34 Stefan Guth
other things) started to devise a project for the remediation of the KoshkarAta tailings reservoir in 1982. 118 Also, Shevchenko’s TsLOOS reportedly
proved its value at Chernobyl, where its specialists developed a number of
measures for disaster mitigation. 119
At MAEK, the Fourth Main Directorate (responsible for reactors) ordered
radiation measurements around the BN-350 to be taken years before the
reactor went online. 120 Outfitting the facility with a radio-based control system capable of measuring gamma radiation within a 25-km perimeter and
transmitting the results back to the control room amounted to an acknowledgment that major accidents could not be ruled out, but the system was
also invoked to prove that “virtually no change of radiation levels” was
measured within the control zone upon start-up of the reactor, nor, allegedly, at any later point in time. 121 The Combine’s LOOS, created in January
1977 by the simple act of renaming what had hitherto been the dosimetry
service, 122 consequently spent most of its efforts on presenting the BN-350
as a source of clean energy which allegedly scored not a single incident
of increased emissions of radionuclides or toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. 123 This narrative was challenged only in 1989, when MAEK’s workers’ collective deemed it necessary to establish “maximum values for the
release of radionuclides into the atmosphere and harmful wastes into the
Caspian Sea,” thereby calling into question the trustworthiness of prior official measurements. 124
The years immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union
were characterized, in Mangyshlak as in many other places of the USSR,
by an overwhelming sense of ecological emergency. For a few years, the
containment and mitigation of ecological degradation was considered a top
priority in local politics. To assess the environmental impact of the region’s
brute-force industrialization, a short-lived local think tank by the name of the
Mangistau Scientific-Technological Centre for Regional Studies offered to elaborate
a comprehensive ecological damage report, which was to provide comparisons with the status quo ante by overlaying up-to-date aerial imagery with
satellite photographs from the 1950s to 1960s. This, the authors claimed,
would render visible changes in vegetation, erosion, oil pollution, and so
on, and thereby provide a better understanding of the “vulnerability” or
“resilience” of nature vis-à-vis the anthropogenic impact. This knowledge
could then be used for the “elaboration of a strategy to minimize the conflict between the constant strive of man for ever greater wealth (satisfaction
of needs) and nature protection.” 125 Nothing came of the project as local
authorities decided that literally no rocket science was needed to discern the
traces of human pressing on the environment.
Instead, a commission of the Oblast’ parliament devised a five-year plan for
the region’s ecological recovery. It called for the development of a radiation
protection scheme for the Koshkar-Ata tailings lake, the construction of a
safe storage for radioactive oil production equipment, the elaboration of various concepts to ensure safe operation and eventual decommissioning of the
other things) started to devise a project for the remediation of the KoshkarAta tailings reservoir in 1982. 118 Also, Shevchenko’s TsLOOS reportedly
proved its value at Chernobyl, where its specialists developed a number of
measures for disaster mitigation. 119
At MAEK, the Fourth Main Directorate (responsible for reactors) ordered
radiation measurements around the BN-350 to be taken years before the
reactor went online. 120 Outfitting the facility with a radio-based control system capable of measuring gamma radiation within a 25-km perimeter and
transmitting the results back to the control room amounted to an acknowledgment that major accidents could not be ruled out, but the system was
also invoked to prove that “virtually no change of radiation levels” was
measured within the control zone upon start-up of the reactor, nor, allegedly, at any later point in time. 121 The Combine’s LOOS, created in January
1977 by the simple act of renaming what had hitherto been the dosimetry
service, 122 consequently spent most of its efforts on presenting the BN-350
as a source of clean energy which allegedly scored not a single incident
of increased emissions of radionuclides or toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. 123 This narrative was challenged only in 1989, when MAEK’s workers’ collective deemed it necessary to establish “maximum values for the
release of radionuclides into the atmosphere and harmful wastes into the
Caspian Sea,” thereby calling into question the trustworthiness of prior official measurements. 124
The years immediately before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union
were characterized, in Mangyshlak as in many other places of the USSR,
by an overwhelming sense of ecological emergency. For a few years, the
containment and mitigation of ecological degradation was considered a top
priority in local politics. To assess the environmental impact of the region’s
brute-force industrialization, a short-lived local think tank by the name of the
Mangistau Scientific-Technological Centre for Regional Studies offered to elaborate
a comprehensive ecological damage report, which was to provide comparisons with the status quo ante by overlaying up-to-date aerial imagery with
satellite photographs from the 1950s to 1960s. This, the authors claimed,
would render visible changes in vegetation, erosion, oil pollution, and so
on, and thereby provide a better understanding of the “vulnerability” or
“resilience” of nature vis-à-vis the anthropogenic impact. This knowledge
could then be used for the “elaboration of a strategy to minimize the conflict between the constant strive of man for ever greater wealth (satisfaction
of needs) and nature protection.” 125 Nothing came of the project as local
authorities decided that literally no rocket science was needed to discern the
traces of human pressing on the environment.
Instead, a commission of the Oblast’ parliament devised a five-year plan for
the region’s ecological recovery. It called for the development of a radiation
protection scheme for the Koshkar-Ata tailings lake, the construction of a
safe storage for radioactive oil production equipment, the elaboration of various concepts to ensure safe operation and eventual decommissioning of the