Nearby-Chernobyl Shine - Again

Freedom of information is a really a good stuff bettering at least an individuals’ environment-linked vision for even a pure general educative reason.

To modest author’s opinion, the article “Nearby-Chernobyl Shine – Again” by Eugenia Romaniv (Євгенія Романів, “Біля Чoрнобиля знову фонить”) in the independent Ukrainian newspaper The Express (www.expres.ua), 3-5 June 2011, belongs to such publications surely.

I hope this amateur translation from the Ukrainian not only acquaints with a view by some local sources but also presents rich bits of a linguistically-cultural natural flavor many world-known Western editions are not exercising much.     

Enjoy! 

www.expres.ua 3-5 June, 2011 

Eugenia Romaniv

Nearby-Chernobyl Shine - Again

Start of excavating the fundament of the nuke station Fourth Block protective shelter (arch, confinement) caused an extensive leakage of radiation!

These days, there is alarming news from Chernobyl again. The radiation level had increased in hundreds rather than dozens of times. What did cause this raise? How far might this radioactive spot spread to? To what extent is an event dangerous for our health and lives?

While official sources keep silent, ecologists raise awareness. It is not cool to play with radiation as the latest nuke incident testified to in Japan more recently…   An independent newspaper Expres.com (E.P.) had acquired some details from the president of the Whole-Ukrainian Organization the “Union Chernobyl of Ukraine”.

According to Yuri Andreev being, apropos, a Chernobyl Nuke Station Staff Shift Manager on 26^th April, 1986, the disaster happened:

“A new confinement is being erected around the existing construction preventing the radiation leaks from the destroyed Fourth Block located in 18km from a station personnel residential town. The project is partly funded by Europe, marking the 25^th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Even the first steps of erecting the shelter, which were digging deep trenches and piling, lead to the exhaust of radiation reaching the level equal to one registered in the autumn 1986^th.   

What is an origin of this radioactive increase? Concrete plates were used to minimize harmful radiation around sarcophagus, and scuffled recently, dismantled fuel assemblies, graphite chips pushing a radiation level stabilized to date up in hundreds times! Movers, excavators make dust airborne. If radioactive particles fly around, what a radiation level might be? It is impossible to work there without respirators...”

E.P.: And who do work there? It seems the French won a tender for construction.

Y.A.:  Yes, they have won, but do you think they work in situ? They manage funding. The Turks command a daily routine while the Ukrainians do implement [physically] paid twenty times lesser than the French and three times lesser than the Turks.

E.P.:  One could feel, you oppose this project?

Y.A.: Imagine, a little more than a soldier in the field, waving hands like Don Quixote did, but none pays attention at.  Not so long ago, near all prominent scientists opposed this renovation, but as a smell of big monies appeared, all they became great patriots of this dough were telling the funding should be materialized.   

And I know this amount is behind funding required: Europe is investing two third of a sum necessary while the Ukraine is short of the rest. That is why a project will not be executed. We will just preserve our problems, postponing them for the future.

And this is just a half of problem. Much worse, the constructions are beyond any critique. They are not strong made from light, short-live materials, unable to last long time if even one could assume the confinement to be finalized. But, once again, it will not be done. We had got the similar experience already. About eight years ago the storage of radioactive wastes had been built in the Chernobyl Zone, ninety per cents of a project was executed as it was realized the waste containers were bigger than the chambers they to fit inside. About two hundred billiard euro had gone, as one could say, under the cat’s tail, the object was abandoned-as unsuitable.

It stands now as a monument to our negligence. And I am afraid it would soon be one more.   

E.P.: However, should something be done with sarcophagus, said, it is about to dilapidate?   

Y.A.: We had got a good Ukrainian project being designed by scientists from Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. It suggests concrete sealing of chambers concluding the fuel to prevent its migration, and strengthening the existing sarcophagus constructions, to cover a sarcophagus with a fresh soil afterwards, leaving the manholes for different measurements. On this side a dangerous waste plant might be built to use this already spoiled area, prevent a different clean locality from this plant polluting.   

However, there is no prophet in own Motherland. The foreign project was selected. As said, the responsible over a tender process did not omit a benefit while we had got a head headache extending steadily into the future. It is because the most problem, which is the safe keeping of the mortally-dangerous wastes, was not tackled yet. Inside sarcophagus, these wastes-Uranium, Plutonium-migrate, contact water and recharge further poisoning in this seemingly damned soil.     

E.P.: Is this side radiation dangerous for recreation? Can it spread around?

Y.E.: It can be spread with wind, vehicle wheels. Hopefully, a round-established thirty kilometer no-man zone saves only. Raining fixes an airborne dust on the ground… But in this case it infiltrates soil, which is not good either… Pity the people working there. They perform a useless job throwing their health and grand monies into a concrete.