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Environmental problems of Northern Eurasia
Radioactive Contamination
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Southern Urals | Environmental Problems Index | The Semipalatinsk Test Site >>>
Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk
Three other vast nuclear complexes exist in Eastern Siberia, near the cities of Tomsk
and Krasnoyarsk. The former secret city near Tomsk was known as Tomsk-7 (now Seversk), and
the two near Krasnoyarsk were called Krasnoyarsk-26 and -45 (now Zheleznogorsk and
Zelenogorsk) (Table 19.5). At these plants were located nuclear fuel production reactors,
fissile (bomb) materials production, and injection and other storage facilities for high
level radioactive wastes. Much of the Krasnoyarsk-26 plant was built underground at huge
expense, to protect the operations there from nuclear attack.

Table 19.5 Largest uncontained releases of radioactive materials
These locations are the sites of the world's most extensive depositions of uncontained
radioactive wastes, totalling an estimated 1.45 billion curies of liquid wastes alone.
Table 19.5 identifies Tomsk as the location where the largest releases of radioactive
wastes into the environment have taken place (Bradley, 1997). Scientists at the complex
state that about 127 000 tonnes of solid radioactive wastes and 33 million cubic metres of
liquid radioactive wastes have been stored underground at Tomsk-7 (Izvestia, 1 August
1991). Some liquid wastes have been discharged directly into the Tom. It has been reported
that the storage ponds at Tomsk-7 contain radioactive wastes at essentially the same
levels as Lake Karachai at the Mayak plant, often termed the most contaminated place on
earth (Nuclear Safety and Cleanup Report, May 1994).
Injections of liquid wastes have been carried out at these sites since the 1960s, being
pumped into the ground at depths of up to 370 metres (Bradley et al., 1995). These vast
quantities of injected high-level wastes do not present an immediate danger to human
beings, but as they are uncontained it is possible that they could slowly migrate towards
the Yenisey and Ob river systems. Of far more significance are the million curies of
radiation released into the Yenisey river from the reactors at Krasnoyarsk-26, of which
over 100000 curies remained in 1995 (Bradley, 1997). Although much of this is contained in
the bottom sediments, these sediments are subject to extensive scouring in high flood
situations (Donnay et al., 1995). All of these potential sources of environmental
contamination are being continuously monitored.
Tomsk-7 became known to most non-Russians in 1993, when a widely reported accident
occurred at its Siberian Chemical Combine on 6 April of that year. A chemical explosion
occurred in a large uranium processing tank, destroying the tank and much of the building
that housed it, and sending a radioactive plume several tens of kilometres to the
north-east (Bradley, 1997). Although not nearly as large as the explosions at Chernobyl or
Mayak, the Tomsk accident contaminated about 123 km2, most of which was a very
low populated area (Gilbert, 1993). However, it did include two nearby villages, one of
which, Georgievka, required decontamination procedures. Children were evacuated from
Georgievka, but not until more than a week had elapsed following the explosion (Donnay et
al., 1995).
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