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Radioactive Contamination in Russia
I saw this note in passing.
-- John
-----Original Message-----
xFrom: ArcaMax [mailto:ezines@arcamax.com]
Sent: February 29, 2000 1:19 AM
To: Jacobus, John (OD)
Subject: ArcaMax Science News for February 29, 2000
. . .
RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION IN RUSSIA, THE GOOD NEWS
The first survey of the former Soviet Union's atomic bomb-making plants
finds that radioactive contamination of the environment around them, while
serious, is not a bad as feared. The production and testing of nuclear
weapons left a radioactive legacy in both the United States and Russia.
Several studies have outlined the American situation, but research in
Russia is only beginning. The first official information from Russia was on
the Mayak site, a fuel reprocessing plant where we now know that both
workers and the public were exposed to high levels of radiation. Western
observers feared the same might be true at two other major sites -- Tomsk-7
and Krasnoyarsk-26. But this new study by the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis shows that hazardous conditions at these sites are
substantially below those at Mayak. The study was directed by Frank L.
Parker, an engineering professor at Vanderbilt University, and Vladimir
Novikov of Moscow State University.
. . .
--
Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
. . .
There is, therefore, wisdom in reserving one's decisions as long as possible and
until all the facts and forces that will be potent at the moment are revealed.
Winston Churchill
John Jacobus, MS
Health Physicist
National Institutes of Health
Radiation Safety Branch, Building 21
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD 20892-6780
Phone: 301-496-5774 Fax: 301-496-3544
jjacobus@exchange.nih.gov (W)
jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
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