Radiation Scare In Moscow

The Moscow News has reported that levels of radiation on Moscow’s streets have reached a level so high that the authorities are about to spend 4.7 billion roubles ($153 million) to get rid of it. The clean-up will run from 2011-2013 amid reports of no fewer than 18 dangerous radioactive objects within the capital, some of which can be found in heavily built-up areas like Kuzminki, or on slopes vulnerable to landslips close to the Moskva river.
 
Even an oasis of clean air in the city like Kolomenskoye could be at risk from radioactive waste dumped during the early days of the Soviet nuclear programme.
 
Given that Russia’s chief doctor Gennady Onishchenko has already warned that living in Moscow can reduce life expectancy by up to five years, the clean-up cannot come a moment too soon.
 
 Representatives of the Radon scientific union say that no other major city has so much radioactive material so close to residential areas. The scientists told Komsomolskaya Pravda that they are concerned that there are no protection zones around atomic sites and some – such as the Kurchatov Institute in north-western Moscow – are next to living areas. Such proximity is dangerous, with a simple gas leak or electricity black-out courting catastrophe.
 
These objects need to be looked after, but the problem is that they are in federal property and belong to different institutions, like the defence ministry or minatom.
 
A big chunk of the 4.7 billion is to be spent on monitoring these objects and their levels of radiation.
 
A major problem is the presence of nuclear waste dumps within the city limits, such as the deposits in Kuzminki park.
 
During the intensive work with nuclear energy in 1950s a lot of radioactive material was moved beyond the city borders. “The used minerals and radioactive materials were simply taken out in cars and dumped into ravines outside the city,” the head of radiation control laboratory of the institute of city ecology Gennady Akulkin said. “It was acceptable then. But Moscow grew, and the ravines outside the city limits became part of it. Now the radioactive waste needs to be removed.”
 
The biggest such dump is near Kashirskoye shosse, along the Moskva river. City Hall data suggests that 60,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste are buried there. Even though there is a metre of ground above them and the level of radiation is normal, strong rains and rising groundwater are bringing the radioactive earth to the surface.
 
So, the waste has to be removed, which is being done at a snail’s pace of 300 cubic meters a year and would take 200 years to completely remove the deposits.
 
 “There is a possibility of landslides on the shores of Moskva river. If we start massively removing the dangerous ground – the whole bank will slip into the river, the radiation will get in the water. And it is an ecological catastrophe,” an official from the City Hall who asked not to disclose his name told KP. “An anti-landslide protection should be done there first, and only then we can remove the radioactive ground.”
 
There is also an issue of unknown radioactive dumps. Tens of them are found every year all over Moscow, like old medical and measuring equipment that is most often simply thrown away in order not to pay for its disposal.
 
Moreover, there were 503 nuclear waste dumps found and deactivated in the city in the last ten years.