Deadly Legacy: The Soviet Union’s Ravaging of the Environment

The Russian Federation faces a variety of societal problems. Government corruption and suppression of democracy are rife, and human rights violations abound. The Russian military faces numerous operational challenges, including low morale and budgetary problems. Issues regarding Chechnya and terrorism continue to plague the government. Crime and drug use are on the rise, and the population is declining at an alarming rate. Such issues are well-known, often making their way into the public’s eye via the Washington Post or BBC news.

However, one, lesser-known but equally serious issues it that of Russia’s ecological malaise.

The environmental legacy of the Soviet Union is one of mind-boggling disregard and destruction. Soviet industries operated unhindered by environmental regulations which, although stringent, were seldom enforced, releasing massive amounts of pollution into the air, land, and water. In fact, the former Soviet Union is home to some of the world’s most polluted places. The Blacksmith Institute, an environmental organization dealing with pollution problems, ranked Sumgayit in Azerbaijan, Dzerzhinsk and Norilsk in the Russian Federation, and Chernobyl in Ukraine among the top 10 in its annual report, “The World’s Worst Polluted Places: The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty” (The World’s Worst Polluted Places 6). Of the further twenty locations, six are located in the former Soviet Union. Pollutants at these sites include heavy metals, chemicals and toxic byproducts, harmful particulate, and radioactive materials, which have resulted in increased mortality rates and a myriad of health problems, such as cancer, genetic defects, and respiratory diseases. Still worse is the fact that many sites like these exist across the country. However, industry was not the only source of pollution—agriculture was also to blame. Poor farming practices resulted in major erosion, and the improper use of pesticides—tons of which lie abandoned across the country—contributed to contamination of the soil and water.

The Soviet armed forces also contributed significantly to the destruction of the environment, regularly dumping old munitions, jet fuel, and other hazardous wastes without regard for the health of the environment or citizenry. Clandestine dumping of chemical weapons was widespread, and took place at locations such as the pine forests of Leonidovka and the Baltic Sea. Lev Fedorov, activist and president of the Union of Chemical Safety, estimates that the Soviet military dumped half a million tons of chemical weapons between the end of WWII and the late 1980s, tens of thousands of tons of which still sit buried in “unmarked and still undisclosed graveyards” throughout the former Soviet Union (Hoffman). Military facilities with huge stores of deadly chemical weapons slated for destruction also dot the country, such as those at Gornyy, Maradykovsky, and Shchuchye (“SGP Issue Brief”). The Soviet Navy had the particularly appalling practice of nuclear disposal at sea, dumping large quantities of radioactive waste and submarine reactors with spent fuel into the Barents and Kara Seas, the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk, and the North Pacific Ocean (Steinhardt et al 9-11). Many decommissioned Soviet nuclear submarines sit rusting in port and awaiting dismantlement, adding to the threat of further contamination or accidents. Norway has raised concerns about accidents at Andreyeva Bay, a storage facility for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel of the Russian Northern Fleet located 45 kilometers from the Russian-Norwegian border and 100 kilometers from Murmansk, and the Bellona Foundation has labeled Andreyeva “a ticking time bomb” after research confirmed the possibility of an uncontrollable chain reaction, and small nuclear explosion, at the facility (Alimov). Radiological pollution at Russian nuclear weapons facilities was and continues to be endemic, as highlighted in a publication by the Pacific Northwest Center for Global Security:

“Three of Russia’s nuclear materials production sites, referred to historically as Chelyabinsk-65, Tomsk-7, and Krasnoyarsk-26, have accounted for over 95 percent of the world’s radioactive waste released to surface and subsurface water systems” (qtd. in Fuller and Leek).

Unsound operating practices and accidents have plagued these facilities, further adding to the threat they pose to the environment and the local population. One of the most serious accidents occurred at Chelyabinsk-65, home to the Mayak Chemical Combine, in 1957 when a radioactive waste storage tank exploded, contaminating some 20,000 square kilometers of land and exposing over 272,000 people to radioactive fallout (Kudrik et al 66-69). This accident, as well as numerous others, has earned Chelyabinsk-65 the infamous reputation of being the most radioactively polluted spot on the planet. Another accident at Tomsk-7 in 1993 resulted in the contamination of 100 square kilometers of land (Kudrik et al 78). Various other sources of radioactive pollution, such as the approximately 1,000 radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) built to power remote navigation beacons and lighthouses, remain scattered throughout the former Soviet Union, posing lingering health and environmental risks.

Unfortunately, this trend of criminal disregard for environmental protection and human health still continues to a large degree. Many of Russia’s industries continue to function as they did in Soviet times, unfettered by environmental regulations which remain inadequate or unenforced. A recent plan was hatched by Minatom, Russia’s nuclear ministry, to receive foreign shipments of nuclear waste at Chelyabinsk-65 in an attempt to raise much-needed funds; however, this plan was condemned in 2002 by Gosatomnadzor, the ministry’s own nuclear regulator (“Russian Regulators Condemn Own Ministry”). Russia’s pristine forests are facing the threat of increased logging, and the accelerated extraction of natural resources, such as oil and gas at the Sakhalin I and II projects, risks further environmental destruction.

With all this in mind, a prudent question to ask is what is being done about these issues? Many NGOs, such as Greenpeace Russia, the Blacksmith Institute, and the Bellona Foundation, are working towards remediating the ecological devastation of Soviet times. Governments and international organizations, including the United States, Norway, the World Bank, and the European Union, are also helping the Russian Federation by providing environmental assistance in the form of funding and joint cleanup programs. However, many challenges still remain. The Soviet government’s tradition of hostility towards the environmental movement continues to this day, with activists often facing harassment, beatings, and arrest at the hands of Russian authorities. Many are suspicious of government involvement in the beating death of a Siberian anti-nuclear protestor in July 2007 (Kopeikina). Years of Soviet rule also bred indifference towards the well-being of the environment, a trend persistent in many of the former Soviet republics. It is important that the international community continue and expand efforts to deal with the ecological damage caused by the Soviet Union, as well as work to foster environmental consciousness. Such efforts will benefit not only the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics, but the greater global community by preventing further environmental tragedies like those at Mayak and Chernobyl and building a better, cleaner future for the next generation.

-Gregory Proulx

Works Cited

Alimov, Rashid. “Andreyeva Bay is a Ticking Bomb, Bellona’s Documents Prove.” Bellona Foundation. Trans. Maria Kaminskaya. 7 June 2007. 15 Nov. 2007 <http://www.bellona.org/articles/andreyeva_ticking_bomb>.

Fuller, James L., and K. M. Leek. United States. Pacific Northwest Center for Global Security. Department of Energy. Debt for Ecology: a Concept to Help Stabilize Russian Nuclear Cities. 2001. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://www.nti.org/e_research/official_docs/labs/debt_ecology.pdf>.

Hoffman, David. “Wastes of War: Russia’s Forgotten Chemical Weapons.” Washington Post 16 Aug. 1998. 13 Nov. 2007 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/leonidovkaa.htm>.

Kopeikina, Victoria. “Investigators Seek to Frame Environmentalists in Attack on Siberian Ecological Protest Camp.” Bellona Foundation. Trans. Maria Kaminskaya. 8 Aug. 2007. 14 Nov. 2007 <http://www.bellona.org/articles/angarsk_attack>.

Kudrik, Igor, Charles Digges, Alexander Nikitin, Nils Bøhmer, Vladimir Kuznetsov, and Vladislav Larin. The Russian Nuclear Industry: The Need for Reform. Bellona Foundation, 2004. 14 Nov. 2007 <http://www.bellona.org/filearchive/fil_Bellona_2004_RedReport.pdf>.

“Russian Regulators Condemn Own Ministry Over Nuclear Dump Plans.” Greenpeace International. 21 June 2002. 12 Nov. 2007 <http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/russian-nuclear-dump-plan-cond>.

“SGP Issue Brief: Implementing Chemical Weapons Destruction in Russia.” Strengthening the Global Partnership. Center for Strategic and International Studies. 15 Nov. 2007 <http://www.sgpproject.org/publications/SGPIssueBrief/Annex%201.PDF>.

Steinhardt, Bernice et al. United States. Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division. Government Accountability Office. Nuclear Safety: Concerns with Nuclear Facilities and Other Nuclear Facilities and Other Sources of Radiation in the Former Soviet Union. Nov. 1995. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/rc96004.pdf>.

The World’s Worst Polluted Places: The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty. New York: The Blacksmith Institute, 2007. 9 Nov. 2007 <http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/wwpp2007/finalReport2007.pdf>.