The Mayak Chemical Combine resides in
Siberia, in a very
picturesque region of the country.
However, after years of
lax safety at the
nuclear facility (which produced the materials for the first
Russian nuclear bombs, and now processes
spent radioactive fuel from around
Europe) the area has been covered in
radioactivity. The main safety risks/breaches are as follows:
- Lake Karachay: In the 50s and 60s nuclear waste was repeatedly and deliberately dumped into this lake, conveniently adjoining the main plant. Too bad that it was seasonally dry, and that unusually strong winds grabbed all of the radioactive sediment and chucked it over parts of Russia. By this point Mayak was putting out more becquerels into the environment over decades than Chernobyl did in one go.
- Techa River: The Russians also dumped neat nuclear waste into this river, which not only flowed towards the arctic circle and therefore contaminated the unspoilt wilderness of the ice cap, but was also the source of drinking water and a local bathing spot for the village adjoining Mayak, Cheyabilinsk. The net result? Cancer and also plenty of horribly mutated children.
- Various accidents: Mayak has not been without its fair share of accidents...like that storage tank full of nuclear waste exploding. That's a few more becquerels in the environment then. And that one with the fire...which happened twice. In rhe same decade.
Mayak is currently in the process of being
shut down, for obvious reasons. The
Russian government is only just taking notice of the fact that all of its nuclear plants have been involved in some form of
safety incident, and that you can't cover up people dying and having
deformed children. And you can't silence
Greenpeace.
Sources:
http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak
http://www.bellona.com