Russians at the moment, Ocean. The northern island has 20,000 According to Russians Sergei Morozov however. In the aftermath of the Soviet square miles and the southern one has and Vsevolod Koshkin of the Institute of and Russian systematic disregard for pol- 15,000 square miles (52,000 and 38,800 sq. Northern Ecological Problems in Apatity, lution controls, they must currently worry km., respectively). Combined they are Russia (ArcUser, July-Sept. 1999), more about a host of environmental threats-as about the size of the state of Indiana. than two-thirds of all of the world’s radio- well as the sources of their next meals. The islands have an arctic tundra cli- active waste dumped at sea lies on the And that is Geography in the News. mate. Surrounded by sea ice during most floors of the Kara Sea and the Barents Sea April 20, 2001. #568. adjacent to Novaya Zemlya. The Russian of the year, the cold, dry winds streaming (The author is a Professor of Geography navy and Murmansk Shipping Company out of Siberia bring little snow to the at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.) have routinely dumped radioactive ma-