Secret Cities Glasnost and Global Environmental Threats
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TITLE: Secret Cities, Glasnost and Global Environmental Threats AUTHOR: Murray Feshbach Georgetown University THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARCH 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 COPYRIGHT This paper was not produced under Council contract. It has been volunteered to the Council by the author under a limited release of copyright to the Council and to the United States Government for internal use only and may not be cited, quoted or released to any persons outside the Council and Government without the author's written permission. SECRET CITIES, GLASNOST AND GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS by Dr. Murray Feshbach Georgetown University Tomsk-7 is one of 10 former closed nuclear cities of the former Soviet Union. Or perhaps one of the 16 secret cities (including chemical/biological warfare activities) or perhaps 29, 30, 60 or 87—all of which numbers are propounded by Soviet/Russian sources. Regardless of which number is correct, on April 6, 1993, an accident occurred at Tomsk-7 releasing radioactive contamination into the atmosphere. Early investigation found an improper procedure performed by the staff which led to a chemical reaction which then exploded in the storage tank. Currently, the amount of radiation released is uncertain. Russian governmental investigators, international agency inspectors and non-governmental organizations (Greens, in particular, the Socio-Ecological Union) are provisionally giving different numbers and potential danger. Different numbers, or better evaluation, also has affected the estimate of radioactive nucleides emitted by the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986. Until several months ago, the standard figure was 50 million curies; the spokesman for the Ministry of Atomic Industry of Russia, and others, are now citing a figure 60 percent higher—80 million curies. In comparison, Three Mile Island released the grand total of 15. curies outside the containment structure. The original territory enumerated as contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia was the Bryansk Oblast (an oblast equates approximately to an American state), two additional oblasts in Belorus and 2 in Ukraine. We now know—until the figures are revised—that instead of 1 oblast contaminated with an average of 1 curie of Cesium-137 per square kilometer in Russia alone the number of such oblasts is now counted as 15 (plus one higher-ranking territory—Mordovia), 12 not 2 in Ukraine, and 6 not 2 in Belorus. Moreover, the initial classification of Bryansk as the territory which suffered most in Russia, may be questioned if one ignores hot spots of radioactivity, by looking only at the average proportion of territory "irradiated." Bryansk 1 oblast is "only" 17.3 percent contaminated, but Orlovskaya is 37.2 and Tul'skaya oblast is 39.7 percent contaminated with Cesium-137, a contaminant with a 30-year half-life of radiation. Again, the point is not so much to concentrate on Chernobyl per se, but to indicate that the problem is long-lasting, that numbers of threat to the local and perhaps foreign populations may be much higher than ever admitted. And what is being admitted, thanks to the latest round of glasnost is the existence and some details of the activities of the various secret cities—secret because they were closed, were not shown on any Soviet map, were not counted in the population or the labor force (some 900,000 persons in all), and their activities, not discussed seriously (according to a Soviet source) until one year ago. At a May 1992 meeting in Stavenger, Norway, Viktor Mikhaylov, the Minister of Atomic Industry of Russia, indicated that they were part of the military-nuclear industry. Chelyabinsk city is shown on a map of Russia, but Chelyabinsk- 40, Chelyabinsk-65, and Chelyabinsk-70 are not. Krasnoyarsk city is shown, but no reference or indication of Krasnoyarsk-25, Krasnoyarsk-26 and Krasnoyarsk-45 (and perhaps also a Krasnoyarsk-35 and a Krasnoyarsk-95—which also are referred to in the literature). Nor was Zlatoust-36, Penza-19, Sverdlovsk-44 and Sverdlovsk-45, Zagorsk-7, Arzamas-16, and several without numbers (as far as is known to this point, or perhaps they are alternative names as Seversk is for Tomsk-7, Ozersk for Chelyabinsk-65, Sarov for Arzamas-16)— Angarsk, Nizhnaya Tura, Zarechnyy, Sosnovoborsk and likely, Kurchatov also should be included. Sillamae in Estonia, Aralsk-5 in Kazakhstan (is there a Semi-Palatinsk-21 also?), and Zheltyye Vody in Ukraine also should be included in the list of secret cities. The range of cities indicated here does not include secret laboratories, secret plants, secret islands (e.g., secret laboratories on Vozrozhdeniye and Komsomol'sk islands in the Aral Sea), etc., as the list would be too long. Perhaps two-thirds or more of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg's industry, was fully or partially related to the military sector. Conversion of these facilities, as well as those of the cities of the Atomgrad network, is going apace, sometimes slower (even mostly slower) and sometimes faster, as they attempt to integrate into the civilian economy. Concern by western governments over a nuclear brain drain from going to other non-proliferation signatory countries and/or to terrorist organizations, and to control nuclear materials, is in part the underlying rationale for much aid going to the former Soviet Union. But much is not controlled, as witnessed by the growing number of incidents of attempts to smuggle out and then to sell nuclear materials, to the disappearance of guards who are not paid or vastly underpaid relative to an inflation rate of 2,539 percent (officially) in 1992 and therefore less attentive as they make arrangements or perform other work, and poor operational security ensues even if they are nominally on the job. Moreover, we are just beginning to learn about the activities, and specifically about the stockpiles of hazardous nuclear and chemical materials at these secret cities and facilities. As a consequence, they engender concern about global and regional environmental threats. For example, when in Moscow earlier this year I was told that Chelyabinsk-40 (sometimes Chelyabinsk-65) stockpiles 27 tons of weapons grade plutonium; other sources indicated 40 and even 100 tons of this extremely hazardous material. Much uncertainty can be stipulated about the care, dismantling, defusing, or detoxifying of this and other atomic, chemical and biological materials which may be revealed when more information is forthcoming. Among the worst hazardous materials of which we are currently informed appears to be heptyl, the liquid rocket fuel used for Soviet/Russian missiles. It is classified as supertoxic, carcinogenic, nerve paralyzing and volatile. In fact, some 2 months ago, the Plastpolimer Plant in Leningrad Oblast, which produces liquid rocket fuel—unspecified, but undoubtedly heptyl—had an explosion during the night. The blast of the explosion blew to pieces 3 of the 5 nighttime workers! If this fuel is the same unsymmetric dimethylhydrazine, known as heptyl, whichever country's disarmament personnel are involved in eliminating this material should be extremely careful, to say the least. There may be some 150,000 tons of heptyl in these closed cities, in missiles stationed elsewhere, in production, etc. No known technology exists for dealing with heptyl. Technical assistance in all matters, but in this one in particular, should be entrusted only to extremely careful individuals. Too many examples in the former Soviet Union exist of individuals such as the former director of the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant who turned off the safety valves at the plant 3 times in the past year despite all stringent regulations post-Chernobyl to such a procedure. He was fired— finally—but only after the third such incident! We are learning more now about he dumping of radioactive waste, nuclear subs with live reactors and control rods, a nuclear icebreaker also with live nuclear facilities, 3 ships in Murmansk harbor with radioactive waste, about radioactivity coursing through the Ob and Yenisey rivers of Siberia toward the Arctic Ocean (and possibly Japan and the Koreas, as well as Alaska, Canada and others of the Pacific Rim). In addition, there are about 160 nuclear submarines awaiting dismantling—and with a bad track record of accidents, including the release of radioactivity in the Sea of Japan area, in the north near Severodvinsk-the nuclear submarine producing port, the 115 so called "civilian" nuclear explosions—with residual, largely subsurface radioactivity in Kazakhstan, Yakutiya (now known as Sakha Republic), and from 24 such explosions in the Volga Region, among others. Potential business investors should be aware of these locations throughout the former USSR. From a global or transboundary perspective, the threat ensues from an inheritance left from activities of the Soviet military and other authorities, as well as unconstrained economic activities—without any care for the land, air, water, people, natural resources. One example is the major threat to the population of countries bordering the Black Sea. As in Lake Chad during the past decade, a major population loss will occur when the residual hydrogen sulphide in the water emanating from industrial and other dumping sources into the Danube, the Dnieper, and other rivers of the Black Sea Basin, reaches the surface. When it does explode—as Lake Chad exploded and where "only" 1,000 or so people died—then hundreds of thousands likely will die among the population resident in the region of this Sea. The dome of hydrogen sulphide has risen from 250 meters below the surface to some 50 meters from 2 decades ago to the present. Whether the dome will continue to rise depends of the continuation of pollution from uncontrolled, untreated effluent. The 10 Baltic Sea countries are aware—but few others outside the region—of the chemical weapons dumped into the Baltic Sea.