Russia censoring news on wildfires and radiation

Russia emergency minister threatens to ‘deal with’ those spreading radiation ‘rumours’ about wildfires in contaminated areas NEW YORK/ST PETERSBURG –Alexander Shurshev , 17 Aug 2010, “………..By last week Roslesozashchita website was reporting – before it was taken down – that 269 fires were burning over 664 acres in the Bryansk Region. But that was not all. Roslesozashchita’s website also reported more than 500 other fires still raging through more than 4000 acres of radioactive trouble spots: In the Kaluga, 11 fires raged over 22 acres; Twelve fires were burning over 155 acres in the Kurgan Region; Tula hosted six fires over 109 acres; The Orlov Region held three fires over 32 acres and the Penza region, 34 fires over 206 acres.
But most worrisome of all, the Chelyabinsk region, home to the Mayak Chemical Combine, Russia’s nuclear reprocessing facility and one of the most radioactively contaminated areas on the planet hosted 401 fires over 3,536 acres.

Yet now the information is gone in a puff of smoke, but Slivyak’s Ecodefence managed to maintain a copy (in Russian) of what had been pulled from Roselesozachita’s website here.

The area surrounding Mayak poses special dangers unanticipated in Russian fire fighting efforts. Not only are irradiated trees, land and nuclear waste in danger, but rivers and lakes into which the Mayak Chemical Combine has for decades been dumping radioactive waste – principally the Techa River Cascade and Lake Karachai – have been evaporating, exposing irradiated silt to the air and wind.

Environnmental groups in that area, most notably the local Movement for Nuclear Safety has sent an appeal for help to Chelyabinsk Regional Governnor Mikhail Yurevich, asking that he tend to the issues of silt that could arise in the event of winds, which could cause a radiation hazard equal to that of one that happened in the region in 1967.

During that year, exposed banks of the irradiated Lake Karachai, wrote the group in their appeal to Yurevich, were hit by strong whirlwinds and spread radioactive silt throughout the Chelyabinsk Region, necessitating the evacuation of several thousand people from the region and neighbouring areas.
Slivyak in his statement to Bellona demanded that Roslesozashchita return the information for public consumption.

“If it is true that mobile laboratories are working in the radioactively contaminated areas, then the data must be accessible to any taxpayer, as they are paying out of their pockets for the work of MChS and other expert organisations,” he said.

Russia emergency minister threatens to ‘deal with’ those spreading radiation ‘rumours’ about wildfires in contaminated areas – Bellona