The Nuclear Landscape as a Garden 33
the society counted almost 50 000 members – but merely 67 instructors. The
latter number indicated the modest clout of the organization, whose activities
remained essentially limited to subbotnik-like campaigns such as collecting
cigarette stubs from flower beds, and whose most daring interventions criticized the sporadic breakdowns of the local sewage plant. 108 Meanwhile, the
region’s petrochemical and especially nuclear industries remained decidedly
off-limits for grassroots criticism. However, the worsening ecological situation throughout the country eventually forced the CPSU leadership to
acknowledge that symbolic politics would not suffice to cope with the problem. 109 In 1972, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council
of Ministers issued a joint decree “On Intensifying the Protection of the
Environment,” which prompted the creation of a network of nature protection and monitoring agencies at various levels of the state administration and
industrial management hierarchies. 110
Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, Sredmash was not exempt from
the provisions of this legislation, 111 even though the ministry’s leisurely pace
of implementation betrayed no particular sense of urgency. It was only at
the beginning of 1977 that a system of Laboratories for Environmental
Protection (LOOS) was established throughout the nuclear industrial complex. These laboratories were entrusted with implementing environmental
protection measures that henceforth formed a part of the enterprises’ annual
target plans. 112 Elaborating these plans and controlling their implementation
was the task of top-level Central Laboratories for Environmental Protection
(TsLOOS), one of which was instituted at every production-related General
Directorates (GU) of Sredmash. Thus, the Fourth GU (GUKhO), responsible for fuel reprocessing and plutonium production, based its TsLOOS at The
Maiak reprocessing plant, also known as Chelyabinsk-40. 113 Shevchenko’s
PGMK was chosen to host the TsLOOS of the First GU (GUGO), responsible for uranium mining. Subsequently, the laboratory collected emissions
data from all uranium mining and processing facilities in the USSR, elaborated air, water, and soil protection plans for the mining industry and devised
recycling and reclamation strategies. 114 The results were ambivalent, even
at the PGMK itself, notwithstanding the fact that it should have performed
a lighthouse function for the other enterprises of the uranium-mining sector. For instance, the PGMK began filtering its toxic exhaust gases before
releasing them into the atmosphere in 1980, 115 but in 1984, it was rebuked
for under-fulfilling its annual water protection plan by a whopping 70% – a
measure of neglect that would have been utterly unacceptable with regard to
other performance indicators. 116 For its ecological (and other) misdeeds, the
PGMK answered to a military rather than a civilian prosecutor. The fines
were moderate. 117 If nothing else, the institutionalization of nature protection at least heightened the sensibility for ecological problems, even though
amending them was often postponed indefinitely. For instance, the engineer
and physicist Vladimir Velikotskii, who had specialized in ecological projects
in Minsredmash since 1962 (measuring plutonium in waste waters, amongst
the society counted almost 50 000 members – but merely 67 instructors. The
latter number indicated the modest clout of the organization, whose activities
remained essentially limited to subbotnik-like campaigns such as collecting
cigarette stubs from flower beds, and whose most daring interventions criticized the sporadic breakdowns of the local sewage plant. 108 Meanwhile, the
region’s petrochemical and especially nuclear industries remained decidedly
off-limits for grassroots criticism. However, the worsening ecological situation throughout the country eventually forced the CPSU leadership to
acknowledge that symbolic politics would not suffice to cope with the problem. 109 In 1972, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council
of Ministers issued a joint decree “On Intensifying the Protection of the
Environment,” which prompted the creation of a network of nature protection and monitoring agencies at various levels of the state administration and
industrial management hierarchies. 110
Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, Sredmash was not exempt from
the provisions of this legislation, 111 even though the ministry’s leisurely pace
of implementation betrayed no particular sense of urgency. It was only at
the beginning of 1977 that a system of Laboratories for Environmental
Protection (LOOS) was established throughout the nuclear industrial complex. These laboratories were entrusted with implementing environmental
protection measures that henceforth formed a part of the enterprises’ annual
target plans. 112 Elaborating these plans and controlling their implementation
was the task of top-level Central Laboratories for Environmental Protection
(TsLOOS), one of which was instituted at every production-related General
Directorates (GU) of Sredmash. Thus, the Fourth GU (GUKhO), responsible for fuel reprocessing and plutonium production, based its TsLOOS at The
Maiak reprocessing plant, also known as Chelyabinsk-40. 113 Shevchenko’s
PGMK was chosen to host the TsLOOS of the First GU (GUGO), responsible for uranium mining. Subsequently, the laboratory collected emissions
data from all uranium mining and processing facilities in the USSR, elaborated air, water, and soil protection plans for the mining industry and devised
recycling and reclamation strategies. 114 The results were ambivalent, even
at the PGMK itself, notwithstanding the fact that it should have performed
a lighthouse function for the other enterprises of the uranium-mining sector. For instance, the PGMK began filtering its toxic exhaust gases before
releasing them into the atmosphere in 1980, 115 but in 1984, it was rebuked
for under-fulfilling its annual water protection plan by a whopping 70% – a
measure of neglect that would have been utterly unacceptable with regard to
other performance indicators. 116 For its ecological (and other) misdeeds, the
PGMK answered to a military rather than a civilian prosecutor. The fines
were moderate. 117 If nothing else, the institutionalization of nature protection at least heightened the sensibility for ecological problems, even though
amending them was often postponed indefinitely. For instance, the engineer
and physicist Vladimir Velikotskii, who had specialized in ecological projects
in Minsredmash since 1962 (measuring plutonium in waste waters, amongst