reprinted with permission from Poison Fire, Sacred Earth, TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS, THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992 pages 262-264 As in the past, plans and decisions in the field of nuclear energy are still made and confirmed behind the scenes without any accessible and qualified expertises. . . . B. The first two weeks after the catastrophe During the first two weeks after the accident, organizational decisions and actions were of special importance. During this time, the Chairman of the Commission for the Elimination of the After-Effects of the Chernobyl Accident, the academic Velichov, was to be seen on TV every day. Fear and dismay were written on his face. He and the other members of the commission were expecting a new explosion with every new day. . . . Fifth example: Four days after the explosion, the members of the Kiev administration secretly started evacuating their families. As before, the population was kept in the dark about everything and had to rely on contradicting rumours. Sixth example: On the same day, the laboratories in Kiev, in which the instruments were kept, which would have made a measuring of the degree of radiation possible, were closed down and sealed. . . . The former Soviet leaders have not learned anything from the Chernobyl catastrophe. Their logic, the character of their decisions and the stereotype of their behaviour as it was before the Chernobyl catastrophe did not change directly after the explosion and have remained the same up to the present day. This is why even nowadays new nuclear and other types of catastrophes will be unavoidable, unless there is to be a radical change in the way decisions are made in the former Soviet Republics. The words they use nowadays have changed, but the melody is still the same. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Nikolaj Ostrogskij Nikolaj Ostrogsky, CIS. Head of an aviary clean-up task-force in Chernobyl. (This speech was held originally in Russian) Dear Ladies and Gentlemen! First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to The World Uranium Hearing for having been invited to the conference and, apart from this, for being given the opportunity of being listened to. I intend to talk about the causes of future catastrophes in the CIS. Main thesis: The logic on the basis of which responsible decisions are being made in the former republics of the Soviet Union is still the same that led up to the catastrophe in Chernobyl. A. How I got to Chernobyl and what I did there I got to Chernobyl in my capacity as the leader of an air plane expedition. I was in command of some 60 people and four planes. The task of this plane expedition was to prevent precipitations in the area of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. The aim of this measure was to keep the radioactive dust from penetrating into the soil and reaching the ground waters or open waters. I doubted that this intention and, similarly, our actions were scientifically justified or, at least, reasonable. At that time, it was not clear what would be the more effective method to reduce the level of contamination under the given conditions: letting the radioactive dust penetrate into the ground together with the rain or dispersing the dry dust with blast air. But now I think that the actions of the plane expedition did a lot of harm. This is a typical example of the irresponsibility on the part of the atomic administration. In the operating instructions of this type of power station, it says that the plant is working in a critical instability mode. In spite of that no provisions were ever made for a possible accident in one of these power stations in the Soviet Union. B. The first two weeks after the catastrophe During the first two weeks after the accident, organizational decisions and actions were of special importance. During this time, the Chairman of the Commission for the Elimination of the After-Effects of the Chernobyl Accident, the academic Velichov, was to be seen on TV every day. Fear and dismay were written on his face. He and the other members of the commission were expecting a new explosion with every new day. The examples of irresponsibility and absolute lack of preparation on the part of the administration are innumerable. Second example: The firemen that were called to fight the fire in the sector of the accident did not have the slightest idea of the danger they were facing. They did not have any protective suits, not to speak of instruments to measure the degree of radiation. Third example: For days the local population was not informed about the character of the accident, nor about the necessary protective measures to be taken. Fourth example: Three days after the explosion, Kiev television showed an advertisement inviting the audience to spend their holidays at the Kiev Sea, i.e. right in the contaminated zone. Fifth example: Four days after the explosion, the members of the Kiev administration secretly started evacuating their families. As before, the population was kept in the dark about everything and had to rely on contradicting rumours. Sixth example: On the same day, the laboratories in Kiev, in which the instruments were kept, which would have made a measuring of the degree of radiation possible, were closed down and sealed. Seventh example: At the same time, they started covering the destroyed reactor with lead. Two weeks afterwards, examinations showed lead poisonings of the throat and the respiratory organs among the Kiev population. Eighth example: Two weeks after the explosion, I conducted measurements to determine the degree of radioactive contamination on the surface of residential premises in Kiev. The surfaces of buildings facing towards the direction of Chernobyl emitted radiation ten times higher than the permissible threshold value. However, the inhabitants had still not been informed about any protective measures to be taken against a radioactive contamination. These are typical decisions that were made by the administration at that time that was crucial for the elimination of the after-effects of the catastrophe. C. The first eight months The plane expedition was carried out within the area of Chernobyl for eight months. During this time the character of the decisions to be taken did not change. Ninth example: The most important task, i.e. the map plotting of the contaminated areas in the Ukraine, Belorussia, Russia and the Baltic Republics, was carried out so insufficiently that after some years, contaminated areas were detected that had never been marked on the map, but in which habitation was not permissible. But at the given time, the results of the map plotting were never brought to the attention of the population at all. Tenth example: About one and a half months after the explosion of the second block, the Ministry of Energy had already started up the defective third block, while next to it the second block was still burning and not under control. Futhermore, it was not even clear how to deal with it. Eleventh example: I was stunned by the open falsification of the data concerning the doses of radiation those people who had been sent to work in the area of the Chernobyl reactor by the draft offices were exposed to. There was no registration of the data shown on their individual counters. Identical values of 50 Roentgen or even less were registered on their control sheets even at a time when the radiation dose they were exposed to already exceeded 300 and even 400 Roentgen. Twelfth example: Five to six months after the explosion, the Kiev administration decided to have the city cleaned from the contaminated autumn leaves. Kiev school-children were sent to collect and sometimes even ordered to burn the radioactive leaves. Thirteenth example: All members of the medical staff were ordered by the central authorities to conceal the relation between the illness of the "liquidators" and their exposure to radiation in Chernobyl. All these actions serve as an example for the inability of the Soviet leaders to take reasonable measures. Neither the accident itself nor the possibility of a nuclear explosion or even human casualties did, in fact, have any influence on the character of the decisions that were taken during these eight months after the catastrophe. Fourteenth example: The plane expedition, even given the insignificant powers it had at its disposal, was ordered to continue its flights in order to prevent precipitations even when the season of the heavy autumn and winter rains was already setting in and preventing rainfall was becoming absolutely impossible. D. The consequences nowadays As in the past, plans and decisions in the field of nuclear energy are still made and confirmed behind the scenes without any accessible and qualified expertises. Fifteenth example: Without any reasonable and well-founded plans, without a sufficient evaluation of the experience received from the Chernobyl catastrophe, the Russian Prime Minister Jegor Gajdar, having been put under pressure by military and industrial forces, not long ago signed a decree concerning funds to be directed towards the further development of nuclear power plants. In connection with this, the Nuclear Energy Administration is working on plans to open new uranium mines in the North of Russia. This inhumane way of taking decisions is not exclusively a Russian, but a world-wide problem. Many of the speakers have already called our attention to the inhumane character of the decision-making of the American, French, British and many other military-industrial administrations. The Soviet military industry is no better than its western counterparts. But there is one particularity about the Soviet administration: The realization of the decisions taken by western administrations to a high extent corresponds with the set goal. The realization of decisions taken by the Soviet administration in general does not correspond with the set goal. Because of this, the process of realizing decisions leads to unpredictable effects. And in situations in which these effects might turn out to be horrible ones, they inevitably lead up to a catastrophe. The former Soviet leaders have not learned anything from the Chernobyl catastrophe. Their logic, the character of their decisions and the stereotype of their behaviour as it was before the Chernobyl catastrophe did not change directly after the explosion and have remained the same up to the present day. This is why even nowadays new nuclear and other types of catastrophes will be unavoidable, unless there is to be a radical change in the way decisions are made in the former Soviet Republics. The words they use nowadays have changed, but the melody is still the same. Thank you very much for your attention. Joanna Macy (Moderator) Thank you. We thank our witnesses very much and ask that Andres Illan and Vladimir Nechunaev come up to the table, to the podium.