28 September 2007 - Everybody
knows that the biggest nuclear catastrophe
in history was Chernobyl. But how many have
heard of the second biggest? Today marks
the fiftieth anniversary of a radiation
nightmare.
The Mayak nuclear plant in the Southern
Urals was one of the dark secrets of the
cold war. It was the Soviet Union's primary
nuclear complex, a massive set of plutonium
production reactors, fuel production facilities,
and reprocessing and waste storage buildings.
In 1957 a storage tank with highly radioactive
liquid waste exploded. More than half the
amount of radioactive waste released by
the accident in Chernobyl was blasted into
the atmosphere. A few villagers were evacuated,
but most were not. 217 towns and at least
272,000 people were exposed to chronic levels
of radiation. The plume was 50 kilometers
wide and 1,000 kilometers long.
But the explosion wasn't the only incident
of contamination. Between 1948 and 1956
radioactive waste was poured straight into
the Techa River, the source of drinking
water for many villages. It exposed 124,000
people to medium and high levels of radiation.
Nuclear waste was also dumped into the lakes
of West Siberia, where storms blew nuclear
dust across a vast area around the lake.
The largest nuclear complex in the world
Today, around 7,000 people still live in
direct contact with the highly polluted
Techa river or on contaminated land. In
the town of Muslyumovo, studies have show
genetic abnormalities to be 25 times more
frequent than in other areas of Russia.
The incidents of malignant cancer are significantly
higher. And the number of residents of Muslyumovo
on the Russian national oncology registers
is nearly 4 times higher than in the rest
of Russia. In other surrounding towns and
villages people have cancer rates more than
double the Russian average. (See the Greenpeace
Report, Mayak: A 50-Year Tragedy)
Half a century later, Mayak is one of the
most radioactive places on Earth, and the
accident continues to have a devastating
legacy. Many thousands of people have never
been evacuated from contaminated areas.
Dutch photo-journalist, Robert Knoth, visited
the Mayak region in 2000 and 2001 and took
a series of highly disturbing pictures of
the victims of radiation in the region.
(Parental warning: The link above contains
images of malformed foetuses and other disturbing
photos.)
Now, the real tragedy
Surely, no government could oversee this
kind of disaster and not decide to change
its ways. Yet, rather than learning the
lessons of the tragedy, the Russian Government
has passed legislation to import spent nuclear
fuel from other countries to Mayak that
would then permanently stay at the plant.
None of the countries shipping their dirty
nuclear waste to Russia would allow Mayak
to continue operating on their own land.
Countries considering sending their radioactive
waste to Russia are abdicating responsibility
for their nuclear activities by dumping
it somewhere else. They may like to think
that once it's out of their sight they've
got rid of the problem, but nothing could
be further from the truth. The people who
will suffer its devastating effects are
right here, the same victims that have suffered
the effects of the radiation disaster for
the last 50 years.
The foreign fuel processed in Mayak so
far has led to some three million cubic
metres of radioactive liquid being dumped
and released into the environment. Mayak
has reprocessed over 1,540 tons of spent
nuclear fuel from several countries including
Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Finland and
the Czech Republic.
Russian authorities now hope to negotiate
future reprocessing contracts with Switzerland,
Spain, South Korea, Slovenia, Italy, Belgium,
and Slovakia.
With its 50 year contamination legacy,
Mayak is a horrific example of the true
face of the global nuclear industry.
The lesson of Mayak is that nuclear energy
is not a solution. This anniversary should
serve as a wake-up call to the world about
the real costs of nuclear power. Nuclear
power undermines the solutions to climate
change, by diverting resources away from
the massive investment in renewable technologies
and energy efficiency the world urgently
needs to tackle the climate crisis.
+ More
50 activists, Greenpeace USA chief, arrested
in global warming protest
27 September 2007 - Washington, DC, United
States — 50 activists, including Greenpeace
USA Executive Director John Passacantando,
were arrested in front of the US State Department
building in Washington DC for participating
in a global warming protest.
They were out in full force calling upon
the US to sign the Kyoto protocol, and to
protest President Bush's diversion of effort:
a polluter's summit he called for representatives
of the European Union, France, Germany,
Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada,
India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia,
Australia, Indonesia and South Africa.
What's the goal of this meeting? To persuade
other countries to undermine the United
Nations negotiations and substitute real,
binding measures with voluntary pledges.
Greenpeace Executive Director John Passacantando
is arrested in front of the State Department
If George Bush was serious about solving
global warming, he would join with 175 other
countries, and sign the Kyoto Protocol.
The countries meeting in Washington account
for over 90% of emissions worldwide. Real
action by those gathered in Washington could
deliver massive cuts in emissions under
the Kyoto Protocol. But this would require
binding, mandatory targets for industrialized
countries, which the US rejects.
The Big Emitters meeting is a distraction
from the valuable and constructive work
within the United Nations leading up to
the climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. What
the world needs is a strengthened Kyoto
Protocol and a "little less conversation,
and a little more action."
