Re: Barents Sea/Techa River

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

>into the source of activity in the Barents Sea?  For instance, why would 
>the reprocessing plants have more impact than the Techa River or the past 
>sea disposal of radioactive waste by the Soviet navy.
---
According to one source which I am uncertain about - it may be the ref. I 
mention below - radioactivity was detected at the outlet of the Ob River 
(Techa leads to Ob) around 1950-1951 and this stimulated the construction of 
the delay dams, the rearrangement of the water system connected to the 
Asamow swamp in the Techa area, as well as the dumping into the Lake 
Karachay.

Now where is the radioactivity that entered the Arctic waters via Ob - if it 
indeed did so? I have previously asked a few scientists (who are more into 
radioecology than I) this question - the answer I get is "it must be locked 
into sediments" - most of it already in the sediments of the river systems. 
Concerning the radioactive waste dumpings around (and probably mainly East 
of) Novaya Zemlya it is probably not leaking (yet?). Novaya Zemlya 
translates to "new earth" if my amateur Russian isn't wrong...

I am sure that some of our Norwegian or Russian Radsafers collegues could 
shed more light on this since they have been collaborating in the efforts to 
understand the character of the contamination of the Mayak area (There is a 
"Joint Norwegian-Russian Expert Group for Investigation of Radioactive 
Contamination in the Northern Areas" - their 134 page report was published 
in 1997: "Sources contribution to radioactive contamination of the Techa 
River and areas surrounding the "Mayak" production association, Urals, 
Russia" signed by the Minister of Environment in Norway).

This is an important topic because there is a potential for more 
radioactivity coming from the Mayak area including slow leakage via the 
groundwater. The strontium 90 levels are for instance still very high in the 
ground water around Karachay (many thousands of Bq per liter a few miles 
away from the lake). Much radioactivity is found in the soil - probably to 
some part of "peat" character, that is to say carboxyl groups from decaying 
Sphagnum sp. (may work as ion exchangers to delay the radioactivity) next to 
Techa. OK, must rush.

Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/

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