| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Case Study 3

Page history last edited by EmilyKinnaman 15 years, 4 months ago

Environmental Injustice: The Chernobyl Disaster

The Place:

The Chernobyl Disaster occurred in Pripyat, Ukraine: Pripyat is a small city in Ukraine, which was controlled by the Soviets (USSR) during the Chernobyl disaster. 

A sneak peak inside Chernobyl shows that even in 2006 levels outside Chernobyl were still detecting dangerous levels of radioactivity. In the many years that have passed a lot more clean up needs to be done to ensure nearby citizens safety and health.

 

YouTube plugin error

 

 


The Stakeholders: 

Soviet Government-

The USSR, which controlled Ukraine, was the only nuclear country without nuclear safety laws in the mid 1980’s when Chernobyl exploded (Yaroshinskaya 1990). During this time the Soviet government was losing power and was beginning to appear vulnerable. When Chernobyl exploded the Soviet government tried to cover- up what happened, but in the end it showed the world how the Soviets ignored safety regulations within their nuclear programs. During the first few days after Chernobyl the world did not know that the accident even occurred. It took radiation detectors to go off in Sweden before the world became aware to the explosion.

            The USSR tried to cover-up or sugarcoat the situation as long as possible. When the world did find out about Chernobyl the Soviet government tried to downplay the dangers with the explosion. As more information leaked out and the world grew more aware to the dangerous situation, the Soviet government finally took action. On May 2nd, six days after Chernobyl exploded, people in the Chernobyl area were finally evacuated and it took until June 6th until everyone was out of the danger zones (Lemonick 1989). Due to the wait, many children suffered from radiation exposure. In 2000, about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer were discovered in these children who were connected to the accident. Out of the 4,000 children, nine died (World Nuclear Association 2008).

    Since the Soviet government hid its poor engineering, the result was that many people suffered from prolonged radiation exposure. Even though it cost the Soviets money to contain the destroyed reactor, people’s health was at stake. In order to cover-up corruption the Soviets sacrificed precious time that could have saved people from heavy doses of radiation. There continues to be speculation about what really happened with Chernobyl (Lemonick 1989).

Affected Populations: Belarus-Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and United States-

     This accident at Chernobyl is described as one of the most devastating nuclear accidents in the world to this day (Bleickhardt 2008). Tragic as it was the Soviet Union has demonstrated very little compassion for the suffering they have caused to thousands of people. The nuclear fallout resulted in personal and environmental health, medical, economic, and political strife.


 

The Issue:

We will investigate how the Chernobyl disaster affected the life of people and the environment in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the United States. The day of the Chernobyl explosion "the heat from the fire was so intense that the glowing reactor could be seen even from space, as shown in ... satellite photo[s]" (Chernobyl Power 2008). The question remained that if this explosion could be spotted from space how safe was this accident for the surrounding people? For the surrounding countries? For the surrounding continents?

One of the biggest issues at Chernobyl was that the Soviet Government failed to take charge, accept the blame, and admit the dangers. One problem was not having any safety regulations for nuclear projects. Another is delaying evacuations for the sake of covering up something so not to discredit the Soviet government. Currently the container built around the leaking reactor to keep the radiation from leaking out was poorly built and is falling apart(West).

The Issue in Belorussia [Belarus] and Ukraine à

Belorussia under the USSR is now known as Belarus since 1991. Belarus and Ukraine are now free from Russia’s control, but they continue to be burdened with the cost for trying to clean up contaminated areas and soaring health care costs from the Chernobyl disaster (Bond 2008). Belarus and Ukraine are still dealing with the aftermath of Chernobyl, which happened in 1986, because Chernobyl was sandwiched in between these two countries by ten miles (Bond  2008). Immediately after the explosion of Chernobyl, Ukraine was in serious trouble because it obtained its energy from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Bond  2008). The day of the explosion the winds first brought debris across Belarus, Poland, and Sweden, but when wind patterns changed debris was once again blown over Belarus as well as the Ukraine and Russia (Bond  2008).  Belarus is the most affected country by Chernobyl today because 20% of the farmland was ruined and the areas being the most contaminated and dangerous are located in Belarus (Bond  2008). Farmland in Belarus continues to be an issue with radiation contamination because farmers continue to use farmland that is contaminated (Chernousenko 1991). Many have tried to stop Belarus from using contaminated farmland, but some farmers have no option. Belarus is not the only country that has contaminated farmland, Ukraine has 8.4 million hectare of contaminated farmland that before the Chernobyl incident was useable (Vargo 2000). The three most contaminated regions with numerous cities/ towns being highly contaminated with radiation are in Belarus, Ukraine, and Southern Russia (Bond  2008).

Currently five million people live in areas in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia that are considered highly dangerous radioactive hot spots (Health Effects 2008). Out of the five million people living in dangerous zones there are 270,000 people living in areas classified as strictly controlled zones (Health Effects 2008). With statistics like that it is not alarming that there are currently 5,000 cases of thyroid cancer among Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia related to people who were 18 and younger during Chernobyl (Health Effects 2008). Right after Chernobyl children in Belarus were reported to all look sickly, fainting, frail, and very ill (Chernousenko 1991). As a result, mothers organized a program called “children of Chernobyl” and wrote to everyone they could in hopes to get health care and help for the children of Belarus and surrounding areas (Chernousenko  1991). People’s health was in serious danger when Chernobyl occurred and continues to be in danger, but little is being done. USSR at the time did try to evacuate as many people as possible once they admitted to the dangers and today it is known that over 200,000 people were evacuated from areas in Belarus and Ukraine alone (Bond  2008). During evacuations soldiers has to stand guard in dangerously contaminated radiation zones to make sure people were evacuated, as a result those soldiers are known to have higher health problems than others due to their prolonged exposure (Chernousenko 1991). Unfortunately, even in 1991 there were 353 places in Belarus waiting for evacuation and 67 in Ukraine waiting for evacuation (Chernousenko 1991). After five years plus living in radiation hot spots will result in serious health issues. The health problems are not the only factors in Belarus and Ukraine because major rivers run through these two countries after Chernobyl there waterways were contaminated with radiation (Bond  2008).

The Issues in Russia and Europe à 

        The majority of the radiation that leaked from the plant on that fateful day in 1986 settled near the plant and although it harmed the volunteers and firefighters on the first days after the accident it had no affect on populations further away (WNA 2008). However because of the prevailing winds at the time some of the radiation and toxic chemicals including xenon, iodine-131, cesium-137, and the radioactive material were sent into the atmosphere where the prevailing winds and weather patterns provided the means to send the toxic substances miles (WNA 2008). One of the first times the World heard about the incident at Chernobyl was because radiation detectors were set off in Switzerland and other surrounding regions.

                Initially the only deaths were those of the twenty-eight firefighters that perished battling the fires and nineteen deaths were reported a short time after the accident (Fact Sheet 2007). Modern technology has been implemented to determine how many deaths resulted from the Chernobyl accident and to this day there is not a clear answer. Since so many people were evacuated and cleared out of a 4300 square kilometer around Chernobyl, it is very hard to track down their current location. The radiation can take years to harm the human body and it can even stay in the body and produce deformations, cancer, and disease in subsequent generations. For these reasons there will never be an accurate total of the hundreds of thousands of people that were sentenced to death by a negligent government.

Russia lies to the east of the Chernobyl plant and suffered many hardships as a result f the Chernobyl disaster. Floods of people from Ukraine were evacuated into Russia’s cities and towns; in all it is estimated that 255,000 people were relocated from the region during the first few weeks of the incident (WNA 2008). This would be a detriment to the health care systems in Russia and put a large drain on the society. In all it is estimated that 7,000 people in Russia died from the accident (CCA 2005). In addition to the deaths it is estimated that Russia spends approximately one percent of its annual budget to deal with the results from Chernobyl (CCA 2005).

The days following the accident had severe impact for Russia because prevailing wind patterns for May 1 – May 5, 1986 shifted so that the majority of radiation blew directly over Belarus and southwest Russia (CCA 2005). The environmental hazards here are tremendous; not only are the people of Russia going to affected, so are the plants, land animals, birds and fish, the air will be polluted and any precipitation in an atmosphere contaminated with radiation is harmful as well.

                To the east of Chernobyl, the wind patterns sent plumes of radiation across all f Europe to the point where England was able to get radioactive atmosphere readings from their shores (Fact Sheet 2007). Cleaning and containing the radiation were among the main concern for all of the affected areas. And despite their best efforts, millions of dollars continue to be spent in securing the plant and avoiding radiation leaks from the number 4 core reactor at Chernobyl (WNA 2008).

The issue with the United States à

            When detectors for radioactivity went off in Sweden, the United States became aware that the USSR’s serious problem with Chernobyl could quickly cross the ocean into United States territory. Americans feared the radioactive fallout from the USSR with the rest of Western Europe because of the prevailing winds after the disaster. Thankfully the United States only detected slightly higher radioactivity levels that were not harmful to America. The USSR was corrupt and as a result America feared they would not be informed if any dangerous information about the radioactive fallout was discovered (Chernobyl Power Plant 2008). To make sure the United States was safe, the White House appointed the EPA to take charge of monitoring any affects that may occur in the United States because of the Chernobyl disaster (Chernobyl Power Plant 2008). The EPA took several steps to make sure American’s were safe like monitoring radioactivity, food, and information. The EPA formed a group to make sure food in the United States was not being contaminated. They also formed a group to gather as much information  about the Chernobyl aftermath in USSR and surrounding areas. The job of that group was to report daily to the press in the United States to put people at ease that America was safe (Chernobyl Power Plant 2008). The EPA not only worried about American citizens on their home turf, but the EPA was concerned for American citizens that were in Europe. As a result the EPA immediately dismissed EPA experts to Europe to check radiation around U.S embassies (Chernobyl Power Plant 2008). Regardless as to what the USSR was going to do to protect their citizens, the United States was not going to waste time in protecting its Americans.

 

 


Consequences & Resolutions :

 Consequences & Resolutions with Belarus and Ukraine:

The tragic accident with Chernobyl has resulted in health effects that are still affecting people today. The United Nations has officially reported that there have been 4,000 more cancer cases that can be linked back to the Chernobyl incident (Chernobyl Aftermath 2006). Greenpeace goes as far as to estimate there will be an additional 100,000 cancer deaths related to the Chernobyl incident in the future in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia (Chernobyl Aftermath 2006). It is not a shock that cancer rates are soaring when evacuees in 1986 alone (116,000 people) were exposed to radiation greater than 33mSv; when a chest x-ray exposes a person to 0.08 mSv (Health Effects 2008). If that alone is not alarming residents from 1986 to 2005 in the areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine (270,000 people) are being exposed to radiation amounts greater than 50 mSv (Health Effects 2008). What continues to be a plaguing issue that needs to be resolved immediately to stunt the growth of cancer rates is that there are people still living in highly contaminated areas (Chernobyl Aftermath 2006). Radiation affects the immune, circulatory, and respiratory systems. It also is the cause in birth defects, but until Western Europe has been cleaned up the health problems will continue to rise. The ongoing problem with trying to determine cancer rates related to Chernobyl are not is the bad nutrition in many of the contaminated Western European Countries (Bond 2008). Who is to say what is related to Chernobyl and what is related to a bad nutritional diet. Another dispute about the rise in health problems is as health care becomes better that is why we know so much about the cancer rising in Western Europe (Chernousenko 1991). Thankfully, extensive study finally shows more links to the rise in health problems is in fact related to Chernobyl and not because the people are not taking care of themselves (Chernousenko 1991).

            If being at risk for cancer and birth defects is not enough for someone to have to deal with the people living in Belarus and Ukraine when they were forced to relocate they had/ continue to have a “loss of economic stability… feelings of worry and confusion… stress, [ and] anxiety…” (Health Effects 2008). The reason people in Belarus and Ukraine may have had more to worry about was because many of the areas were villages composed of similar cultural heritages (Bond 2008). When people in the villages were being forced to evacuate they had to assimilate to a new lifestyle with people of a different cultural background (Bond 2008).

            Belarus and Ukraine need to drain major rivers such as the Dnieper River system in order to try to clean their water supply (Bond 2008). Not only will this cost a lot of money that Belarus and Ukraine do not have, but by draining the Dnieper River system cities such as Kyiv will lose their entire water supply (Bond 2008). Even though losing their water supply is bad, what is even worse is the city is using contaminated water because they have no other means to have clean water. Belarus and Ukraine are trying to protect their citizens by making laws against farming on contaminated soil, but two impoverished countries can only protect their citizens so much.Since the accident at Chernobyl the Ukraine government has taken steps to protect their people. A first big step for Ukraine was banning Nuclear Power Plants in 1990, but in 1993 they had to allow Nuclear Power Plants because they had an energy shortage (Bond 2008). In 1990 Ukraine also tried to fully shut down Chernobyl, but that kept being postponed because of Ukraine’s need for energy (Bond 2008). Finally in April 2006 Ukraine and other European Countries apart of the G-7 Countries pledged $300 million dollars to finally shut down Chernobyl (Bond 2008). In December 2000 the plant was finally shut down, but there continues to be hazardous leaks from the plant that need to be addressed. Due to the dangers at Chernobyl laws and safety regulations have been adopted world wide; especially with regards to Nuclear Power Plants.

 Consequences & Resolutions Overall:

     After Chernobyl many countries realized they did not want the same disasters happening within their own countries. As a result, many countries shy away from nuclear power because they are afraid of what happened at Chernobyl. Studies show that nuclear power plants are not dangerous unless taken care of improperly. The waste from nuclear power plants like the radioactive ores is another controversial topic, but the overall nuclear power plant is safe for the public as well as surrounding wild life. Unfortunately, the accident of Chernobyl is still a reminder of the possible disaster that could occur. A possibility that is too risky for many countries to want to test. No one wants a repeat of Chernobyl either, that is why regulations were set world wide on companies, energy plants, and any place that could possibly have the same resulting disasters. Chernobyl officials ignored safety warnings and as a result, safety regulations are a lot higher and followed a lot closer today. At least people have learned from the disaster that safety warnings are set for a reason and they exist to be immediately resolved. Safety warnings are not to be ignored and probably will not be again especially in a nuclear energy plant!

 

The Chernobyl disaster left a complete ghost town when citizens were forced to leave their lives behind and move to safety.

YouTube plugin error

 


Works Cited

Andrew R. Bond: Chernobyl’ Accident [Internet]. C2008. Microsoft Encarta; [updated 2008; cited 2008 October 20]. Available from: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563993/chernobyl’_accident.html

 

 

Bleickardt P, Quirk S, Beegle B. Chernobyl a nuclear disaster. [Internet Source]. (Cited 2008 Oct. 20). Available from: http://library.thinkquest.org/3426/

 

Chernobyl Aftermath 20 years ago [Internet]. 2006. For Um; [updated 2006 April 18; cited 2008  October 16]. Available from: http://en.for-ua.com/news/2006/04/18/104049.html

 

Chernobyl Children's Appeal. 2005. Chernobyl Children's Appeal (NI) Ltd. [Internet]. (Cited 2008 October 21). Available from: http://www.coleraineyachtclub.co.uk/html/chernoble.html.

 

Chernobyl Power Plant, Ukraine [Internet]. 2008. United States Environmental Protection Agency; [updated 2008 August 13; cited 2008 October17]. Available from: http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/rert/chernobyl.html

 

Chernousenko VM, Chernobyl Insight from the Inside. Berlin: Springer- Verlag; 1991.

Fact sheet on the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 2007. United State Nuclear Regulatory Commission. (Cited 2008 Oct. 20). Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html.

  

Health effects of the Chernobyl accident: an overview [Internet]. C2008. World Health Organization; [updated 2008; cited 2008 October 16]. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html

 

Lemonick, M. 1989. The Chernobyl Cover-up. Time Magazine. [Internet]. (Cited 2008 Oct. 8). Available from: http://www.time.com/time/daily/chernobyl/891113.coverup.html

 

Nohrstedt D. [Internet]. 2008. The politics of crisis policymaking: Chernobyl and Swedish nuclear energy policy. The Policy Studies Journal; 2(36). (Cited 2008 Oct. 20). Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31625493&site=ehost-live

 

Peterka M, Peterková R, Likovsky Z.  [Internet]. Chernobyl: relationship between the number of missing newborn boys. 2007. Environmental Health Perspectives. (Cited 2008 Oct. 20). Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27952388&site=ehost-live

 

Ravilious, K. 2006. Despite Mutations, Chernobyl Wildlife Is Thriving. National Geographic News. [Internet]. (Cited 2008 Oct. 8). Available from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html.

 

West, L. Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. About.com. [Internet]. (Cited 2008 Oct. 20). Available from: http://environment.about.com/od/chernobyl/p/chernobyl.htm.

 

World Nuclear Association. [Internet]. (Updated 2008 May). Chernobyl Accident. (Cited 2008 Oct. 8). Available from: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html.

 

Vargo GJ, editor. 2000. The Chernobyl Accident: A Comprehensive Risk Assessment. Columbus: Battelle

 

Yaroshinskaya, A. 1990. The big lie, The secret Chernobyl documents. Eurozine. [Internet]. Cited 2008 Oct. 19). Available from: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-04-21-yaroshinskaya-en.html

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.