After three decades, Alpine soils still bear the scars of radioactive explosion of reactor number 4 of the Soviet Central, with rates similar to those in place discharges from the nuclear industry.
ground plots as radioactive as nuclear waste. What prove that despite official lies of the time, the Chernobyl cloud does not stop at the border of the Hexagon. Worse, twenty-nine years after the disaster April 26, 1986, particles of cesium 137, a radioactive isotope, still massively contaminating the soils of the region Mercantour in the Alpes-Maritimes. A study on 5 and 6 July last by the Commission of Research and Independent Information on Radioactivity (CRIIAD) shows that locally the radiation levels exceed 100 000 Becquerels per kilogram (Bq / kg) of solid material. What place in the “low-level nuclear waste”, as the scale of Euratom 1996.
The CRIIRAD was demonstrated by measurement campaigns conducted between 1996 and 1998, the presence in the Alpine – from France to Austria through Switzerland and Italy – a strong soil contamination with cesium 137 to higher altitudes to 2000 meters. This radioisotope is still currently present with, for the most contaminated points, measurements higher than 10,000 or 100,000 Bq / kg. However, as explained Bruno Chareyron researcher for CRIIAD for twenty-two years, “from 10,000 Bq / kg, the element is considered as radioactive waste. From 100,000 Bq / kg, it happens in the classroom (toxicity, ie) higher. ”
“A phenomenon specific to alpine”
If these rates are particularly alarming and illustrate the devastating impact of a nuclear accident, it should be noted that the severely contaminated areas are very localized. The study of CRIIAR focused on a tiny plot of Mercantour, where core samples had already been made in the past.
A particular phenomenon in mountain areas has helped increase the radioactivity of soils in the area. In 1986, when the Chernobyl radioactive cloud hovers over Europe, these regions of the Alps were snowy. Cesium fallout 137 were then fixed on the snow which water has spread the radioisotope at their spring melt. “Water Snow receiving cesium circulated and contaminated very specific places,” says Bruno Chareyron. “These points were an accumulation of radioactive elements, initially spread over a large area,” he continues. Hence a very high concentration. “This phenomenon is specific to the mountain and is found for example in Austria,” says the scientist.
These measurements of the accumulation of radioactivity in the soil should not be confused with that of the means dropout rates. Thus, these disturbing figures are not representative of the whole French territory affected by the radioactive cloud. “In this area – a strip east of the territory that goes from the south of Corsica to Alsace north, soils are very different, rainfall at the time of the disaster as” explains Bruno Chareyron. Therefore, the present rate in soils vary, “of a few tens of becquerels per kilogram to several thousand or tens of thousands or even exceed 100,000 on these points accumulations”.
No signaling, no markup
“Just bivouac two or three hours to get hit,” warns the researcher, recalling that in terms of radioactivity, “there is no safety threshold.” “One radiation can be the basis of the complex process of developing cancer in later years. The risk is low but not non-existent, “worries Bruno Chareyron. As he pleads to “monitor the most affected spots or at least report by a markup.”
The least given the passivity of the French authorities 30 years ago. Bruno Chareyon invokes a “duty to remember” and recalled that at the time, other radioactive elements such as iodine-131 have led to diseases of the thyroid gland in the inhabitants of Alsace and Corsica. “You have to remember what lie 1986 and the serious lack of protection of the population insists he, France is the only country not to have taken health measures.”
Irony history, the CRIIA samples collected in the soil will be treated well and will be transferred to the National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (Andra). So it is that once ground out that these soils become officially nuclear waste.
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