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)

Aral Sea

The ship "graveyard" in Karakalpakstan

Even though the name of this blog suggested that my analysis will be based around Russia only, the case study of Aral sea could not be ignored as it is a terrifying representation of land and water management combined together in the Soviet Union. Therefore, I’ve decided to extend my geographical constraints for today and to have a look at the lands of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all of which are former USSR countries. 

The Aral Sea, once the fourth largest inland water body on earth, has become well-known to the world as one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters. It shows how the lack of long-term planning in chase of economic benefit can ruin the ecosystem and harm the society. 

The lake has been steadily shrinking, starting from the early 1960s, when the Soviet government decided to diverge two main rivers that fed the Aral sea, in the attempt to boost cotton production, which they used to call «white gold». Eventually, the Sea has shrunk by approximately 65-70% in volume and 50-60% leading to the extinction of various species and the change of region’s climate. 

The Aral Sea timeline:

Before 1960: 

• The construction of irrigation canals began, many of which are poorly built and allow for water leak. For instance, the Qaraqum Canal allows for 30 to 75% of the water go to waste. 
• The surface area of the Sea is currently over 66, 000 km², with the maximum length of 494 km and maximum width of 290 km. The total extent of the shoreline is nearly 3,000 km. The mean depth is about 16m, with the maximum depth reaching up to 69m. The water salinity is 10%.

The Aral Sea Before 1960s

1960s:

• Water is drawn off at numerous points along the Amu Darya and Syr Darya in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan on their way to the Aral Sea. As much as 20 to 60 cubic kilometres of water is going to the land, so the Sea only gets 20 cubic kilometres in the most favourable years. At the same time, the water evaporates at the 33-36 cubic kilometres per year. 
• There is not enough inflow to sustain the same water level, the Aral sea begins to shrink.

1970s:

• The water level falls at an average rate of 50-60 cm per year.
• Engineers in the capital of Turkmenistan are trying to prevent the city from being flooded by seepage from Qaraqum canal by drilling 150 relief wells. 
• The use of inadequate irrigation system has led to the major leak 200 kilometres southwest of Aral, creating Lake Sarakamysh. 

1980s:

• The water level falls at an average rate of 80-90 cm per year.
• As the water has fallen, its salinity has increased dramatically up to 27%, thereby wiping out 20 out of 24 species of fish.
• USSR Goskomstat reports that an average hectare of agricultural land in the region had received over one-half ton of airborne salt, leading to the destruction of crops and forests. 
• One-half of all irrigated land in Uzbekistan is now suffering from saline conditions.
• The region’s cotton planation are now dependent on a fertilisers because the soil is depleted of nutrients. In Turkmenistan the use of pesticide is at 20-25 times the Soviet average. 

The Salt And The Toxic Chemicals Accumulated At The Seabed

1990s:

• The water level dropped by more than 15 meters, the sea has shrunk to half of it’s normal size, causing the sea to split into two: "Little Aral" to the north fed by the Syr Darya, and "Big Aral" in the south fed by the Amu Darya.
• The Aral Sea is fast becoming the Aral Desert. This leads to the change of climate - the summer heat has become hotter and drier and winters are more severe. 
• The intense use of fertilisers and pesticides has contaminated groundwater supplies. At the same time, the settlements along the lower reaches of the Amu Darya in Karakalpakistan must draw up to two- thirds of their drinking water from the river. 
• The region has turned into «slow Chernobyl» with increased infant mortality rate, typhoid fever, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis outbreaks.  
• The Aral Sea’s surface is only 17,160 km² . The five-fold increase in salinity has killed most of it’s flora and fauna.

2000s:

• The rescue program has been launched by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev back in 2001. The 13 km long dam has been constructed in order to separate the smaller North Aral Sea from the larger and more polluted southern part. In this way, Kazakhstan is able to keep all the water coming from the Syr Darya, which has been supplied with rehabilitated waterworks along it.
• The North Aral Sea's surface increased from 2,550 km² in 2003 to 3,300 km² in 2008.

• The South Aral Sea has been abandoned as the Uzbekistan government is more interested in extracting oil from the drying seabed.

North Aral Sea Rescue Program

The sad story of the Aral Sea is now repeated in other parts of the world. For instance, disappearing Lake Chad in Africa and the Salton Sea in California.

"Sorry, Aral [region]!"

Do you have any questions? What topic would you like to be covered next? Comment below.

Introduction

If we compare the planet with a communal apartment, we occupy the dirtiest room.

—Aleksei Yablokov, environmental adviser to President Boris Yeltsin

Regions of Environmental Degradation Within Former Soviet Union

The story of Russian ecology goes back to the past at the times when a former Soviet Union was a world’s largest state as well as the world’s most ambitious government which felt that pollution control was an unnecessary hindrance to economic development and industrialisation. 

Soviet poster representing a female worker and the "Day by day happier life" slogan

The Soviet society adopted the anthropocentric worldview which implies that the natural resources are merely a building material for everybody's "better future".

The environmentally threatening incidents (e.g the Siberian pipeline sabotage or Kyshtym radiological disaster) received no public notice due to censorship. The remedial measures taken were mostly slow, as government believed that the land could easily absorb any level of pollution. 

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that after the Soviet Union collapsed and the documents were finally revealed to the public, Russia had to admit that it was around 40% of it’s territory to be considered as under high risk of ecological stress. 

The citizens of the former Soviet industrial centres (e.g Magnitorsk, Novokuznetsk, Astrakhan) have now been struggling from tremendous air and water pollution, deforestation and the various skin diseases as well as disruption of metabolic processes among children, all as a result of environmental degradation. 

Magnitorsk

This blog is going to look at the number of case studies and research papers in order to understand the challenge that Russia is facing today. The topics to be covered include water and air quality, radioactive contamination, soils and forests. 

Even though some of the conditions that occurred in Russia are truly unique, if we were to put this situation in the global context it would become clear that the similar problems are faced by most of the countries around the world.