Radionuclides in the Arctic seas from the former Soviet Union: Potential health and ecological risks

• Main Authors: Layton, D W, Edson, R, Varela, M, Napier, B
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: 22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS; 21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; 07 ISOTOPES AND RADIATION SOURCES; 61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY; ARCTIC REGIONS; COASTAL WATERS; PACIFIC OCEAN; ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS; CONTAMINATION; STRONTIUM 90; NUCLEAR SHIPS; SHIP PROPULSION REACTORS; THERMOELECTRIC GENERATORS; RADIATION DOSES; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Kamchatka Peninsula; Kara Sea; Okhotsk; Pacific; Icebreaker; Kamchatka; Novaya Zemlya; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/757029; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/757029; https://doi.org/10.2172/757029

The primary goal of the assessment reported here is to evaluate the health and environmental threat to coastal Alaska posed by radioactive-waste dumping in the Arctic and Northwest Pacific Oceans by the FSU. In particular, the FSU discarded 16 nuclear reactors from submarines and an icebreaker in the Kara Sea near the island of Novaya Zemlya, of which 6 contained spent nuclear fuel (SNF); disposed of liquid and solid wastes in the Sea of Japan; lost a {sup 90}Sr-powered radioisotope thermoelectric generator at sea in the Sea of Okhotsk; and disposed of liquid wastes at several sites in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Kamchatka Peninsula. In addition to these known sources in the oceans, the RAIG evaluated FSU waste-disposal practices at inland weapons-development sites that have contaminated major rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean. The RAIG evaluated these sources for the potential for release to the environment, transport, and impact to Alaskan ecosystems and peoples through a variety of scenarios, including a worst-case total instantaneous and simultaneous release of the sources under investigation. The risk-assessment process described in this report is applicable to and can be used by other circumpolar countries, with the addition of information about specific ecosystems and human life-styles. They can use the ANWAP risk-assessment framework and approach used by ONR to establish potential doses for Alaska, but add their own specific data sets about human and ecological factors. The ANWAP risk assessment addresses the following Russian wastes, media, and receptors: dumped nuclear submarines and icebreaker in Kara Sea--marine pathways; solid reactor parts in Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean--marine pathways; thermoelectric generator in Sea of Okhotsk--marine pathways; current known aqueous wastes in Mayak reservoirs and Asanov Marshes--riverine to marine pathways; and Alaska as receptor. For these waste and source terms addressed, other pathways, such as atmospheric transport, could be considered under ...