Paul Goble
Staunton, July 9 – Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences shows that the radioactive contamination of the Ob and Irtysh, high after the Soviets began testing nuclear weapons in the area, has fallen to acceptable levels but says that the melting of the permafrost as a result of global warming is leading to its increase again.
In what they describe as the first comprehensive analysis of radiation contamination of these two Siberian rivers, the scholars say that there is a real danger that the progress Russia has achieved in cutting radiation may be overwhelmed by the impact of the melting of permafrost.
(For a discussion the findings of this research project and citations to the three original articles the investigators published earlier this year, see caspian.land/37386-vpervye-proveden-kompleksnyj-analiz-radiacionnoj-i-jekologicheskoj-bezopasnosti-obi-i-irtysha.html.)
Both the numerically small peoples of the Russian North and ethnic Russian communities there are certain to be reassured by the finding that conditions have improved with regard to water and fish taken from these rivers, but they and others are likely to be alarmed by the suggestion that permafrost melting may create new dangers.
Russian scholars have devoted much attention to the fact that the melting of the permafrost is releasing ever more bacteria and viruses into the atmosphere (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-ice-will-melt-and-we-will-all-die.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/melting-of-permafrost-may-release-not.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/melting-of-permafrost-in-russian-north.html).
But they have been chary about talking about the much more explosive possibility that permafrost melting will lead to the stirring up of more radioactive materials into the water supply and the fish people along Siberian rivers eat. That makes this latest research especially important as a political as well as a social and economic development.
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