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Forest Fires Are Setting Chernobyl’s Radiation Free

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
Quotations excerpted from the report by Jane Braxton in the The Atlantic’s Aug. 10, 2020 edition.

In the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactors in Ukraine…

“… wildfires … have grown larger and more frequent. Each fire releases radionuclides, just as [Vasyl Yoschenko, a Ukrainian radio-ecologist] and his colleagues documented…. But none has incinerated the landscape at the scale of the fires that burned this past April. They were far larger than any since the 1986 disaster, burning for weeks and scorching nearly 165,600 acres.…[See Summer 2020 Nukewatch Quarterly, p. 6]

“Monitors in Norway, 2,000 miles away, detected increased levels of cesium in the atmosphere. Kyiv was smothered in smoke. Press reports estimated that the level of radiation near the fires was 16 times higher than normal, but we may never know how much was actually released: Yoschenko, [Sergiy] Zibtsev [a forestry professor at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine], and others impatient to take on-the-ground measurements were confined to their homes by the coronavirus pandemic.…

“When Chernobyl’s trees burn, they send their stored radionuclides aloft as inhalable aerosols. Instead of blasting from a single source, as it did in 1986, the contamination now comes from the trees that cover some 660 square miles around the nuclear power plant.… If Chernobyl forests burn, contaminants will migrate outside the immediate area,” says Zibtsev. “We know that.”

[Beginning in 1993, Zibtsev] “spent the next five summers collecting soil and vegetation samples that were later analyzed for traces of radionuclides. The radiation he found there was higher than it had been in the period immediately following the explosions, a surprising observation until Yoschenko’s 2003 experimental burn explained it: Fires had burned 12,500 acres in 1992….

“In 2015, a rash of fires in Chernobyl brought international attention to their dangers. From April to August 37,066 acres burned within the exclusion zone…. “April’s fires … scorched 23 percent of the exclusion zone… nearly four and a half times the size of fires in 2015….”

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DOE Report on Hazards of Pacific Island  Plutonium Waste Dump Called “Flippant”

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
Graffiti on Runit Dome, a concrete cap over some 3 million cubic feet of plutonium contaminated waste from nuclear bomb tests, on Runit Island of the Marshall Islands, urges the United States to remove the toxins that were dumped into an unlined bomb crater by the US military. Photo: Mika Makelainen / Yle

Between 1946 and 1958, the US performed 67 nuclear bomb test explosions in the Marshall Islands, equaling 1.6 Hiroshima-size explosions a day for twelve years. The Marshallese people were relocated away from testing sites, but did not escape the radioactive fallout that spread through the islands, causing burns, birth defects, and cancers. Some were purposely allowed to return to radioactive areas to inform US research. In the 1970s, over 110,000 cubic yards or 3.1 million cubic feet, of plutonium-contaminated soil and debris from the bomb tests were collected and abandoned on Runit Island under the “Runit Dome,” an unlined crater—left by a bomb test—covered with a concrete cap.

In 2019, Congress ordered the Department of Energy to address the threat of radioactive material leaking from Runit Dome, and to draft a repair plan. The DOE’s 2020 report claims the dome “is not in any immediate danger of collapse or failure,” but does admit that rising sea levels could affect the stability of the cracked contrete. Groundwater contamination could increase and, the report says, “no definitive data exists on how these events might impact the environment.” The DOE planned a groundwater radiochemical analysis program, though it’s now paused due to current travel restrictions. The DOE claims that rising levels of plutonium found in lagoon waters near the dome are due to existing contamination in sediments, not from materials spreading from the unlined crater. A dome repair plan was not included in the DOE report, although according to the World Health Organization the dome was never a long-term solution.

Since the report was based soley on US government data, critics have demanded an independent evaluation of the dome’s condition. US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and Rhea Moss-Christian, Chair of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Commission, accuse the DOE of downplaying the health and environmental risks posed by rising sea levels and storm surges on the dome’s decrepit concrete. Moss-Christian’s commission has condemned the lack of consultation between the DOE and independent scientists or the Marshallese people. The absence of data in the report makes it “disappointing,” said Rep. Gabard, who even called it “flippant.” Moss-Christian said, “So my main takeaway from the report is that many risks are still ‘unknown.’” —CM

—Guam Daily Post, July 29; Los Angeles Times, July 27; and DOE “Report on the Status of Runit Dome,” June 2020.

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14-Hour Fire May Have Wrecked Nuclear-Powered French Submarine 

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020

Fire broke out June 12 in France’s nuclear-powered submarine La Perle while it was in drydock in the Mediterranean port of Toulon. The submarine burned for 14 hours before firefighters extinguished the blaze, Reuters reported.

The fire was doused when foam was used to flood the sub’s rear compartments. Maritime officials said the Perle’s “reactor rooms remains untouched.” The French navy said that there were no casualties and no risk of radiation release “because the nuclear [reactor] fuel had been removed during the renovation of Perle,” the Agence France Presse (AFP) reported. “There was a fire, but no, there was not a nuclear accident,” said Defence Minister Florence Parly, according to AFP. “There was absolutely no nuclear fuel aboard and not a single weapon,” Parly said.

One of six French “attack” submarines assigned to hunt other subs and guard other nuclear-armed, long-range missile submarines, Perle did not carry nuclear weapons. Launched in 1993, Perle is already eligible for decommissioning, and the fire damage may force its retirement. —CM

—The National Interest, June 19; Defense News, June 16; Agence France Presse, and Reuters, June 13; and Forbes, June 12, 2020

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Radiation Plume Over Europe

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
By Bob Mayberry

The cloud of radioactive materials that floated over Europe on the 22 and 23 of June this year seems to be part of a pattern of radioactive releases from Eastern Europe that worries European scientists.

News reports followed a familiar scenario. On June 10th, a monitoring station in northern Norway detected low levels of radioactive iodine in the air. On June 23 and 24, Sweden and Finland reported “higher than usual” levels of fission products, including cesium-134, cesium-137 and ruthenium-103.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requested more information from its member states, but the source of the radiation plume has still not been determined. The map of the plume’s movement across northern Europe led scientists to speculate that the cloud might have originated in Russia.

The Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, Russia’s agency responsible for overseeing the development of nuclear reactors, reported no excess radiation levels or incidents at any of its facilities.

This isn’t the first time Russia denied any connection to radiological releases occurring within its borders. In 2017, a radioactive plume was traced to a nuclear accident at Russia’s Mayak nuclear weapons complex for plutonium production and uranium fuel rod reprocessing.

Though Russia confirmed that a cloud of radiation had been detected over the Ural Mountains, they never acknowledged responsibility for the cloud or admitted a radiation accident had occurred. In 2019, an unexplained explosion took place on Russia’s northern coast at a Navy test range. Scientists speculated it was a reactor or nuclear weapons accident, but Russia neither confirmed nor denied this. The explosions and fire killed five high-level engineers. Some of the emergency responders that treated the injured workers were sent to Moscow to be treated for radiation sickness.

There’s a history of accidents at the Mayak facility, including the huge release of Sept. 29, 1957 known as the Kyshtym disaster.

Political analysts speculate that perhaps Russia has not acknowledged responsibility for this year’s radioactive plume because the source of the accident might be the weapons-grade plutonium facility at Mayak.

—Bob Mayberry is a retired English and Theatre Professor at Cal State University-Channel Islands.

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Will Radioactive Fracking Wastewater Get in Your Veggies? Some States Say “Maybe”

Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2020
By Elena Hight

As temperatures continue to rise across the globe, states like New Mexico and California are facing increasing strains on already stretched water supplies. Looking for new ways to meet water needs, some states have started researching other uses for the millions of gallons of wastewater generated by hydraulic fracturing.

Every year, the US oil and gas industry produces about 772 million gallons of this wastewater, which the industry calls “produced water.” Depending on the geological formations surrounding the fracking site, some of this wastewater contains significant levels of radioactive materials and other toxic metals, including lead, uranium, and radium among others. This toxic wastewater is often pumped back into the ground via “disposal” or “injection” wells, or placed in on-site evaporation or seepage pits. Some states have also started using the water in other ways: to drill more wells, to spray on icy roads, and to irrigate crops.

An unlined oil wastewater pit in Kern County, Calif. A new report by two environmental organizations documents the risks of using unlined pits for fracking wastewater disposal. Credit: Clean Water Action

These other uses, along with the lack of research on the potential dangers of recycling contaminated water, have alarmed academics, environmentalists, and community members who have raised concerns over the unknown chemistry of the water, lack of data about the water’s treatability, and the potential risk to public health and the environment. Even in areas where the wastewater is less radioactive, spillages have resulted in serious environmental problems, including the contamination of food and livestock in areas around the spill.

Most recently, New Mexico’s Oil Conservation Division proposed new rules to the 2019 Produced Waters Act, that clarify the definition of produced water as well as the agency’s ability to regulate its use within the oil and gas industry. In response to the new rules, a coalition of environmental and indigenous groups wrote a letter strongly opposing the new rules, saying in part, “The Oil Conservation Division’s rules appear to set the stage for a more insidious plan to allow companies to dump their toxic waste into our environment.” Despite the opposition, the new rules were adopted, and New Mexico continues to pursue alternative uses for “produced water.” The state legislature has even given New Mexico State University a $100 million grant to study the treatment and reuses of the wastewater, including its use in agriculture.

Ultimately—while states may seek solutions for the disposal of fracking wastewater, which poses risks to food production, the environment, and people’s health—only a just transition to alternative energy and a ban on the use of fracking can safeguard communities from harm.

—Elena Hight is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin.

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