Nuclear dump. Nuclear test sites of the world. How are you doing? Large nuclear waste dump

Location of the Semipalatinsk test site on the map of Kazakhstan

The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site was one of the two main nuclear test sites of the USSR in 1949-1989. During its existence, the landfill has brought many problems to the residents living near it, polluted large areas of Kazakhstan and Russia, and also contributed to the negative attitude of people towards products that came from contaminated areas, etc.

The site was used for various tests of nuclear weapons of the USSR - both in the ground (in adits and wells) and in the atmosphere. On August 12, 1953, a thermonuclear weapon was tested here, in the atmosphere - at a height of 30 meters above the ground (the charge was located in a special tower). After that, the rapid contamination of the territory of the test site and adjacent lands with radioactive elements began. November 22, 1955 another thermonuclear bomb was dropped from an aircraft and exploded at an altitude of 2 km above ground level.

From 1949 to 1989, at least 456 nuclear tests were carried out, in which at least 616 nuclear and thermonuclear devices were detonated, including at least 30 ground-based nuclear explosions and at least 86 air. Dozens of hydronuclear and hydrodynamic tests were also carried out (the so-called "NTsR" - incomplete chain reactions). The region suffered significant environmental damage. The population was exposed to radiation, which eventually led to illness, premature death, genetic diseases among the local population. Data about this, collected by Soviet scientists during the tests, is still classified.

Explosions were stopped only in 1989, and the test site itself was closed in August 1991. The popular anti-nuclear movement Nevada - Semipalatinsk and its leader Olzhas Suleimenov played a big role in its closure. The closure of the landfill did not reduce the threat.

Currently, the territory of the landfill is still inhabited by people (and this is the only such place in the world). The landfill area itself is not protected despite the fact that it continues to store thousands of open and hidden threats for people.

Dozens of radioactive adits remain open - the military, who quickly left here, did not particularly bother with the conservation of objects. Now any craftsman who wishes can get there, collect various radioactive "goods" and then sell it. Recently, there has been a trend towards the disappearance of orphan garbage from the territory of the landfill. Where does he go? Collected by local craftsmen and then sold to various junk buyers, who, in turn, put radioactive things on sale. It is not known where the items sold by these buyers are now located. Potentially, anyone can become the owner of a radioactive thing and still not be able to guess where it came from. One of the most dangerous examples- radiation metal collected at the landfill.

According to scientists, the radiation activity of plutonium (which is now in excess at the Semipalatinsk test site) gradually decreases by half every 24 thousand years (half-life occurs). And only after a million years, the radiation background of the lands in view of the Semipalatinsk test site will be equal to the natural one.

In the dangerous areas of the former test site, the radioactive background still reaches 10,000 - 20,000 microroentgens per hour. Despite this, people still live on the landfill and use it for agricultural purposes. The territory of the landfill was not protected in any way and until 2006 it was not marked on the ground in any way. Only in 2005, under pressure from the public and on the recommendation of the Parliament, work began on marking the boundaries of the landfill with concrete pillars. The population uses most of the landfill land for livestock grazing. Thanks to the efforts of the public and scientists of the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in 2008 work began on the creation of engineering protection structures for some of the most contaminated areas of the landfill to prevent access to them by the population and livestock. In 2009, the army guard of the Degelen test site was organized. The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site is the only one of the many nuclear test sites in the world where the population lives and uses it for agricultural purposes.

The Novosibirsk region also suffered, where lands were contaminated from radioactive fallout and high risk oncological diseases, but the authorities did not recognize this and do not recognize it.

Territories exposed to radioactive contamination:

An object of unknown purpose. The size can be judged by the size of the figure of a man sitting on the edge of the mine:

The object was destroyed as part of work to reduce nuclear threat funded by the US.

From eyewitness accounts:

1955 First hydrogen bomb. “We were sitting at a lecture in the assembly hall, when the building shook, knocked out the grates from the furnaces, the glass in our audience was shattered by a shock wave. Panic began. One student sitting by the window, an amazingly beautiful girl, was filled with glass fragments all over her face. A year later she died ."

"Atomic" lake":

At the confluence of the two main rivers of the region - Shagan and Ashchisu - on January 15, 1965, an underground explosion was carried out, as a result of which the famous "Atomic" lake was formed.

One of the booklets of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology gives a brief description of this object: “An explosion with a capacity of 140 kilotons was carried out, as a result of which a funnel was formed more than 100 meters deep and 400 meters in diameter. In the area of ​​the "Atomic" lake, radionuclide contamination of soils is observed at a distance of up to 3 - 4 kilometers to the north.

Raisa Kurmangagieva, a resident of Semey, says:

I remember we were brought fish from this lake. It was so big and appetizing, people snapped it up in a matter of seconds. At that time, it was very popular among the population .. We did not even think about any radiation then. I'm already 80 years old, I'm still alive.

Here are photographs taken at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site during the period of active existence from 1949 to 1989, after its closure since 1991, as well as photographic materials related to the testing of nuclear weapons in the USSR and the USA, with modern views nuclear weapons and means of delivery.

Open lesson Biological effect of radioactive transformations http://festival.1september.ru/articles/578779/

Life on the range. Chernobyl liquidator on environmental and social problems Semipalatinsk http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/18143...

Sakhalin Island off the east coast of Asia is a far corner of Russia. This is the largest island in Russia, washed by the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan. The name "Sakhalin" comes from the Manchu name of the Amur River - "Sakhalyan-Ulla", which means "Rocks of the Black River".

The public sounded the alarm when an increase in oncological diseases became noticeable among the population of the Sakhalin Region. According to the Ministry of Health of the Sakhalin Region, the death rate from neoplasms (including malignant ones) per 100,000 population in 2016 amounted to 241 people, which is 5.6% higher than the previous year and 19% higher than the average for the Russian Federation, 7%.

The Sea of ​​Okhotsk around Sakhalin Island has long been turned into a huge nuclear dump. Only according to official data, in the period from 1969 to 1991. in Okhotsk and Seas of Japan at least 1.2 kCi of liquid RW (radioactive waste) was dumped, as well as solid RW was flooded (these are 6868 containers, 38 ships and more than 100 individual large-sized objects, with a total activity of 6.9 kCi).

Getting 1 Ki (curie) of strontium into the human body (for example, with infected fish) can lead to very serious consequences: cancer of the stomach, blood, bone marrow.

Sakhalin social activist, former director of Sakhalin-geoinform Vyacheslav Fedorchenko, referring to official documents of the Main Directorate of Navigation and Oceanography of the RF Ministry of Defense, told the deputies of the Sakhalin Regional Duma that by 1996, 39 RTGs had been flooded in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk by the Navy (near lighthouses and in the base area hydrographic detachments of the Navy). Until 1998, there was no regulatory document that would oblige them to hand over radioisotope generators for recycling. "Being in an aggressive marine environment, RITEG-type products self-destruct. Thus, a sharp increase in oncological diseases in the Far Eastern Federal District may be a consequence of the authorized disposal of RTGs by flooding,” he believes.

RITEG(radioisotope thermoelectric generator) - a radioisotope source of electricity that uses the thermal energy of radioactive decay. It was intended to power unattended automatically operating aids to navigation equipment - light beacons, radio beacons, luminous navigation signs, radar beacons-responders located in hard-to-reach areas of the sea coast. Where the use of other power sources is difficult or practically impossible.

Compared to nuclear reactors using a chain reaction, RTGs are much smaller and structurally simpler. The output power of the RTG is low (up to several hundred watts) with a low efficiency. But they have no moving parts and require no maintenance for their entire service life, which can be decades.

By the way, in no case should you approach it closer than 500 meters when an RTG is detected! It was in Murmansk region a few years ago. Thieves who had access to the RTG storage site dismantled several generators. All parts, including the depleted uranium shield, were stolen. The perpetrators were never found. Scientists have suggested that they are guaranteed not to be alive, since they received a lethal dose of radiation.

According to V. Fedorchenko, a space satellite equipped with a nuclear power plant was also flooded near Sakhalin (an unsuccessful launch in 1993 from Baikonur), and a Tu-95 strategic bomber with two nuclear bombs, crashed in 1976 in Patience Bay.

“Even now, virtually every fish caught contains radioisotope contamination with strontium-90 and cesium-133, which tend to accumulate in the human body. There is an environmental protection law prohibiting the dumping of radioactive waste into the sea, where flooded RTGs are classified as class one This means that RITEGs must be found and appropriately buried. This is the law. Everything else is demagogy," V. Fedorchenko believes. He added that otherwise the flooded installations would be dangerous for another 600-800 years.

Today, according to Vyacheslav Fedorchenko, many departments have satellite images of the flooded Tu-95 strategic bomber with atomic bombs on board. This documentary evidence came about thanks to such a method as remote sensing of the Earth. With this method, you can find all sunken radioactive ships, submarines and aircraft. There are exact coordinates of a spacecraft with a nuclear power plant in Aniva Bay. The location of 5 out of 38 wrecked nuclear waste ships in Patience Bay is known. federal Service on Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision, with its letter No. NYu-48/23, confirmed the flooding of nuclear facilities in certain areas of the Pacific Ocean.

The head of the hydrographic service of the Pacific Fleet, Gennady Nepomiluev, told the deputies of the Sakhalin Regional Duma that the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) in 2018 will continue to search for a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) flooded in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

He said that in the 1970-1990s, the Pacific Fleet had 148 RTGs on its balance sheet. Of these, 147 have now been decommissioned and transferred for temporary storage to the Far East Center for Radioactive Waste Management. For all installations, the Pacific Fleet has documents, where they are today and when they were disposed of.

One RTG in 1987, when delivered by helicopter to the lighthouse of the Pacific Fleet, was accidentally dropped into the sea near Cape Nizky due to adverse weather conditions and the risk of a helicopter crash. The coordinates of the flood are unknown. The search for a generator has been going on all these years, but no results have been given. Since 2012, the Pacific Fleet has been conducting annual monitoring in the area of ​​Cape Nizkiy - diving survey, echolocation, measurement of radiation levels, sampling of soil and water. G. Nepomiluev emphasizes that this area is closed for fishing and other industrial activities until the RTG is found.

The Sakhalin Regional Duma sent appeals to Rosatom and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on this information from public figures, but these departments did not confirm the flooding of 39 RTGs, a bomber and a space satellite. However, the population of the region is concerned about the growth of cancer, and the reason for this trend is still unknown.

In 2013 the newspaper TVNZ"conducted its own investigation into the version of the sunken Tu-95 bomber with atomic bombs on board off the coast of Sakhalin. Agree or disagree with the results of the investigation, you decide. .

It seems that the situation in the water area Sea of ​​Okhotsk, is hushed up by those who are not interested in disclosing this information. During the period of the collapse of the army and navy after the 90s, uniform anarchy was going on in the country, so it is not surprising that underwater radioactive burials. To hide the ends in the water is just the right expression. But this problem must be solved!

Deputies of the Sakhalin Regional Duma at a meeting of the regional parliament on May 3, 2018 adopted the text of an appeal to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Both appeals relate to the same topic - to consider the issue of ensuring radioecological safety Far Eastern seas and the need to lift potentially dangerous objects from the seabed. It remains to wait for decisions at the highest level.

For reference.

In October 2017, a meeting of the working group "Ensuring environmental safety and rational use Natural Resources" as part of the State Commission for the Development of the Arctic, chaired by the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation S.E. Donskoy. It was devoted to the state of objects flooded in the Arctic seas with radioactive waste (RW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and possible at the meeting it was announced that 17,000 containers and 19 ships with radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, five of which contain SNF, 735 units of radioactive structures were sunk in the Arctic seas. submarines, one of which is with unloaded SNF.

The Savannah River Site Nuclear Production Facility (SRS) in South Carolina produced more than a third of US weapons-grade plutonium, almost all of the tritium and other nuclear materials (plutonium-238, plutonium-242, and neptunium-237) for military and civilian purposes. Nuclear waste dumps and poor management in the past, failure to carry out the necessary clean-up activities have led to widespread contamination of the SRS area, and also called into question the safety of the main water resources in the area, including the Savannah River. Current nuclear waste disposal practices threaten to turn the CPC complex into a high-level nuclear waste dump on the banks of one of the largest rivers in the southeastern United States.

The CPC complex was built in the early 1950s - five nuclear reactors and two large reprocessing plants for reprocessing nuclear materials(the so-called F and H canyons). They are the source of most of the pollution.

CPC waste is the most radioactive of all US military nuclear facilities. About 99% of this radioactivity is located in 49 underground tanks designed to store high-level waste: fission products, plutonium, uranium and other radionuclides.

The main hazard to water resources is long-lived radionuclides, radioactive substances in buried waste and sedimentation tanks, as well as radioactivity in the aeration zone and groundwater under the SRS. The danger is compounded by the presence of non-radioactive toxins. Numerous surface burials, trench burials, pit incineration and backfilling have been practiced as a disposal method at SRS. One of the largest and most contaminated sites is the radioactive waste disposal facility located between sites F and H of the reprocessing facilities. It was mainly used for the disposal of low radioactive and mixed waste.

The SPC complex also houses more than ten lagoons containing billions of gallons of liquid waste contaminated with radionuclides and toxic organic chemicals and heavy metals. The bulk of the liquid waste came from two reprocessing plants and reactors. The practice of dumping solid and liquid wastes of the past years has led to serious contamination of soil and groundwater. They fall into local streams, from where they then enter the river. Savannah. The effects of pollution from tritium, volatile organic substances, strontium-90, mercury, cadmium and lead will persist for decades. The effects of contamination with iodine-129, technetium-99, neptunium-237, isotopes of uranium and plutonium-239 will manifest themselves for thousands of years, and there is no hope that they will be controlled.

Tritium
Tritium is the most abundant radioactive substance at the SRS production facility.

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Most of the tritium is of artificial origin. Tritium is sometimes found in nature, where it is formed as a result of the interaction between the atmosphere and cosmic rays. With a relatively short half-life (12.3 years), tritium decays at about 5.5% per year.

IN nuclear weapons The main function of tritium is to enhance the production of fissile materials, which is used both in weapons based on a pure fission reaction and in preliminary versions of thermonuclear weapons. Tritium is located in the warhead, in removable reusable containers and increases the efficiency of the explosion of nuclear materials.

In gaseous form, tritium is usually not particularly dangerous to health, since a person exhales it with air before the body has time to receive a significant dose of radiation. However, tritium can replace one or both hydrogen atoms in a water molecule, thus forming radioactive water, which has the same Chemical properties, which is normal. Since water is an integral part of life, tritium water can carry radioactivity to all parts of the body, such as cells, and also penetrate DNA and proteins. Tritium, which is part of organic substances, is called organically bound tritium (OCT). OCT and radioactive water can cross the placenta and irradiate the developing fetus, increasing the risk of birth defects, miscarriages, and other ailments.

Tritium releases enter streams in the SRS area in two ways: as a result of direct releases and as a result of tritium migration from landfills to groundwater. For about the first two decades (from the 1950s to the mid-1970s), reactors and reprocessing plants were the main sources of tritium contamination. Over the next thirty years, the migration of tritium into and out of groundwater into terrestrial streams increased substantially.

Although near-surface groundwater under the CPC is not used for drinking purposes, its tritium content is of concern as it migrates into the Savannah River, which is used as drinking water. Tritium measurements in more than half of the monitoring wells located in the separation and control areas show that the tritium concentration exceeds the standards for drinking water.

The tritium concentration at the mouth of the river near Savannah, Georgia in 2000 was 950 picocuries/litre; in 2002 it was somewhat lower - 774 picocuries/litre. This means that tritium is contained in the river along its entire length: from the source of pollution - the SRS complex - to the Atlantic Ocean. Although the half-life of tritium is shorter than that of other dangerous radioactive isotopes, this period - 12.3 years - is long enough for tritium to become the main source of radioactive contamination of the river for decades. In 1991, tritium was discovered in drinking water wells in Burke County, Georgia.

The U.S. Department of Energy, which is responsible for the activities of the SRS, claims that the level of tritium pollution is currently not dangerous, since it is 10-20 times less than the maximum acceptable level pollution of drinking water, provided for by existing regulations of the US Environmental Protection Agency. But this fact does not mean at all that all the rules and requirements for the protection of public health have been met.

For example, in the analysis it is important to make comparisons not only with the norms for drinking water, but also with the background level of pollution. The natural concentration of tritium in lakes, rivers and drinking water before nuclear testing was 5-25 picocurie/liter. Nuclear tests have led to a significant increase in the content of tritium in the atmosphere. Although most of it has already decayed, there is enough tritium left after nuclear tests to pollute the environment on a global scale.

Current drinking water standards for tritium do not protect children and fetuses to the same extent as adults. Current radiation protection standards assume that beta radiation (eg, emitted by tritium) causes the same harm to the body as exposure of the whole body to gamma or X-rays. But the risk of developing cancer per unit of radiation energy when exposed to tritium can be much higher.

Other pollution
Not only tritium, but also other radioactive isotopes migrate from waste disposal sites and sedimentation tanks into groundwater. The concentration of some radionuclides in groundwater in many areas of the complex exceeds the standards for drinking water. The most common are strontium-90 and iodine-129 with half-lives of 28.1 and 16 million years, respectively. The content of radium-226, isotopes of uranium, iodine-129 and strontium-90 in groundwater also significantly exceeds drinking water standards.

Volatile organic compounds, especially trichlorethylene (TCE) and tetrachlorethylene, have been widely used in CPC as degreasers. TCE is one of the main substances polluting groundwater throughout the complex.

fish infection
Fish bioaccumulate certain elements, especially caesium-137 and mercury. By the mid-1950s, it became clear that SRS activities were affecting fish in the Savannah River.

The fish here contain 3,000 times more cesium than the water itself. According to the Office natural resources State of Georgia, mercury-related regulations also provide protection against caesium-137. A 1996 survey by Morris, Samuel, and students at Benedict College found that people fish near polluted CPC outlets. According to the survey, people eat more than 50 kilograms of fish from this river every year. Thus, reducing the level of pollution of the Savannah River, caused by the activities of the SRS, is a critical aspect of environmental justice, as well as protecting the health of all those who depend on this river for their livelihood and for whom it is important source proteins.

The so-called "environmental restoration"
More than 99% of the radioactivity in CPC waste is contained in high-level waste. Just one percent of this amount (about 4.2 million curies) was taken from the tanks, mixed with molten glass and cast into glass blocks at a military waste processing plant. Currently, 1,221 cast glass blocks are stored in alloy steel containers on site in a temporary storage facility for highly radioactive waste. In the long term, they need to be buried in deep geological repositories.

The Department of Energy has not yet decided how to bury all this mass of waste. The original plan involved waste processing, removal of the main radionuclides, and vitrification of radioactive substances. The remaining liquid waste was proposed to be mixed with cement and disposed of on the territory of the complex, turning it into the so-called "salt stone".

But this plan met with serious technical difficulties. The method originally chosen was abandoned in 1998. The main problem was that the residual waste produced benzene, a flammable toxic gas whose presence in the tanks posed a risk of fires in the radioactive waste.

In 2002, the Energy Department decided to apply to 49 sites the same procedure that had already been applied to "shut down" the other two - filling them with cement mortar after removing the bulk of the waste.

In fact, such a "closure" (tank 19) is an example of an incompetent, illegal and dangerous "remove pollution by dilution" approach. The concentration of radioactivity in the residual waste from this tank is estimated to be more than 14 times the allowable standards for Class C low level radioactive waste, which includes most of the radioactive waste that is allowed for near surface disposal. Class C standards are violated for each of the four radionuclides separately: plutonium-238, plutonium-239, plutonium-240 and americium-241. Thus, the residual radioactive material in this tank belongs to the “above class C” waste class, or, in other words, transuranic waste of the type that would normally require disposal in deep geological repositories. But if the residual waste from this tank is diluted with a huge amount of cement slurry, then, according to the estimates given in the documentation for the closure of tank 19, the radioactivity of such waste will be 0.997 of the class C limit value, that is, it will squeeze into the "Procrustean bed" of current standards in relation to "low-level" waste.

The remaining containers to be emptied contain even more radioactivity than those that have already been emptied. With estimates of residual radioactivity increasing, cementation of residual waste in more than 50 high-level waste containers could leave them with several hundred thousand or even millions of curies of radioactivity. This is a huge number. In the long term, this will pose a serious threat to ground and surface water, including the Savannah River.

Plutonium is also a source of concern. The "empty" tank 19 is estimated to contain 30 curies of plutonium-239 and almost 11 curies of plutonium-240. The total amount of plutonium in this container alone is almost half a kilogram. Residual radioactivity even 1-2% of this amount gives a huge level of plutonium alpha radiation, not counting other radionuclides. This situation is dangerous and creates serious risks for future generations.

High level waste
The Ministry of Energy even considered the possibility of leaving the highest level waste (HLW) at the SRS production complex:

“HMW recycling is currently the only costly element of the Environmental Management Program. Its goal is to find a way to eliminate vitrification for at least 75% of the planned wastes and to develop at least two reliable cost-effective strategies for all types of high-level wastes of the complex.”

In an effort to circumvent the Nuclear Waste Management Policy Act of 1982, which requires deep geological disposal of highly radioactive waste, the Department of Energy attempted to refer to these wastes as "collateral" rather than "highly radioactive". This ploy was thwarted by a federal court in 2003.

Even if such a practice is recognized as legal by the courts or legalized by new legislation, it will not become safe from this. Disposing of so many long-lived radionuclides near water is dangerous and will pose a serious and largely unpredictable threat in the future.

Buried waste
The burial of transuranium wastes on the territory of the SRS was carried out in the 1970s, and the near-surface disposal of low-level radioactive wastes is still being carried out. For this, a huge area of ​​78 hectares has been allocated, the so-called Waste Disposal Complex, where mixed radioactive and hazardous materials are dumped. radioactive waste.

The purpose of surface fills is to reduce water seepage and hence the ingress of contaminants from the disposal site into the groundwater. This method cannot restore already polluted groundwater. Vegetation planned to be planted on top of burials increases evapotranspiration and therefore can reduce water infiltration. But vegetation also reduces surface runoff and can therefore increase infiltration in some cases. In any case, backfilling is a short-term half-measure, not a long-term effective solution to the problem.

We do not yet understand very well how the interaction of physical, chemical and biological processes leads in the long term to the spread of radionuclides in environment. For example, when clay is used as a radionuclide barrier, it is expected that ion exchange will bind the metal cations contained in the waste in the soil. However, in real life in many cases, the application of this approach is highly questionable. With regard to biological processes and the spread of radioactivity, there is research to eliminate radioactive contamination using bacteria that concentrate radioactive substances. But if bacteria under certain conditions can be used to eliminate radioactive contamination, then in natural conditions, when there is no way to prevent the movement of microorganisms themselves in the environment, they can also cause the spread of radioactive substances.

The DOE's current disposal of low-level radioactive waste in shallow, unlined, and uncontrolled trenches could lead to two important issues associated with groundwater pollution. First, such disposal of low-level radioactive waste increases the total content of waste in the soil, which can subsequently migrate into ground or surface water. Secondly, the continued disposal of waste in open trenches results in the pollution already existing moving further towards the aquifers.

Long term issues
Poor radioactive waste disposal policies have meant that the risks created by the operation of this complex will persist for much longer than we can control it. There are many examples of how for several decades control over sites was lost, and for the same period serious problems were forgotten in the bowels of institutions. dangerous situations. For example, the disposal of toxic chemical materials used for the production of weapons (including arsenic) was carried out by the US military near the American University right in the US capital, and a few decades later, residential buildings began to be built right in and next to these landfills.

The Department of Energy acknowledges that current plans for facilities such as the CPC leave contaminants on site and this poses a hazard indefinitely. for a long time(centuries or millennia). A study on the long-term management of radioactive waste conducted in 2000 by the National Research Council stated:

“The Board on Environmental Remediation from the Effects of Waste Landfill and Storage in Tanks has found that much of the Department of Energy's long-term management calculations are now in doubt…. Ceteris paribus, it is preferable to carry out the reduction of the amount of pollutants, rather than their isolation, based on the measures that will be taken to deal with them, since the risk that these measures cannot be carried out is too great.

First, the Department of Energy must urgently develop plans for the disposal of buried waste and highly contaminated soil in order to minimize harm from the main sources of water pollution in the long term.

Second, the cementing of residual radioactivity in high-level waste containers should be avoided to prevent massive amounts of radioactive waste from being stored near the Savannah River. The Department of Energy must commit itself to removing radioactive waste from the tanks and decommissioning the tanks. To do this, the tanks must be removed from the ground and placed in a safer storage to work with them. It's about not about getting every last curie out of them, but about extracting as much radioactive waste as possible, having enough time and effort for this. Decommissioning tanks in this way deserves to be done, even if it takes decades, as it will reduce the risk of water pollution in the region.

Thirdly, we must not forget about environmental monitoring, geological and medical research. In addition, it is necessary to inform the local population about the dangers of eating fish and about measures aimed at reducing this danger. It is necessary to conduct more thorough studies of the diet of people living along the river. Savannah.

The Commission for the Study of the Effects of Low Doses of Radiation on Human Health (BEIR VII) should assess the damage that tritium causes to human health - in addition to the risk of developing cancers, including for pregnant women, the fetus, as well as the danger associated with combined exposure to the body tritium and toxic non-radioactive substances. And current standards for tritium contamination in water need to be reviewed and tightened to protect future generations.

  nuclear dump
Nuclear dump is our home
This was shown by the check of Moskompriroda
The State Inspectorate for Radiological Control has completed a series of inspections of "radiation hazardous" facilities in Moscow. The checks showed that, from the point of view of nuclear safety, the capital remains a very unfavorable city. If we talk about independent experts, they are even more pessimistic and say directly that nuclear accident in Moscow can happen at any moment.

According to the State Inspectorate for Radiological Control and Physical Factors of the Moskompriroda, there are 10 nuclear research reactors in Moscow, of which seven are operational; eight facilities qualifying as "nuclear fuel cycle enterprises" and "radiation hazardous facilities"; 68 "objects with radionuclide release into the atmosphere"; dozens of points with a significantly increased radiation background; about 700 enterprises using radioactive materials.
Dosimetric control in the capital is carried out by 87 points for monitoring the radiation situation.

As Gennady Akulkin, head of Moskompriroda, admitted in a conversation with a Kommersant-Daily correspondent, "not a single normal person would say that nuclear installations are safe. Of course, they radiate, create radioactive pollution. There is a constant release of radiation into the atmosphere."
“We understand,” said Gennady Akulkin, “that there is no place for nuclear reactors in Moscow, but the removal of just one reactor from the city costs about $800 million. There is nowhere to get that kind of money. decrease, but increase. An operating reactor with qualified personnel is much less dangerous than a shutdown reactor without constant supervision and control."
However, according to Akulkin, the main problem is not in the reactors, but in radioactive waste. Many points of radioactive contamination have remained since the 40-50s. Then there were no standards - they just took the waste away and dumped it. At that time, these dumps were outside the city, and now it is Moscow. The Likhoborka river is very polluted. In the 50s, radioactive waste was transported here on carts and dumped along the coast. Now there are thousands of tons.
The Inspectorate of the State Committee for Nature Protection conducted a territorial survey of radioactive contamination zones in the Moscow region. The largest anomalies have been identified: Poklonnaya Gora is a former radioactive dump, the same is on the 26th kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road, in Western Butovo. "In terms of uranium" stand out Kolomenskoye and Brateevo. Gennady Akulkin especially noted the Experimental Chemical-Technological Plant (radioactive contamination both on the territory and beyond it): in the near future the State Committee for Nature Protection is going to fine it.
These data cannot be called pacifying. But, according to Vladimir Kuznetsov, a State Duma expert on nuclear and radiation safety, the former head of Moscow's Gosatomnadzor, the reality is even worse.
According to Kuznetsov, most research nuclear installations in Moscow are dangerous already by virtue of the fact that they were designed and built in the 60-70s, when the requirements for the safety of nuclear facilities were greatly underestimated. In this case, not equipment specially designed for the needs of nuclear energy was used, but standard samples, for example, equipment for chemical industry. Naturally, over the past time, this technique has become outdated both physically and morally, and it is now impossible to replace it due to lack of funds. First of all, this applies to pipelines and heat exchange equipment, devices and drives of control and protection systems, ionization chambers of control channels.
If research reactors were harmless facilities, Kuznetsov says, no one would be in a hurry to shut down the reactor closest to the Kremlin at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Cheryomushki. Meanwhile, after the Chernobyl disaster, this was done in a few weeks and without any discussion.
Kuznetsov also drew special attention to the Kurchatov Institute and stated that accidents had occurred there more than once, leading to radioactive contamination of the atmosphere. He claims that in 1972, three people died at the institute as a result of an accident involving nuclear equipment. According to him, only at the 47 largest research nuclear reactors in Russia over the past ten years there have been more than 800 nuclear safety violations.

On July 29, 2000, the last shaft of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site (SNTS) was blown up. It happened 9 years after its official closure. However, the history of the landfill did not end there. Approximately the same inertial processes are observed at a number of other ranges that have served their militaristic age.

Terrible tales of the times of collapse

The first Soviet nuclear test site was opened in 1949 in Semipalatinsk regions of Kazakhstan. For a long time, nuclear and thermonuclear charges were tested on it, the power of which was not so great as to cause serious cataclysms in terms of destruction. and radioactive infection outside the landfill.

The Semipalatinsk test site, located in the steppes of Kazakhstan, occupied the second largest area in the world after the Novaya Zemlya test site. It is spread over 18,500 sq. km. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lot of horrors were said about him, as an instrument of the "cannibalistic policy of Moscow", many of which do not stand up to criticism.

At the SINP, as well as at the Nevada test site, for the time being, both air and ground explosions of nuclear charges were carried out. Then, after signing a moratorium on dirty tests, they moved on to underground tests.

View through the test window from Los Angeles (LA).

Miss Atomic Bomb, Las Vegas.

At the same time, they tried to minimize the impact of negative factors on the indigenous population living in the area of ​​the test site. In Nevada, the public flocked to Las Vegas, from where the mushroom cloud was perfectly visible. The public was lured in order to cut down more profits from it, stimulating "nuclear tourism". At the same time, the military does not did not regulate.

But at the same time, almost half as many charges were blown up in Kazakhstan since 1949 as the Americans in the Nevada desert alone: ​​488 versus 928. The military did not care much that radioactive fallout mainly fell on St. much higher than the national average.

In fairness, however, it should be said that Soviet organizational events were not always effective. Musician Sergei Letov (Yegor's brother) recalled how in the 60s he spent the summer with his grandmother near Semipalatinsk. After “abnormal” tests, an officer drove around the surrounding villages in a jeep, who demanded that the crop of tomatoes be buried in the ground. However, there were not so many "madmen" who fulfilled this "ridiculous" requirement.

People die for metal

SNTS officially closed in August 1991. To a certain extent, this was facilitated by the active work of the Nevada-Semipalatinsk social movement. However, no one is thinking of closing the landfill in Nevada even now. Although nuclear explosions on it were stopped at the end of 1992.

The dismantling of equipment and the withdrawal of the military contingent began at the SNTS. In 1994 the last soviet soldier, already called Russian, left independent state. There was no one to guard the landfill. And immediately chaos reigned.

Crowds of poor citizens poured into the landfill in search of scrap metal, for which a lot of money could be earned. The most valuable was the copper wire, which was in the tunnels with off-scale radiation. According to various sources, from 10 to 20 people soon died of radiation sickness. Receiving non-lethal but hazardous doses, no one did not register.

In 1996, Kazakh and American specialists began blocking the entrances to 186 tunnels and shafts with heavy reinforced concrete blocks. The huge multi-million dollar work was completed on July 29, 2000.

However, it was not easy to stop the people's element. In 2004, it turned out that all the titanic work went to waste. Using explosives and powerful bulldozers, the "scrap metal mafia" unblocked 110 tunnels. It was at this time that the theme of the “terrorist bomb” became more relevant. And according to calculations, in the rocks of the landfill there was a significant amount of unreacted plutonium, fused with the rock. And it was dangerous, because the "forces of international evil" could well extract this material for the manufacture of a "dirty bomb".

Russia admitted its partial responsibility. And the collection of dirty plutonium and its disposal began. These works were carried out bypassing the IAEA. And information about their results is limited. It is only known that, relatively speaking, "all" plutonium has become inaccessible to terrorists.

After the completion of this stage, they began to solve the problem of public safety. In 2014, work was completed on the construction of engineering protection for some of the most polluted areas of the landfill to prevent people and livestock from accessing them.

But by now, the “metalworkers” have dug up all the abandoned sites and communication lines and energy supply landfills abandoned by Russia. The results of these "research" happened to me on Emba and in Sary-Shagan.

And from 2017, Kazakhstan will start earning very serious money at the test site. In two years, a bank of low-enriched uranium used in nuclear power will start operating here. The bank will accumulate and store uranium, which will be shipped to them at the request of international consumers. The state-sponsors, including the USA, Norway, the UAE, the EU, Kuwait, intend to allocate $150 million to Kazakhstan to create a bank. Of course, this does not require the entire area of ​​the polygon. Sponsors presented this generous gift to Kazakhstan because the republic has experience with radioactive materials.

colonial history

The situation with the first nuclear test site in France is somewhat similar from Semipalatinsk. The French, in the absence of their own union republic, chose a place for air tests atomic bomb colony - Algiers. But the time of operation of their first test site is much shorter, since Algeria declared independence only two years after the first explosion in the Sahara.

Moreover, it was not a deserted desert, but the Reggan oasis in the center of the Sahara, in which more than 20 thousand Algerians lived. Of course, it would be possible to create a landfill in an absolutely deserted place, but due to lack any infrastructure, the construction of a test camp and test sites would be much more expensive.

In Reggan in 1960-61, they managed to carry out 4 very dirty above-ground explosions. The bomb was set on metal farm. Naturally aboriginal nobody about anything did not warn and they did not bury radioactive tomatoes in the ground. The French left Regan, leaving everything as it is. And the Algerians rushed to the test site to disassemble metal constructions for business needs. To date, there is no trace of these structures left. No one kept a record of the sick. True, Algeria, since the 80s, has been trying to sue France for compensation to the victims. But there are no results yet.

Before moving to Polynesia, where the French also had colonial possessions, de Gaulle signed a secret agreement with the President of Algeria, according to which the test site was moved to the south of the country - to the Hoggar granite plateau - the birthplace of the Tuareg. The new test facility was named In-Ecker. Here 1961–1966 13 underground nuclear tests were carried out. Everything was going well, until the physicists made a mistake with the calculation of power - instead of 20 kilotons, all 100 rushed. A monstrous release of radioactive lava resulted, a deadly cloud began to spread rapidly. In this connection, it was necessary to urgently evacuate all employees of the landfill. The Algerians, of course, were not told anything for reasons of secrecy. And the French left In-Ecker as quickly as the Regan training ground, leaving everything as it is.

Further tests were carried out on the atolls of Murorua (179 nuclear tests were conducted in 1966-1996, including 42 atmospheric and 137 underground) and Fangataufa (14 nuclear tests were conducted in 1966-1996, including 4 atmospheric and 10 underground) .

Approximately the same way and the UK which, due to its metropolitan compactness, did not have the ability to detonate bombs in the British Isles. But on the endless colonial territories were where to deploy in full force.

They were the first

The US is much more spacious. In addition, there is a sparsely populated Nevada desert, where the main American test site was arranged. Only the first explosion of the Hiroshima bomb was carried out in Alamogordo, as the Americans were in a hurry to get the bomb first. And in the vicinity this town had several large military bases, which greatly simplified the construction of a test site and related scientific and technical infrastructure. After the first explosion, which was called Trinity, the Alamogordo test site was handed over to the military to test other types of weapons.

Then the United States, like Great Britain, moved to the atolls in the Pacific Ocean. Where the most powerful American 15-megaton hydrogen bomb was detonated. And finally, in 1951, the landfill in Nevada began to operate at full capacity. True, the Americans did not blow up charges of a quarter of the power of the Soviet "Kuzka's mother" at home.

But Britain was allowed into Nevada for testing (24 underground nuclear tests), which had previously carried out explosions in South Australia (12 air explosions) and Polynesia (9 air tests).

As already mentioned, 928 tests were conducted in Nevada until 1992. satellite imagery polygons resemble the landscape of the moon, riddled with craters.

The largest has a diameter of 400 meters and a depth of 100 meters (Operation Plowshare). Tourists who visit the landfill are delighted.

However, the Nevada landfill is by no means abandoned. The military is still here, conducting tests of non-nuclear weapons. Tourists are strictly prohibited from using photographic and video equipment take with you Cell phones and binoculars. It is also impossible to carry away stones and soil from the landfill. It is quite clear that the Americans retained all the facilities and equipment necessary for nuclear testing.

Soviet nuclear scientists needed to test much more powerful weapon, which could break in Semipalatinsk training ground half of the fraternal republic. Therefore, a number of requirements were imposed on the new landfill to ensure the safety of the "surrounding world": the maximum distance from large settlements and communications, the minimum impact on the subsequent economic activity of the region after the closure of the landfill. It was also required to conduct a study of the effect of a nuclear explosion on ships and submarines, which the Semipalatinsk steppes could not provide.

Archipelago New Earth best met these and a number of other requirements. Its area was more than four times larger than the Semipalatinsk test site and was equal to 85 thousand square meters. km., which is approximately equal to the area of ​​the Netherlands.

A nuclear test site is by no means an open field onto which bombers or missiles drop their deadly cargo, but a whole complex of complex engineering structures and administrative services. These include experimental scientific and engineering services, energy and and water supply air defense division, transport aviation detachment, division of ships and vessels special purpose, a detachment of the emergency rescue service, communication centers, logistics units, living quarters ....
Three test sites (combat fields) were created at the training ground: Chernaya Guba, Matochkin Shar and Dry Nose.

In the summer of 1954, 10 military construction battalions, which began to build the first platform - Black Guba. The builders spent the Arctic winter in canvas tents, preparing Guba for the underwater explosion scheduled for September 1955 - the first in the USSR. By the way, the legends about the camps on Novaya are only legends. ZK to work never were not attracted.

In the period from September 21, 1955 to October 24, 1990, when the moratorium on nuclear testing came into effect, 132 nuclear explosions were carried out on Novaya Zemlya: 87 atmospheric, 3 underwater and 42 underground. This is quite a bit compared from Semipalatinsk statistics, where there were 468 tests. 616 nuclear and thermonuclear charges were blown up on them.
However, the total power of all northern explosions is 94% of the power of all test explosions carried out in the Soviet Union.

But at the same time the harm nature significantly less damage was done, since the first explosions in Semipalatinsk were extremely dirty. At that time, they were in a great hurry to release the bomb, and they did not pay attention to such “little things” as contamination of the soil, atmosphere, water bodies and the defeat of not only the military personnel participating in the tests, but also the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. More precisely, they considered it "the tenth case."

The comparative radiation safety of the northern explosions is explained by the fact that the vast majority of them were thermonuclear, they did not disperse heavy radioactive isotopes into the surrounding space.

The problem of the population that could suffer from explosions was solved radically: 298 Nenets hunters living there were evicted from the archipelago, providing them with housing in Arkhangelsk, as well as in the village of Amderma and on Kolguev Island. At the same time, the migrants were employed, and the elderly were given a pension, despite the fact that they had no official work experience. From the memoirs of my father, I know that not everyone agreed to move and hid, and their winter quarters and camps were later discovered after the tests on the traces of radiation. But there were only a few of them.

The test site became famous for testing a 58 megaton superbomb, which took place on October 30, 1961. The bomb is called both "Kuzkin's mother" and "Tsar bomb", while the developers at NII 1011 called it "product 602" (the names RN202, AN602 are an invention of the media).

Both developers and military experts in connection with the uniquecnm. charge designs could only predict the test results with a certain degree of probability. Because even with regard to how strong the explosion would be, there was no clear picture. The design capacity was 51.5 Mt. But after the explosion of an 8-meter-long bomb, which did not even fit into the bomb bay of the largest strategic bomber Tu-95 (called TU-95V) converted especially for it, it turned out that it exploded with a power of 58.6 Mt.

New for the testers was the effect in which the shock wave, reflected from the surface of the earth, did not allow it to be covered by a giant ball of hot plasma.
The various effects were monstrous, comparable to the most terrifying natural ones. The seismic wave circled three times Earth. The light radiation was capable of causing third-degree burns at a distance of 100 km. The roar from the explosion was heard within a radius of 800 km. Because of the ionizing exposure in Europe, radio interference was observed for 40 minutes.

The test turned out to be surprisingly clean. Radioactive radiation within a radius of three kilometers from the epicenter two hours after the explosion was only 1 milliroentgen per hour.

By the way, there is a legend about the “brilliant” idea of ​​Academician Sakharov that the coast of the United States can be washed into the ocean by a tsunami explosion of a supernuclear torpedo of such power. And that allegedly only the moral considerations of the “peacemaker” kept him from creating such a weapon. This is one of the many legends about his genius, up to the title of "father of the hydrogen bomb", created by his anti-Soviet entourage in the 60s and 70s.

In fact, this idea was tested off the coast of Novaya Zemlya, at much lower capacities. In 1964, 8 such experiments were carried out. The first was attended by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy S.G. Gorshkov.
- Outwardly, the development of the explosion was extraordinarily beautiful. A dome of water formed over the epicenter of the explosion. From the dome, a light sultan escaped vertically upwards, on top of which a mushroom cloud began to form. At the base of the dome, a base wave formed from the water and a surface wave went to the shore.
However, after the eighth simulation explosion, it became clear that it was impossible to generate a tsunami with the help of underwater nuclear explosions. And, consequently, the United States was very lucky, and Sakharov was mistaken.

The Russian nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya, just like Nevada, did not become a museum or a mothballed territory, it is closed to the public, military and scientists work there, it continues to be maintained in a combat-ready state. Everything there remained in the same form as before the moratorium on nuclear tests. And excursions to the landfill are not satisfied. Non-nuclear experiments are being carried out at the test site to ensure the reliability, combat readiness and safety of storing Russian nuclear weapons. Object 700 continues to serve.

Russian nuclear shield


Novaya Zemlya Bora blew


Peaceful coexistence, Belushka




In the 90s, 80% of the buildings were abandoned


Matochkin Shar July


Actually the landfill itself (residential part - the village of Severny. Matochkin Shar, 80s).

And the "capital" of the landfill - Belushya Guba is now experiencing a rebirth - dilapidated abandoned buildings of the 50-60s are demolished by explosions and new, more modern ones are being built - they have been overhauled. Also, the second birth came to the only military-civilian airfield of the training ground - Rogachevo. The restoration of the air defense system of the entire region, which was practically eliminated in the 90s, is in full swing.

Those who are interested can take a virtual tour of the Novaya Zemlya test site

PS By the way, in 1987, by the will of fate, I got into an emergency situation on 08/02/87
Almost a repetition of history with the French test in Algeria


**Shumilikha River, delta, 80s*