To Save Money, Moscow Putting Lives of People in Chernobyl Zone at Risk

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, January 6 – In order to save money, Moscow is using scientifically dubious measures to justify cutting assistance to 31,700 people living in what had been designated as an area of heightened radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, an action especially cynical given Russian media suggestions that another Ukrainian plant may be at risk.

 

            The Russian government has posted a decree that would cut the number of villages in the radiation exclusion zone within the Russian Federation from 4413 to 2252, an action that has already prompted 11,000 residents in the Usman district of Lipetsk oblast to sign a petition it (regulation.gov.ru/project/20371.html?point=view_project&stage=2&stage_id=14256 and

rusplt.ru/society/i-v-kakom-pokolenii-strelnet-chernobyil-neizvestno-15100.html).

 

            When the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986, a radioactive cloud covered nine of the 18 districts of Lietsk oblast. The Usman, Gryzin and Dankov districts suffered the most heavily, and officials in Soviet times even removed the top layer of asphalt on roads because of the level of radioactive contamination.

 

            Until 1993, Vladimir Mazo, the head of the Usman district, says, officials monitors the level of radiation, but they have not done so for the last two decades. Instead, they are using mathematical models to predict how much radiation is left, models that are problematic at best given the lack of experience with accidents of this kind.

 

            But what is worse is that Moscow now is making decisions on the basis of supposed declines which are within the margin of error. Thus, Mazo says, according to this method, “the level of contamination of Cesium 137 in Usman district is equal to 1.0 curies per square meter.” If it were 1.001, his region would remain in the zone and its residents would get benefits.

 

            Experts say that one can’t make distinctions that fine, especially on the basis of projections based on data gathered 21 years ago and concerning the long-term impact of radiation which in many cases is only incompletely understood.  Mazo has made that case to Russian officials all the way up to Vladimir Putin – without success.

 

            Local people say that children in the area have seriously compromised immune systems, and hospitals report that cancer rates went up 6.4 percent last year alone, a figure that may in part be a reflection of presence there of better diagnostic equipment but that many fear reflects the continuing impact of the 1986 accident.

 

            Marina Boyeva, the chief doctor of the central hospital in the Usman district, says that she is “certain” that “the loss of ‘Chernobyl zone’ status will have a negative impact on the health of children” because they will lose the opportunities for special medical treatment they have had as well as the chance to go to summer camps in the .

 

            District officials say that the government will save no more than 300 million rubles (five million US dollars) but that will mean a decline in the average pay villagers now receive from 15 to 18,000 rubles to 12 to 15,000, a decline that will affect the foods they will be able to afford at the very least.

 

            The officials thought they had a winning argument when they told Moscow that the Chernobyl benefits had boosted the birthrate in their district. Last year, unlike in many Russian regions, “the number of births [in the Usman district] exceeded the number of deaths by 13 percent.”

 

            But despite the Kremlin’s regular statements that it wants to boost the country’s birthrate, especially in Russian areas, and despite its pose as the defender of “the Russian world,” in Usman district of Lipetsk oblast, it is now taking a step which will undercut the first and seriously hurt the latter.