Tragedy of the Commons

Throughout the three months of blogging I had a chance to investigate on various aspects of ecology in the USSR, whether it was water, air or land pollution. 

Keeping my focus on geographical area, rather than a particular ecological issue, helped me to understand the logic behind the socialist mentality, which led us to the environment conditions we are living in today.

The Soviet Union suffered from a massive «tragedy of the commons», a theory developed by Garett Hardin in 1968. It implies that where property is communally or governmentally owned and treated as a free resource, resources will inevitably be overused with little regard for future consequences. The problem here lies within the human nature, which leads inevitably to unsustainable outcomes. 

The Soviet government promoted the economic growth at all costs, the mentality where under-production was a massive failing and overproduction was highly rewarded. The centralised planning system deliberately overestimated available resources inputs and set unrealistic production targets, which made environmental concerns a secondary issue.

Citing the economist Marshall Goldman, who studied and traveled extensively in the Soviet Union, «The attitude that nature is there to be exploited by man is the very essence of the Soviet production ethic.»

The industrialist drive under Soviet leaders was accompanied by some of the most shocking environmental projects of all times, aimed at the economic transformation of the country.

The Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature developed by Joseph Stalin led to the complete disappearance of Aral Sea, which was supposed to be turned into the rice plantations. 

Khrushev’s Virgin Land scheme was aimed at cultivating the grain at the extremely infertile lands of West Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. 

The proposed diversion of some of the mightiest Siberian rivers would have resulted into a marked change in the hydrological regime of western Siberia if it had been implemented. 

This «human dominion over nature» approach is still felt today in the Russian Federation when you are looking at the extreme oil pollution in the Arctic North or «industrial desert» which was formed around the city of Norilsk. 

However, unlike the Soviet Union, the environmentalist movement is not perceived as an enemy to the state anymore.  Therefore, there is still some hope that our future generations will be able to live in their homeland without having to deal with the environmental ghosts of the USSR. 

Communism v. Capitalism

The Soviet official strongly believed that pollution is essentially capitalist problem only, not the socialist one. Therefore, since there were no private corporations in the USSR, there could have not been any pollution.

Here is a blog entry I found on the internet which makes a comparison between communism and capitalism, posing a question whether one system is better than another in relation to environment.

Extreme North

The Arctic north of Russia is a vast amount of territory to the north of the Arctic Circle, which stretches along the whole of the Russian Federation both in Europe and Asia. In Russian literature you can also find a definition «Krayniy Sever» [Extreme North] and it includes such regions as the Kola peninsula, the Yamal peninsula and the city of Norilsk (which I already looked at in one of my previous posts). 

The region rich in oil, gas, gold, coal and diamonds for years have been dominated by an approach which can be formulated as follows: «the more we take from the Arctic, the better». Such approach eventually led to the conflict between industrial civilisation and Arctic ecosystem, which Russia is facing today. 

Throughout the history of the world the human impact on the Arctic North remained insignificant, but this has changed in the 20th century with the beginning of Stalinist industrialisation. The «North» was already playing a very important role as a resource base during the Soviet period, however, with the fall of the communism it’s importance only increased. Currently, it’s territory accounts for 80% of all Russia’s oil, 90% gas, 90% nickel and gold production, in addition to a a great share of mineral fertilisers and timber. 

The intensive economic development of the Arctic North, which has been responsible for the degeneration of the environment is associated with the intensification of industrial production during the «Cold War» period. The Russian Arctic North has been affected by various activities ranging from mining, non-ferrous Metallurgy to oil and gas extraction. 

Air Pollution

Chemical and dust pollution is mainly the result of mining, non-ferrous metallurgical industry and oil production. Annually, about 6.5 million tonnes of pollutants are emitted from stationary sources into the atmosphere over the Russian Arctic, which account for 18% of all Russian emissions. The range of emitted pollutants include highly toxic contaminants as benzopyrene, lead, vanadium, chromium and mercury.

Lately, mechanical disturbance of the ground and dust pollution become more significant, which come from the transportation of of toxic dust from quarries. The toxic substances reach the environment affecting vegetation, soils, surface and ground waters. Annually 30 million tonnes of waste rock is produced by the Apatity combine, located on the Kola peninsula. It has been estimated that after 60 years of it’s operation, the impact area of pollutants reached 300 km2. 

The Russian Federation is one of the world’s top five energy producers. It's oil and gas industries in West Siberia annually burn over 19 billion m2 of associated gases, releasing hydrocarbons, heavy metals and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

[Read more about air pollution in Norilsk here]

Water pollution

In 1997 only 25% of all polluted wastes in West Siberia were adequately treated. As a result of careless economic activity in Magadan Region many rivers and lakes in Chukotka are now devoid of plankton, the main feed basis for salmon and other fish species.

Soil contamination

Between at least 700,000 to 840,000 hectares of polluted soil in West Siberia Region is polluted by oil, the area much larger than indicated by the government. It  has been caused largely by oil pipeline and well spills, but also by oily muds, drilling and production waste, chemical waste disposal and leaking storage places.

The toxic effect of oil spills in the Extreme North is worsened by the fact that the region is layered with impermeable permafrost, which means that pollutants are absorbed by ice and snow and remain in the environment for centuries. 

Heavy metals contamination and radioactivity is another threat to Arctic environment, which has resulted from 130 nuclear tests being carried out on the Novaya Zemlya island by the Soviet Union government. It has been recently discovered that the island was also used as a graveyard for various weapons and submarines to be sunk to the bottom of the ocean, without proper disposal. The site is becoming a giant contamination field, spreading the threat all around the Arctic and beyond it’s borders. 

The economic activity in the North is often associated with damaging the soil cover and permafrost environment. This results into formation of thermokarst lakes and water logging, which can potentially be a source of significant carbon emissions during global warming.

Vegetation

The Kola peninsula, perhaps the most economically developed area of the Russian North, is covered with over 100,000 hectares of «anthropogenic desert». The trees in this zone are not able to survive due to high sulphur dioxide emissions, so the forest border line is moving to the south each year, giving a prospect of turning the peninsula into the rocky tundra in a few decades. 

The legacy of economic development and ecological change has been summed up in the table below: 

The World's Most Radiated River [in Photographs]

I would like to share with you an absolutely tremendous picture story by Robert Knoth, a freelance photographer, who is also an author of "Certificate no. 000358", a book which documents the impact of nuclear disasters on people in the former USSR.

You can find more photographs by clicking the link above..

Kostya has Down syndrome, is sick often and had to have his fingers separated through surgery. His mother Ludmilla swam in Techa River when she was young, the village was contaminated by the explosion in 1957.

Alexander has a mental handicap and lives in an orphanage. Many children in the region are born with mental problems due to the high doses of radiation their parents received. Few parents can financially support their sick children.

Karl Marx Street in Muslumovo. This is one of the main streets of the village close to Techa River. The street is almost totally abandoned because radiation levels are too high.

"I don't like to go to school, because the boys call me bad names. I would like to court the girls, but they shun me and donít want to go out with me. I hope I will not have children who look like me"

The World's Most Radiated River

«Usually when you are looking at an environmental catastrophe, you know it. Disasters have the look and feel of the natural order disassembled. In my mind, disasters should smell, smoke, or produce ugly scars. Yet nothing was out of place along this inviting little stream. The air was fresh. Swallows darted back and forth over the current. The afternoon was turning hot and, as if siren were calling me, I had a desire to slip down and run my feet over the smooth stones in the river bottom. There were no fences or warning signs to stop me.I had to remind myself that I stood before the world’s most radiated river»

Kate Brown 

The first Soviet industrial reactor was constructed in Chelyabink oblast near the lake Kyzyl-Tash and began it’s operation back in 1948. Plutonium that was produced by this industrial reactor was used for construction of the first Soviet atomic device. Later, a number of other plutonium production reactors were constructed at the Production Association «Mayak», which is now one of the biggest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation. 

The decision on it’s construction was made back in 1946, involving around 45,000 of construct builders and prisoners into this secret project. An area of almost 100 km2 was surrounded by the borderland and cordons of soldiers and it wasn't even shown on a map. Perhaps, this was the reason why the Kyshtym accident, one of the worst nuclear disasters in the human history, was kept unknown for almost 30 years. However, this is a different story and today I would like to shade a light on the tragedic fate of the people from the shores of Techa river.

Techa River warning sign

In the 1950s nuclear technology wasn’t well studied and there was not enough knowledge about reprocessing and storing of radioactive wastes. As the result, radioactive effluents were discharged directly into Techa river, leading to the severe contamination of the «Mayak» surroundings. 

Warning sign forbidding picking berries and mushrooms in this area

The Techa river is about 240 km and at the time of radioactive pollution there were 41 rural settlements along its riverside with a resident population of 28,000. Inhabitants of these settlements were not informed about deadly discharge of radioactive wastes in the river and kept the normal habit of life. They used water from the Techa river as drinking water, they cultivated their contaminated pieces of land and used contaminated flood lands as a pasture for their cattle.

Two years after beginning of radioactive wastes discharge into river, medical health checks of the residents started. They demonstrated that a majority of inhabitants experienced changes in their hemopoietic, immune and other systems. Furthermore, there were several hundreds of Mayak facility workers facing the same health conditions. They complained about headaches, sharp pains in bones and joints, constant weariness and loss of weigh. Medical professionals had no choice but to define a new condition that people were developing, so this led to the introduction of chronic radiation sickness (CRS), a syndrome which is caused by extended exposure of the organism to the low doses of radioactive isotopes.

Radiation victims

Even though special forces made an effort to resettle most of the contaminated villages along the river stream, some of them were too large and, therefore, too expensive to move. The village of Muslumovo is one among many that stayed and it is now the closest settlement to Mayak facility. 

Today, Muslumovo reminds a scene from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., however unlike the game, there are still some people living in this area. Local population gets exposed to radiation both externally (the Techa river bottom sediments and it’s shoreline) and internally (through the consumption of fish, milk and vegetables from contaminated land). Scientists report an increase in total cancer mortality, which is 5 times an average in the country, as well as increased frequencies (up to 2 to 5 times as many cases) of leukopenia, neutropenia, thrombopenia, immuno-suppression and still-births.

22 years old Raisa committed suicide as she couldn't cope with the pressure from cancer disease. Muslumovo. 

Unfortunately, the residents have nowhere to escape from this radiation zone as ever since Soviet Union collapsed, Russian government failed deliberately to resettle Muslumovo residents. In 2008 some lucky residents were resettled, but only as far as to the other side of the river, which doesn't seem to be much less radioactive. 

Kate Brown, the author of «Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters», believes that residents were kept together as the valuable base for future medical research. 

For Soviet leaders, it was a priceless opportunity to engage into «a natural experiment» that promised to answer how to survive a nuclear attack. For Russian government, it is a chance to attract foreign investors. For instance, in 2001 Russian Ministry of Health brochure promoted the «Muslumovo cohort» as a data set with «worldwide significance for the evaluation of the risk of the carcinogenic and genetic impact of chronic radiation in humans». It seems that U.S Department of Energy has great interest in this as it invested heavily in the data set from Urals.

A man walking from his old house to his new house, which is only 1.7 km away

The Mayak Production Association continues functioning today, however, releasing it’s waste into Karachai lake instead of Techa river and this means that the tragedy may repeat one day. Those poor souls damaged by the radiation from the river will never recover, and so many generations of their children. 

Here is a poem written by the kids from one of the affected villages:

Посылает Маяк не спасенья лучи:

Стронций, цезий, плутоний - его палачи.

(«Mayak» is not sending us the lights of salvation,

Strontium, cesium, plutonium - it’s deadly executioners)

Norilsk: Russia's most polluted city. Interview with photographer Elena Chernyshova

This is a short interview with a Russian documentary photographer to give my readers some feeling of what is it like to be living in one of the most polluted places on Earth..

The Air

«What is a Soviet citizen breathes as he watched with a sense os superiority a TV program about the suffocating Los Angeles smog?» 

Boris Komarov

Back in the former Soviet Union, the government promoted the economic development at all possible costs. On the eve of collapse of USSR, the country produced the same volume of air pollution as United States, however, with 2 to 4 times lower economic output. Although the level of industrial pollution has decreased since 1990s, Russia’s air is still among the most polluted in the world. 

The Soviet environmental protection agency regarded air pollution as the biggest ecological threat to the country. Starting from 1980, the Soviet meteorological service began recording the volume of atmospheric emissions coming from the two main sources: stationary sources (industrial enterprises and power plants) and transport (cars). According to this data, the total amount of air pollution in 1989 was 94 million, with more than half of this volume coming from stationary sources.

In 1989, it was reported locally that no major city in USSR complied with standards* for suspended particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ammonia, and phenol, while the concentrations of carbon disulfide, formaldehyde, and benzopyrene exceeded the norms by a factor of 2 to 4. 

The pollution has been uneven throughout the country and some of the regions experienced heavier pollution than others. 

The Russian Arctic region is the home of developing gas extracting industries, as well as the largest nickel and copper smelting plants and coal mines in the world. Tundra and northern taiga are occupied by enterprises that produce paper and pulp, aluminium plants, oil extracting and processing industries, industries extracting gold and diamonds. 

Among the cities in northern Russia, the leading source of pollutants is Norilsk, which accounts for over 2 million tons of different toxic emissions per year. The city was founded back in 1935 as a settlement for the Norilsk mining-metallurgic complex, today, the largest one in the world. According to the indicator of relative danger from release**, Norilsk takes the first place in Russia.

Norilsk is believed to be the «dirtiest» city in Russia, while the Blacksmith institute listed it as one of the ten most polluted places on Earth in 2007. 

The location of the plants around Norilsk means that residents always have to breath in the emissions coming from one or another side of the city. In this way, the northwestern part of the city especially suffers from copper plant releases when the wind blows from the west ; the south-eastern part is at risk when the wind blows from the south. The reason behind this odd construction plan lies back in 1930s, when the only people who lived in Norilsk were the prisoners from the GULAG labour camp and the government wasn’t worried about public enemies’ potential health problems. To make it even worse, such a thing as «ecology» simply didn't exist for Soviet government at that time. 

Sulphur dioxide and aerosols of heavy metals (nickel and copper) are the main components of atmospheric emissions from nickel smelters, which present a threat to forest ecosystems. For instance, sulphur dioxide emitted from the nickel mining combine is a cause of acid rains which killed all the vegetation within a 120 kilometer radius of Norilsk's facility. 

Vegetation Damage Around Norilsk Facility

The impact of air pollution around the city on humans is even worse. Norilsk is one of the 11 Russian cities with the highest rates of disease among children under 14 due to air pollution. 

The Russian government recently accepted an offer from an association of Swedish and Norwegian companies for upgrading the facilities of Pechenga Nickel, which would allow to cut sulphur dioxide emissions by 95%. However, there is no way to prevent the pollution of fragile subarctic ecosystem unless the management of the Norilsk facilities is willing to invest their revenues in the company instead of diverting them to their own pockets.

Footnotes:

*Standards for individual pollutants in the atmosphere were expressed in terms of maximum permissible concentrations (predel’no dopustimaya kontsentratsiya in Russian, or PDK) tolerated for human health. 

** The ratio of the released amount to the maximum allowable concentration (MAC) of the released chemical in the air