Crops grown near the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine are still contaminated with radiation since the 1986 explosion disaster.
In a new study, researchers found that two radioactive isotopes in wheat, rye, oats, and barley grown in this area – strontium 90 and cesium 137 – were above safe consumption levels. Radioactive isotopes are elements that have increased mass and released more energy as a result.
“Our findings point to persistent pollution and human exposure, exacerbated by the lack of official routine study,” said study author David Santillo, an environmental forensic scientist at the University of Exeter’s Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said in a statement, citing the government’s suspension of its radioactive goods inspection program in 2013.
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Santillo and his colleagues, in collaboration with researchers from the Ukrainian Agricultural Radiation Institute, analyzed 116 grain samples, collected between 2011 and 2019, from the Ivankiv region of Ukraine – approx. at 31 miles (50 km) south of the nuclear plant.
This area is outside the Chernobyl “exclusion zone”, which is a 30 mile (48 km) radius around the plant that was evacuated in 1986 and has been evacuated. They found that radioactive isotopes, mainly strontium 90, exceeded safe consumption level in 48% of samples. They also found that wood samples collected from the same region between 2015 and 2019, with strontium levels 90 above the limit were safe for fuel.
The researchers believe that lingering radiation in the forest, in particular, may be the cause of continued crop pollution, almost 35 years after the disaster. When analyzing wood ash from domestic wood burning ovens, they found 90 strontium levels that were 25 times higher than the safe limit. Locals use this ash, as well as ash from the local thermal power plant (TPP), to fertilize their crops, which continues to cycle the radiation through their soil.
However, computer simulations suggest that it would be possible for crops to grow in the region at “safe” levels if this process of pollution stopped again. The researchers are now urging the Ukrainian government to reset its inspection program and create a system for the proper disposal of radioactive ash.
“Pollution of grain and timber grown in the Ivankiv region remains a matter of grave concern and deserves further urgent investigation,” the study’s author Valery Kashparov, director of the Ukrainian Agricultural Radiation Institute, said in the statement. “Similarly, further research is urgently needed to assess the effects of TPP Ivankiv on the environment and local residents, much of which is still largely unknown.”
The findings were published December 17 in the journal International Environment.
First published on Living Science.