Action on Radiocative Waste Long Overdue

Ecologists in Tajikistan say plans to seek donor funding to bury radioactive waste in the north of the country are long overdue, and warn that local people are still disturbing contaminated earth in the area.



Vostokredmet, the company which mine uranium ore in the Soviet period, announced on October 2 that the process of documenting radioactive waste pits has begun and plans are being made to bury them safely.



Uranium mining in Tajikistan ended at the beginning of the Nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed. However, the mines and open quarries were classified as secret for another decade and some equipment was left in place, because the Tajik authorities envisaged that mining might resume if Russia decided to move back into the industry.



It is only recently that Tajikistan has begun to ask the international community to help bury the dangerous waste, of which there is an estimated 54 million tons.



At the moment, only one of several pits containing mining waste in the Sogd region is buried in the correct manner; all the rest remain open. Background radiation in these areas is ten times the permissible level. Scientists say that even parts of the regional capital Khojand have background radiation levels of up to 80 microroentgen/hour, when the officially acceptable level nationwide is 57.



Ecologists interviewed by NBCentralAsia say the situation is aggravated by the fact that most of the waste sites or “tailing pits” are adjacent to densely populated areas and to rivers that are shared with other states – among them the Syrdarya, one of the main waterways of Central Asia. If there was a major leak, radioactive material would flow downstream and affect the entire region.



At the village of Adrasman, background radiation stands at a 1,400 microroentgen/hour - 70 times the maximum allowed – yet the local community mow hay and graze animals on the soil covering the waste site, and take away clay and sand to build houses.



In other places, people bring in cranes and bulldozers to dig out heavily contaminated metal structures from defunct mines.



The warning signs posted up around tailing pits are long gone.



One kilometre away from the village of Taboshar, there is a burial site containing six million tons of uranium waste. It lacks the proper sealed foundations, so radioactive materials leak out into nearby streams which provide local people with drinking water.



Experts on the problem tell NBCentralAsia that if urgent measures for are not taken to make the burial sites safe, the wider region will almost certainly face a major ecological disaster, triggered either by natural causes or by some human action.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)