Toxic Train Rolls Into Town
By Irina Titova
Staff Writer
Radiation levels near a stationary train in the city’s Avtovo residential district were 30 times higher than the accepted norm, city ecologists said after they took measurements next to it on Saturday. The train was loaded with radioactive waste from Germany. “Background radiation levels near the train measured 680 microroentgen an hour, when the norm is 12 microroentgen an hour,” said Rashid Alimov, a member of the St. Petersburg branch of the ecological organization Bellona. The siding where the train stood is where local residents regularly cross the railroad tracks so as not to walk across an elevated railroad bridge, Alimov said. Alimov said exposure to radiation at these levels is not deadly but could still have negative effects on the health of people exposed to it. Activists from Bellona and other Russian environmental groups were met by a guard carrying a machine gun, which he cocked and pointed at the environmentalists as they took measurements near the train, Alimov said. The ecologists unfurled a banner reading “No to the Import of Nuclear Waste!” at the railway platform where the cargo train was located. Bellona and Ecodefence have been following 1,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride since it arrived at the St. Petersburg port from Germany’s Urenco enrichment facility in Gronau. The radioactive waste is to be sent by train to the Urals for burial. Alimov said the transport of such cargo is very dangerous and an accident during transit would have serious consequences. “It is much safer to leave such waste where it was used — its transportation increases the risk of emergencies,” he said. Alimov said the train was still in Avtovo on Sunday but had gone on Monday. Bellona was not sure if it had left the city. On Sunday, Bellona, EcoDefence, Green Wave and Green World environmental groups also held a protest in the center of the city against the uranium imports. Demonstrators held photographs of children with deformities caused by radiation and pictures of radioactive disasters. At the meeting the environmentalists gathered about 300 signatures from the city residents in a letter of protest addressed to Russian Atomic Energy minister Sergei Kiriyenko. “In the letter we demanded the revocation of the treaty on the import of radioactive waste to Russia,” Alimov said. Alimov said the ecologists also demanded that the Emergency Situations Ministry provide official measurements and research about the condition of the containers in which it is transported.
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