210 



STATEMENT OF DR. AASKAR AARKROG, CfflEF, ECOLOGY SEC- 

 TION, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES AND 

 TECHNOLOGY, RISO NATIONAL LABORATORY, DENMARK 



Dr. Aarkrog. The Chernobyl accident. That is the major known 

 source. But beside these major known sources there is a number 

 of possible major sources to radioactive contamination of the Arctic. 

 And here I will mention, first of all, local fallout from the Novaya 

 Zemlya test sites for nuclear weapons. We don't know how much 

 that is. Runoff with Siberian rivers from nuclear activities in the 

 former Soviet Union, we have heard about it, and dumping of, for 

 example, ship reactors at Novaya Zemlya. These have all been 

 mentioned, these things. 



If we for a moment look at the former Soviet empire and we can 

 see here the Novaya Zemlya and we can see here what I called the 

 major rivers running into the Arctic Ocean. That's the Ob River 

 system, the Yenisey River system, and the Lena River system. And 

 all these river systems are connected to some nuclear facilities. The 

 Ob River system is connected to the Urals, we have heard about, 

 and there is also a connection to Semipalatinsk where they have 

 had nuclear explosions, and there is furthermore through the 

 Tomsk River a connection to the reprocessing of plutonium produc- 

 tion plant at Tomsk. And in case of the Yenisey River, it is the 

 Krasnoyarsk reactor establishment where they produce plutonium. 

 And finally, the Lena River has contaminated area around Yakutsk 

 where a large number of peaceful underground explosions has been 

 going on. 



Furthermore, I have very recently heard that in '58 there was a 

 rocket failure in this area here. And this rocket may have con- 

 tained radioactive material. So this is all sources to the radioactive 

 contamination of the Arctic Ocean. 



If we turn to the Ob River system, which I consider the most im- 

 portant, then we have three major contamination events in the 

 Urals which may influence the contamination of this river system. 



First of all, we had the discharge to the Techa River fi-om '49 to 

 '51. We learned about it fi-om Mr. Gates this morning. We had the 

 Kyshtjnn accident in '57 and we have had a wind dispersion of ac- 

 tivity from Lake Karachay which contained these enormous 

 amounts of radioactive contamination. 



We have been stud5dng these contaminations in this area be- 

 cause in 1990 we were invited by the Russians to visit a number 

 of places in Russia. I was at that time president for the Inter- 

 national Union of Radioecologists and that was in that capacity we 

 were invited to go around to these sites. And the interesting thing 

 was that we were allowed to collect samples at the sites and bring 

 the samples with us home. That means that for the first time we 

 had the opportunity in the West to have our own measurements of 

 these local contaminations. And it was at that occasion we found 

 this last mentioned contamination because the two ones were part- 

 ly known but the last one was completely unknown at that time. 

 And we have published a paper on that in Journal of Environ- 

 mental Radioactivity, which I will give here to the hearing. 



If we should try to summarize what I think is important to do 

 in the future, I might go back to my place now. 



