The Environmental Impact

Abstract

Western scientists, using data from both Soviet and non-Soviet sources, have estimated the future cancer rates as a result of the disaster. They are on less secure ground when trying to assess the environmental impact of the accident. As the above quotation reveals, some Soviet citizens themselves remain uncertain about the consequences. The situation was complicated by the unevenness of the fallout and the contradictory statements issued by the authorities regarding the need for precautions. This chapter will also examine the question of the water supply in the Chernobyl area, but it should be stated at the outset that no figures on water contamination have been made available.

[The inhabitants of the] USSR do not know their future: neither the radioactivity level of their locality nor the extent to which the products they buy or grow are radioactively contaminated….Everything continues to be decided by those who conducted the Chornobyl experiment and now supervise the radioactivity and their secretly held measurements.

(Samizdat document, March 1987)