Recently in Belarus Category

I just stumbled upon a new video/news report by Tessa Parry-Wingfield (Al Jazeera) about Chernobyl-affected areas.

What makes this video unique is that it features Karpavichi, an abandoned village in the contaminated areas of southern Belarus, approximately 60 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. Karpavichi used to have 62 houses and was home to approximately 190 people.

The video also features samosel Adam Nikidich, who has returned to his home in the village of Belli Bara. Adam survives on food from passing trucks, fishing and vegetables he grows himself.

Greenfield Project Management Ltd., a Dublin-based investment and project management company specializing in energy, wants to grow feed crops in the Chernobyl-contaminated lands in Belarus for use in generating ethanol fuel.

Greenfield already has a joint venture agreement in place with state-owned Belbiopharm for the construction of bio-ethanol production facilities in Belarus. The first facility is planned to be built on the Pripyat River in Mozyr and is scheduled for completion before the end of 2010. This plant would generate 550-650 million liters of bio-ethanol annually, targeted for the European market.

I had many doubts when I first heard about this plan. My first thought was, great - let’s do this and use our cars to spread Chernobyl’s radioactive fallout around the world! However, after researching this issue further, I have found some potential benefits.

Currently, scientists estimate that the contaminated lands in Belarus will not be safe for cultivation of food for 300-600 years. Greenfield feels that through repeated harvests of specific types of grain for ethanol feedstock, the land could become safe for food production in as little as 60 years. Prime crops candidates are wheat and sugar beet.

How is this possible? Vegetation has the ability to absorb radioactive isotopes from the soil and incorporates it into the plants themselves. Theoretically, repeat harvests could remove contamination from the land quicker than if the land remains fallow. If this were to work, it is great news for Belarus and the government’s plans to repopulate the contaminated lands.

The remaining question is how to prevent dangerous levels of radioactivity from remaining in the resultant fuel. The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) says radioactivity can remain in the final fuel production, but only at acceptable background levels that are present worldwide. Didier Louvat, head of the IAEA Waste and Environmental Safety Section has said, “After the oil processing, the remaining radioactivity doesn’t make a big difference.”

Apparently, Danish and Swedish technology already exists to remove radioactivity from feedstock. Greenfield plans to move slowly by first testing the process using uncontaminated feedstock.

While this is exciting news, I will remain skeptical until I can read more about the actual process of generating this ethanol product, and how the radiation will be removed and safely stored. I am also concerned that the IAEA says the “remaining radioactivity doesn’t make a difference.” What are the precise levels of “doesn’t make a difference?” I would also feel better if the IAEA wanted to see less radiation in the final product that current worldwide background levels.

This situation will need to be monitored on an on-going basis to determine if the plan truly is a good thing and a positive step forward, or an extremely dangerous mistake.

My friend Kathy Ryan from Chernobyl Children’s Project International sent me a link to a story regarding Belarus’ President Alexandr Lukashenko and his attacks on critics of his plan to build a nuclear power station in the contaminated areas of his country.

Lukashenko argues that Belarus is surrounded by countries with nuclear power plants, any one of which could suffer a catastrophe and further contaminate his country. Since there are no guarantees that these stations are completely safe, he sees no reason why his country cannot have such a facility of its own.

Of course, Lukashenko says nothing about his attempts to repopulate the contaminated areas of Belarus in an attempt to increase agriculture and industry. After reading “contaminated areas” and “agriculture” in the same sentence, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the potential problems with this policy.

One could argue that if Belarus needs to establish some level of energy independence (and I fully support that), what better than to build a nuclear plant in an already contaminated area. However, that argument falls flat on its face when you consider that Lukashenko is forcing people to repopulate the area.

Yes, you read that right. People are being forced to repopulate contaminated areas of Belarus. Apparently the government is requiring many university graduates to live and work in contaminated areas. If they refuse, students could be stripped of their diplomas or required to reimburse the state for the full cost of their educations.

These work assignments began in 2007 and approximately 25% of this year’s 21,000 graduates are being sent to contaminated areas. So far, around 800 youths have refused their assignments.

My friend Kathy Ryan, who works with Chernobyl Children's Project International (CCPI) just returned home from a quick trip to Belarus. In the past, Kathy has visited the Vesnova Children's Mental Asylum (orphanage), where care is provided for children who have been abandoned or diagnosed with mental conditions.

During this particular trip, Kathy had a chance to visit the Soltanovka adult mental asylum, a facility similar to Vesnova that provides care for adults. When children at Vesnova reach the age of 18 (if they survive to that age), they are automatically taken in to the Soltanovka facility.

Kathy has started a series of blog posts on the CCPI-US website describing her experiences on this trip. If her first post is any indication of what will follow, you will definitely want to bookmark the site or subscribe to the blog so you can keep up with Kathy’s upcoming articles.

Be forewarned - if you are looking for an uplifting story, you will probably be disappointed. Kathy has painted a stark picture of the dilapidated conditions at the Soltanovka facility. The staff is overwhelmed, so while the patients are clothed, washed, and fed, there no treatment plans, therapists, or activities for them. The residents typically spend their days in bed, wandering the halls, rocking back and forth in place and watching a blurry television.

Soltanovka may sound like an appalling place, but I’m sure the workers do the best they can. It’s not much, but at least the residents get regular meals and a roof over their heads. Regarding the situation at Soltanovka, Kathy remarks, "... it is the place where mentally disabled people go to die."

The worst part of this is that Kathy's story is not new. It is nothing more than the tragic continuation of what is now a 22 year saga of how the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has affected the lives of so many people in southern Belarus.

I can’t imagine seeing a situation first-hand, such as that which Kathy describes.  It has to be difficult to hide your true feelings from the residents, and must be beyond depressing.

In today’s economic climate, financial limitations can be extremely hard on charities like CCPI. I am sure after visiting Soltanovka, Kathy and CCPI will do everything they can to help, somehow fitting this need in with their many other projects. CCPI already plans to help at Soltanovka with some sanitary and cosmetic repairs - hopefully they can find the resources to provide some additonal aid.

What Kathy describes in her report is certainly not a happy story, but one that should definitely get more attention than it currently receives. Perhaps in the near future, with the help of CCPI and other charitable organizations, this story can be transformed into nothing more than the sad prelude to a happier ending.  At least I would like to think so.

Information about the affects of the Chernobyl accident in Belarus is not easy to find, as compared to Ukraine. At Chernobyl.info, the official website of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, I have found links to some new documents about Chernobyl’s affect on Belaus (published at Chernobyl.info on January 28).

Included are maps of Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 contamination within Belarus as of 2004. Also of interest are two maps forecasting Belorussian Cs-137 levels in both 2016 and 2046. You can also read a PDF document summarizing an International conference held April 19-21, 2006 in Minsk, titled “Chernobyl 20 years after. Strategy for recovery and sustainable development of the affected regions.”

A summary of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s activities in the Chernobyl Zone can be found on their webiste - “The SDC Chernobyl programme in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia aims at relieving the people suffering from the Chernobyl consequences, developing of  Chernobyl contaminated areas as well as increasing the national and international awareness on the problem.”