IV. 1. Interview a member of the Norwegian Protection Board on the problem of T-99.

2. You are members of the Norwegian Department of Environment. And you feel greatly concerned about the increase in radioactive waste reaching you country’s shores as a result of discharges in the UK. Frame you protest by writing an official letter to the British Department of Environment.

 

 

Text 3

Read and translate the text:

CHERNOBYL’S DEADLY LEGACY

2006 year marks the twentieth anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident (in its scale and comlexity), at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine. Despite the very strict systems of checks and safety measures employed at nuclear power plants, the explosion at Chernobyl in April 1986 was devastating proof of the old maxim that “accidents can happen”.

Chernobyl is not the first accident at a nuclear power plant. Serious accidental releases of radioactivity occurred at Chalk River, Ontario, Canada in 1952, Sellafield, UK in 1957, and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, USA in 1979. But these events were overshadowed by the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. It was the most severe accident to have occurred at a nuclear power plant, and an event which has haunted the world’s nuclear industry since.

The plant was supposed to close permanently at the end of 1993 – a date agreed between the Group of seven (G7) leading industialised countries and the Ukranian government. But, in October of that year, closer plans were called off after officials in Kiev decided the country could not function without a supply of electricity fro Chernobyl. Many believe this was inevitable since G7 offered no financial help towards the closure.

Although all four of the reactors have now been closed down (the final date for shutting them down agreed with the European Union and the US turned out to be the year 2000) it is by no means the end of the matter. Full decommissioning of the station is expected to take up to 50 years. Meanwhile, scientists will continue to monitor the accident's legacy for human and ecological health for many decades to come.

The accident

In the early hours of the morning on the 26^th of April 1986, operators at the nuclear reactor complex about 130 km north of Kiev lost control of the Chernobyl Unit 4 nuclear reactor while conducting some experiments. The Chernobyl reactors were not originally designed for civilian use. Known as RBMK-1000s their design was based on a military reactor, built to produce materials or nuclear weapons. Moreover, the RBMK-1000 had a design flaw which makes it unstable unless it is operating at full power. The Chernobyl reactors also did not conform to international safety standards: all safety mechanisms could be switched off manually (that is what had happened just before the catastrophe) and there was no protective structure around the reactors to limit the effects of the accident.

These design and operation failures caused the explosions. The reactor core erupted in a gigantic explosion, injecting huge amounts of heat and disintegrated radioactive fuel into the atmosphere. One worker who was on duty in the hall just above the reactor died instantly in the explosion. He was the only immediate victim of the blast, but the first in a death toll that is now in the thousands. Some 3.5 million other people, over a third of them children, are thought to have suffered illnesses as a result of contamination from the deadly cloud of radioactivity.

Many of the horrors of the aftermath could, however, have been avoided, or at least reduced, if the situation had been dealt with openly and properly. The authorities of the Soviet Union were slow to tell neighbouring countries of the disaster, due both to the atmosphere of secrecy that characterized the country and to uncertainties over the true scale of possible effects. The two explosions took place at 1.23 a.m. on 26 April. Moscow issued a statement that evening well over twelve hours later, saying that the measures were being taken to deal with the accident. In reality little was being done. An atomic fire burned at Chernobyl for days before Swedish authorities alerted the world to the nuclear fallout that had been injected high into the atmosphere.

Radioactive contamination from the explosion was greatest in the northern Ukraine, neighbouring southern Belarus and in the parts of the Russian Federation that are close to the Belarussian/Ukrainian borders. But Chernobyl radionuclides were also dispersed throughout the northern hemisphere in small amounts, with particular "hotspots" in areas where rainfall washed radioactive material from clouds: parts of Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Romania»,Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and Yugoslavia.

Most concern has focused on the medical dangers to humans from the deposition of radionuclides. Fruit and vegetables from fields near the plant were destroyed, as was milk from cows grazing on nearby contaminated grassland. Initial fears focused on iodine-131 but this breaks down quickly. The time taken for half its atoms to decay, its half-life, is just 8 days. Attention soon shifted to caesium-134 and caesium-137, the latter with a half-life of 30 years. Caesium accumulates up the food chain from the soil through vegetation to contaminate meat. Special measures were required as far from the accident as Scandinavia and Britain to restrict the movement and sale for consumption of livestock. Other dangerous radionuclides involved include strontium-90 (half-life 29 years) and plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years).

Lingering effects

Restrictions on food are still in place in some areas up to 3,000 km from Chernobyl, because radioactive caesium from the accident is lingering in the environment much longer than scientists had anticipated. A survey last year found unexpectedly high levels of radioactivity in western Europe which will last for 50 more years, 100 times longer than expected. The high levels of radioactive caesium were found in fish in lakes in Cumbria (northern England), and in Norway. During the first 5 years after Chernobyl, the concentrations of radioactive caesium measured in most foods and in water declined by ten times, but in the last few years they have changed very little.

Although the health risk to consumers is thought to be small, restrictions on foodstuffs from parts of Europe and the former Soviet Union will need to be maintained for at least another 10-15 years. Even in Britain, 389 farms still have restrictions on the sale and slaughter of sheep which will have to continue until 30 years after the accident. In more contaminated parts of the Ukraine and Belarus, bans will need to continue for longer. Restrictions on the human consumption of forest berries, fungi and fish, which contribute significantly to people's radiation exposure, will have to continue for at least a further 50 years.

Other long-term effects of the Chernobyl accident are evident in people who lived around the power plant at the time of the explosion. Of the 400,000 workers who cleaned up after the blast, an estimated 30,000 have fallen ill, many sexual or reproductive disorders. And, in the Ukraine alone, about 13,000 children are thought to have inhaled or taken with food enough of iodine 131, to risk contracting thyroid cancer. Today, rates of thyroid cancer in children have increased tenfold since the accident. In the first ten years after the accident, well over 500 cases of thyroid cancer were reported in Belarussian children. Another disease, which has become known as "Chernobyl AIDS" because it somehow depletes the killer cells of the immune system, is also a great concern. People suffering from this condition are much more susceptible to leukemia and malignant tumours, as well as heart problems and a variety of more common infections.

Environmental effects

Despite these terrible consequences, there do appear to be some aspects of the environment that have actually benefited from such a devastating human-induced catastrophe. Although local wildlife suffered from the severe irradiation immediately following the accident, when small areas of ghostly "red forest" appeared as dead pine leaves turned a rusty brown colour, the long-term impacts so far seem to be beneficial, mainly thanks to the forced depopulation of farms and villages. All inhabitants from an area of 2,800 km sq. around the power station, consisting of parts of the Ukraine and Belarus, were evacuated in the aftermath of the explosion. The evacuation of villages near the reactor began about 40 hours after the explosion. It was only by 2 May, nearly a week later, that the evacuation zone was extended to thirty kilometres around the plant. Human occupation of this exclusion zone is still banned for medical reasons.

Although the area has been subjected to some of the worst radioactive contamination in history, wildlife has proved to be remarkable resistant to the known biological effects of radiation, notably mutations and biodeformities. Scientists from the International Radioecology Laboratory just outside the exclusion zone have noted a general increase in the diversity of wild plants and animals the unexpected return of rare species area. Wild boar, moose, wolves, deer, otters and lynx have become well established in the zone, while species associated with previous human occupation — such a house mice, sparrows and pigeons –has declined. No less than 48 species listed in the international Red Book of endangered animals and plants are now thriving in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A rich community of aquatic wildlife has even been recorded living in the contaminated cooling ponds at the power station site itself. The surprising resilience of the local ecology has led to calls for the exclusion zone to be designated a permanent nature reserve where endangered plants and animals can be free to breed as the land reverted to its original forested state thanks to the absence of human interference.

NOTES:

anniversary годовщина

scale масштаб, размер

complexity сложность

explosion взрыв

severe ужасный

inevitable неизбежный

victim жертва

radionuclides радионуклиды

long-term consequences последствия, дающие о себе знать долгое время

suffer from страдать от

decline исчезать

WORD STUDY

I. Highlight the following words and in the article and provide their definitions:

maxim (n) erupt (v) irradiation (n) haunt (v) f fallout (n) ghostly (ad j)

overshadow (v) livestock (n) thrive (v)

decommission (v) half-life (n) aquatic (adj) manually (adv) linger (v) moratorium (n)

aftermath (n) reproductive (adj) phase out (v)

II. Explain the meaning of the following words and word-combinations:

the Group of Seven (G7)

death toll

RBMK-1000

'hotspots'

to increase tenfold

to conform to international safety standards

cooling ponds

to have a design flaw

'Red Book'

political implications

phase-out plan

III. Make a list of:

a) radionuclides injected as a result of the Chernobyl disaster

b) diseases caused by people's exposure to radioactive substances.

COMPREHENSION

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Was the Chernobyl catastrophe the first accident of its kind?

2. What hindered the closure of the Chernobyl power plant?

3. Under what circumstances did the reactor explode?

4. Which countries fell victim to the disaster?

5. Who got victimized in the first turn and why?

6. What does the long-term aftermath consist in?

7. In what way does the environment benefit form the consequences of the accident?

8. How did the Chernobyl catastrophe effect political decisions made worldwide?

 

II. Choose the correct definition for each word:

Catastrophe, nucleus, atom, reactor, hectare, to evacuate

a- measure of area in the metric system;

b- smallest unit of an element that can take part in a chemical change;

c- sudden happening that causes great suffering and destruction;

d- apparatus for the controlled production of nuclear energy; atomic pile;

e- central part of an atom, consisting of protons and neutrons;

f- to remove(a person) from a place or district.

FOLLOW-UP

I. Work in pairs to discuss:

- the various aspects of the accident at Chernobyl

- the way you feel about the disaster and its 'deadly legacy

- the measures that ought to be taken in order to diminish its devastating consequences.