MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatiana Sinitsyna.)
Motor vehicles kill more people than any other transport system. They are also seen as the ultimate pollutant. However, no sober-minded person will say that cars are dangerous four-wheeled monsters which must be banned. We bow our heads before progress because motor vehicles were conceived by it. Moreover, we need them badly because motor vehicles are a mandatory pre-condition of progress.
However, people still cannot reconcile themselves with nuclear energy, which is yet another aspect of modern civilization. It seems that radiation phobia, which is still a chronic disease of human society, could not be avoided. The April 1986 Chernobyl explosion and other nuclear disasters scared everyone all over the world. Their psychological impact is more serious than radiation fall-out and will not disappear in the foreseeable future (as long as modern generations live). Unfortunately, this planet's oil, coal and gas deposits are being depleted at an alarming pace. Nuclear energy is so far the only reliable source of power.
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb at the sparsely populated Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site (130 km west of Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan). The bomb was installed atop a 37.5-meter tower amidst local wastelands and subsequently detonated from a bunker. That successful test made it possible to break the U.S. A-bomb monopoly after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At the same time, the blast spewed radiation over adjacent territories, including the Altai region. It still faces all-out social tensions. Greenpeace mentions congenital birth defects, the growing number of oncological diseases and schizophrenia cases, etc. The Russian government continues to reimburse the population of the affected territories in line with a special federal program. High radiation is also blamed for leukemia, the most widespread disease in the town of Rubtsovsk, Altai territory.
But scientists, who prefer to deal with facts, think otherwise. "No such problem exists because ordinary people lack a special education and know little about the gist of the matter," said environmentalist Yelena Kvasnikova, PhD (Geography) and leading research associate of the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, and Russian Academy of Sciences. She points to the map showing a vast desert separating Altai and the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site. The atmosphere tends to diffuse all kinds of substances. Radioactive fall-out levels are inversely proportional to the length of radioactive clouds and their radionuclide concentrations. In her opinion, Altai radiation levels simply could not exert any biological impact because most nuclear devices were detonated inside underground camouflets at the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site. Consequently, no radiation spewed into the atmosphere.
The mountainous Altai, the Caucasus, the Kola Peninsula, Scandinavia, the Abyssinian Plateau, the Cordilleras and Tibet have always been notorious for their high radiation levels that vary depending on the height of mountain ranges, slope specifics, meteorological conditions and atmospheric substance properties.
Different radiation levels have been registered at the Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site, scientists say. "We have just finished assessing subterranean water quality at former blast sites. Our group worked near the No. 1,003 and No. 1,004 wells, where nuclear warheads were detonated, which spewed earth and radiation into the atmosphere. The received data have shown that local subterranean waters are absolutely clean; background radiation alone has been registered. The same can be said about water inside these wells. We failed to obtain ample data for assessing radionuclide migration inside subterranean waters. Our project has therefore flopped. This is bad for our research. On the other hand, we have received new information about regional radiation levels," Kvasnikova said.
Substantial gamma-radiation levels ranging between 100 and 500 microroentgen/hr have been detected near underground blast craters. These levels tend to diminish with range and time. Gamma-emitting radionuclides have different life spans. Short-lived radionuclides and those with a medium life span have decayed a long time ago. Background radiation, that is, about 20 microroentgen/hr, is being registered 500 m from ejecta sites. Kvasnikova says that no radiation fall-out has reached the Altai territory from the Semipalatinsk testing site.
Some people are trying to separate the Semipalatinsk factor from global radioactive contamination. But this hardly feasible task has no practical importance. Global radioactive contamination emerged in the 1960s as a result of atmospheric nuclear tests that were conducted by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, France and China. Radioactive fall-out became "cosmopolitan" after reaching the stratosphere. Part of radioactive substances drifted to the planetary surface two or three years under the impact of gravitation. Global radiation levels, with the exception of mountain areas that have a rough surface (which traps radioactive substances), are more or less the same.
"Secondary dust clouds have now become a serious problem at the Semipalatinsk testing site," Kvasnikova stressed. Nuclear blast craters are surrounded by salt marshes, which are covered with soot-like ejecta. The latter may contain hot particles capable of damaging human lungs. "Still this mostly concerns people working there, scientists included. For example, Moscow residents suffer from much greater atmospheric pollution than the population of Altai," Kvasnikova said.
Angelina Guskova, PhD, the author of a book on the national nuclear industry, said: "The health of Altai residents was affected by the 1949 and 1961 nuclear blasts (no other explosions exerted their impact on that area). The situation has changed greatly over the decades. Moreover, the aging factor should not be overlooked either," Guskova added. In her opinion, workers at the Mayak (Beacon) enterprise near Chelyabinsk were irradiated to a much greater extent ten days after the 1957 nuclear accident. However, their health now differs little from that of their coevals in other regions. Professor Guskova is positive that patients are often being misled. "Apart from the radiation factor, human life is influenced by other more significant and rapidly acting factors. First of all, the authorities must tackle social issues," she stressed.
It seems that evolutionary processes on this planet were launched by space radiation. All of us have evolved as a result of this factor. The human body can withstand impressive natural radiation fluctuations. Planet Earth has thorium "sand pits," uranium deposits, radon waters and countless mountain ranges. About 10 to 300 millicuries per square kilometer were registered in the mountains of Altai throughout the 1960s (depending on specific altitudes and slope exposition). And it should be mentioned that each square kilometer of European Russian territory boasted over 100 millicuries at that time.
