Begging for bucks or a real problem???

["Phil V. Egidi" <7pe@ornl.gov>]

I found this post on  alt.misc.activism, so no promises to credibility
of facts, but I do have a couple of questions:

1) What are the radionuclides and chemicals of greatest concern?  Mayak
would indicate transuranics.
2)  Is 120 million curies in 5 million cubic meters really a "medium
level of activity"?  How does this plume compare (or does it) to the
activity of the Hanford tank wastes (that are still contained, I hope!
:-)).  Sounds like one agency is concerned about environmental impacts
(Vishnevsky) and the other is saying no problem because the lake can't
go critical (Polyakov).  That's reassurring!
3)  It is my understanding our Russian cousins have been putting out
requests like this for funding help because their economy is shot and
there is no domestic funding available, (example: sarcophogas
reconstruction at you-know-where).  Clearly, there could be trans-border
environmental impacts, yet is it right for the Kremlin to leverage
liability now for a short-term intervention as opposed to waiting for
them to come up with the $$ to do it themselves (in whos lifetime?)?
Could set some interesting precedents.  Any opinions here???
4)  Where do I go for more credible information on Mayak (prefer
on-line)?

Had a great time at the meeting, special kudos to Bruce Busby and
Melissa for informative discussions about web/net stuff.

Phil Egidi
ORNL/GJ
7pe@ornl.gov


 Posted to the web: July 15, 1998

 MOSCOW, Russia, July 15, 1998 (ENS) - "A global catastrophe" could
 result from a deposit of radioactive liquid salts that has formed
 under the surface of Lake Karachai in the Ural Mountains, a top-level
 Russian nuclear safety official has warned.

 In an official Kremlin International news broadcast Monday, chair of
 the Russian Federal Committee for Nuclear and Radiation Safety Yuri
 Georgiyevich Vishnevsky, said the "lens" of radioactive salts is about
 five million cubic meters in volume and of a "medium level of
 activity."

 "What can be the consequences? If the lens of radioactive waste gets
 into the watershed, the whole region of Western Siberia and the Arctic
 Ocean will be polluted," said Vishnevsky.

 Lake Karachai, in the Chelyabinsk region, has served as a dump for
 liquid radioactive waste formed by the Mayak Production Association.
 The Mayak facilities, located 60 kilometers (36 miles) north of the
 town of Chelyabinsk in South Ural, during the Soviet era, was the
 largest production site for weapongrade plutonium in the Soviet Union.

 "We are sounding the alarm," Vishnevsky said. "This lens is today
 moving toward the watershed, the river Techa which flows into Tobol
 and Irtysh. It moves at the rate of some 80 meters a year. At present
 it is within 1.5 to 2 kilometers of the most dangerous zone."

 He referred to a team from the Russian Academy of Sciences that is
 working on the problem, but said, "honestly, technical decisions that
 would make us feel secure are not forthcoming."

 "We have put it to the Security Council of Russia that this is a
 global problem, and we have approached the government and the
 President."

 Russia map

 Lake Karachai is located near the city of Chelyabinsk.

 "Today we tell you that within the next ten years, if not five years,
 it may become a problem the solution of which will require the
 intervention not only of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but of the
 international community as well," Vishnevsky warned.

 But his warning was brushed off Tuesday by another top-level Russian
 official. No environmental disaster will occur in the area where
 radioactive waste has been dumped in Lake Karachai since 1951, said
 Deputy Director of the Non-Organic Materials Research Institute
 Anatoly Polyakov.

 Responding to Vishnevsky's warning Polyakov said "the situation is
 under control and the burial in question will be fully closed in a few
 years."

 He told a press conference in Moscow Tuesday that Lake Karachai is
 already being filled with hollow concrete blocks and the open water
 surface area of the lake has already been reduced from 35 hectares to
 13 hectares.

 Some Russian nuclear scientists believe that no nuclear catastrophe
 could occur in the Karachai area because "the current concentrations
 of radioactive substances is not sufficient for a chain reaction,"
 Polyakov told reporters.

 The only potential threat can come from a storm or a hurricane which
 occurs in the Chelyabinsk region once every 300 years. "Such a
 hurricane can carry part of the radioactive water over a distance of
 many kilometres," Polyakov said.

 Sources in the Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) told the Russian
 news agency Itar-Tass that the lake now contains about 120 million
 Curie of radio nuclides, which is comparable to the total amount
 released at the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986.

 In addition, the Mayak facility still has a large volume of high-level
 radioactive waste stored in a system of reservoirs that are in danger
 of overflowing.

 In 1991, the World Watch Institute called Lake Karachai the most
 polluted site in the world. That same year a statement prepared by
 United Expert Group on Environmental Protection of Expert
 subcommission of State Expert Commission of Gosplan of the USSR and
 Regular Expert Group on South Ural Nuclear Plant building project also
 warned of massive radioactive contamination of the Lake and
 surrounding waters.

 The Russian Federal Committee for Nuclear and Radiation Safety headed
 by Vishnevsky supervise the work of 10,400 enterprises throughout the
 Russian Federation with a staff of about 1,500 people.

 It handles all questions relating to the use of atomic energy with the
 exception of nuclear weapons. In oversees the mining and processing of
 uranium, the use of uranium by atomic energy facilities,áits storage
 and transportation, production of radio isouopes, the use of
 radHoisotope products in medicine, cons
ruction and the question of
 decommissio&iÖð ·uclear submarines.

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