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from the extraction of plutonium for the USSR's first nuclear 

 weapons at Chelyabinsk-65 were discharged directly into the Techa 

 river, resulting in severe contamination of the watershed for 

 thousands of kilometers downstream. Subsequent practices were 

 hardly better — highly radioactive waste was dumped into Lake 

 Karachay at -the plant beginning in 1951. Today, despite ongoing 

 cleanup efforts, 120 million curies of radioactive materials are 

 in the lake, and as little as one hour's exposure to the 

 radiation at the shoreline could be fatal. Radioactive 

 contamination in^the groundwater has spread 2 to 3 kilometers 

 from the lake. Additionally, an explosion in a waste tank at the 

 site in 1957 contaminated over 23,000 square kilometers, and much 

 of the land remains unusable today. 



The situation in Chelyabinsk — though perhaps the most 

 severe — is hardly unique. Similar plants in Tomsk-7 and 

 Krasnoyarsk-26 also contaminated the local environment. Open 

 pools of water at Tomsk reportedly contain elevated levels of 

 plutonivuB and other radioisotopes, resulting, in considerable 

 wildlife contamination, including elk, hare, duck, and fish, 

 which are consumed by the local populace. Reactors at the 

 Krasnoyarsk plutonium production plant use water directly from 



