TREE vol. 1, no.

1, July 1986

The partial
meltdown
of the
7000MW reactor in Chernobyl and
the massive release of radionuclides
into the environment
is the first
large-scale contamination of a geographically
significant area by a
power-generating
civilian
nuclear
plant. It will have a long term effect
on the human population, agriculture and the environment. Previous
cases of accidental contamination of
the environment
on such a scale
were connected with the disposal of
reprocessed nuclear waste or the
release of radioactivity from atmospheric and underground tests of nuclear weapons. One such contaminawhich
provides
important
tion,
lessons in the wake of the Chernobyl
disaster, was linked with the explosion of the nuclear waste storage
facility near Kyshtym in the Cheliabinsk region of the Soviet Union in
1958. It resulted in the creation of a
special exclusion zone, resettlement of local populations and special construction projects designed
to prevent
the
distribution
of
radioactivity over even larger areas.

Ecological
Aspects
oftheChernobyl
Nuclear
PlantDisaster

is therefore useful to indicate briefly

the available information about the
Kyshtym experience.
The medical aspects of the Kyshtym disaster are least known, because all data about the effect of
radiation on the population of the
affected area remain classified. Professor A.I. Burnazyan, the Deputy
Minister of Health of the USSR, and
Professor G.D. Baisogolov, an expert
on radiology and radiation sickness,
were in charge of the medical teams
assembled insome hospitals of Cheliabinsk and Sverdlovsk. Baisonolov
which
report
prepared
a
was available for experts in radiology in the Soviet Union but was
never published. The existence of
this report, describing 11 cases of an
was
sickness,
radiation
acute
acknowledged in a published review
of the achievements of Soviet medical radiology5, but without a bibliographic reference. Burnazyan, whose
was
in
Kyshtym
experience
The Kyshtym exclusion zone, first
apparently
supplemented
by the
estimated
approximately
on the
knowledge of medical problems in
basis of ecological studies of the
other nuclear installations
in the
contaminated
area (for review see USSR, later strongly opposed the
ref. I) and later assessed more accurlocation of nuclear power stations
ately with the use of satellite
near towns and cities. In a paper6 on
photographs2*3, includes about 1000
safety precautions
related to the
km* of land and also several large
accelerated nuclear power programlakes (Irtyash, Kyzltash and Tatysh).
me, Burnazyan recommended that a
The level of radioactive contaminanuclear power station, as far as
tion (mostly Sr and 37Cs) of the
possible, should be located in an
soil in the Kyshtym exclusion zone
area of low population with good
varied in the 1960s from 1 to 4 mCi/
natural ventilation toward the leem2. The comparison of maps of the
ward side with respect to populated
affected area before 1958 and after
areas. The selection of a site in a
1970 indicates that 32 villages and
basin or in an area with slight air
settlements were abandoned and the
and
frequent
calm
movement
dwellings apparently burned to preperiods is not recommended.
The
vent their reoccupation.
Only the
hydrological conditions of the area
most heavily contaminated
areas
should be assessed, to eliminate the
were isolated. A much larger area
possibility of radioactive materials
was contaminated with lower levels
entering ground water.
which
did not
of radioactivity,
recommendations
Burnazvans
necessitate .faccording to the safety
were not followed at Chernobyl. The
standards in 1958) the evacuation of Ministrv of Health of the USSR
the population. Early but credible re- adopted a special general instruction
ports about this accident4 indicated
about the regime of the health prothat the total contaminated area was
tection zones around nuclear power
approximately 8000 km. The disasstations, but this was often violated
ter was handled at first as a medical
for purely economic reasons. The
emergency
and later as an en- tendency to build new power stavironmental problem. It gave Soviet
tions near one already in operation
scientists some experience which
(the Chernobyl site had, in 1986, four
apparently will be used in the Cheroperational
power reactors which
nobyl exclusion zone and in the less were built in 1970-1983
and two
contaminated neighbouring areas. It under construction) was connected
with the permanent
presence of
ZhoresMedvedevis at the GeneticsDivision, large numbers of construction workNational Institutefor Medical Research,Mill ers in the areas considered to be
sanitar or health protective. The
Hill, LondonNW7 IAA, UK.

Zhores A. Medvedev
settlements
growth
of workers
around these sites continued despite
the change in the local radiological
regime after the introduction of each
new reactor. The instructions of the
Ministry of Health were never applied to the reactors built in late
1940s or 1950s within city limits (for
instance, the reactors of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in
Moscow, and the operational reactor
at the Moscow permanent exhibition
of economic achievements).
Ecological
studies
More than 150 studies of the
effects of the long-term radioactive
contamination on agricultural crops,
the environment, and the genetics of
olants and animals, carried out since
i959 in the Kyshtym exclusion zone,
were published in open Soviet literature (for review see refs 1, 2). The
scientific value of the reported results was reduced, however, by the
inability of the authors to describe
the nature of the original contamination, the exact composition of the
radioactive products, and the location of the experimental site. It was
never acknowledged that the contamination was connected with an
accident, even in the papers which
described
the size of the experimental area in km. The ecological study of the Kyshtym exclusion
zone has continued in the 1980s; the
papers which report the results are
easily recognizable because of the
possibilitv of tracing the approximate date of the ini& single aerial
contamination to 1958, the absence
of exact quantitative. information
about levels of Sr and 37Cs and
by the comparatively
large area
studied7-.
This Kyshtym family of studies of
the distribution of radionuclides in
the environment contrasts sharply
with many studies carried out by
Soviet ecologists on the distribution
of different radionuclides, particularly Sr and 137Cs, around operational
nuclear power stations. In these
cases the location of the experimental site is acknowled,ged (Kolsk
Atomic
Power
Station , around
Beloyarsk Power Station, etc.) and
the authors deal with very low, close
to natural background
levels of
radioactivity. A review published in
1981 presents a picture of an almost
complete absence of detectable contamination of soil or water reservoirs
by radioactive products from nuclear
power stations. It also shows that it
23

TREE vol. 1. no. 1, July 1986

became usual to use the warm water

pools near nuclear power stations
(which are linked with the reactor
cooling systems) for experimental or
commercial production of valuable
fish species, to build greenhouses
which use the reactor heat for growing vegetables, to use the health
protective zones (2.5 km radius) as
pastures for cattle, allotments and
recreation parks.
When the construction of the nuclear power stations became (from
1971) the priority of the Soviet energy programmes,
there was not a
single paper in Soviet academic journals which considered as serious the
possible negative influence, in terms
of radioactive
contamination,
of
these power stations on the environment. More serious attention was
given to the ecological effect of the
increasing use of river water for nuclear reactor cooling systems and the
loss of agricultural land. If the original programme
to increase Soviet
nuclear generating capacity to 3040% of that of the total Soviet need
of electric power in the year 2000 is
to be fulfilled, it would mean that
about 30% of all river water of the
Soviet Union would have to circulate
through the cooling systems of operational reactors13. It was expected
that this might change the ecological regime of rivers and also the local
climate, and ecologists suggested
that it would be essential to reduce
the discharge of hot or warm water
directly into the environment. The
economists and planners, however,
always wanted to supplement the
power station projects with extensive
energy-biological
industrial
complexes for the production of
fish, heating livestock farms, greenmushroom
production,
houses,
irrigation of fields, and the creation
of special pools for the production of
feed algae and yeast proteins. Soviet
power stations which are based on
the graphite moderated RBWK reactors and which now represent 60%
of all Soviet nuclear power stations
use cooling pools (artificial or natural) and are situated close to the
rivers, even though Soviet ecologists
often indicated the possible unpredictable long-term negative effect of
passing large quantities of river
water through the high-temperature
cooling circuits in which practical
sterilization of the water occurs.
Monitoringthe Charnobyl
contamination
Proper monitoring of radioactive
releases from nuclear power stations
is normally limited to the sanitar
zone around the stations (radius 2.5
km). Those areas immediately adjacent to the atomic towns are also

under the supervision of a special

department of the Ministry of Health,
which deals with the safety of those
who work in nuclear industrial or
military facilities. They are not part of
the local regional or district national
health system, which is responsible
for medical service in nearby settlements and villages. If the nuclear
power stations and the health protection zones around them are the
subject of sophisticated alarm systems and special emergency rules,
settlements
beyond the 2.5 km
radius are not included. This artificial qualitative and administrative
separation of medical supervision
and other control systems inside and
outside the sanitar zone have contributed to the delay in the assessment of the radiation situation in
such towns as Pripyat and Chernobyl
and other settlements situated well
within the 30 km radius from the
crippled and burning nuclear power
station. There was no elaborate
radiation control monitoring outside
the 2.5 km sanitar zone and this
delayed the evacuation of people living north of the station by 36 hours
and those living within 20 km south
of the station by as much as one
week. Evacuation
apparently
depended on the ad hoc decisions of
the local authorities, rather than the
existing
and
contingency
plans
emergency regulations. There was
no proper and rapid assessment of
the radioactive contamination of the
agricultural land around the burning
plant and some farms were evacuated as late as IO-12 days after the
accident. There were many contraaictory statements about the actual
levels of radioactivity in the close
vicinity of the damaged reactor, partly because they were made by politicians and not by the scientists responsible for monitoring the release
of radioactivity. Apparently,
some
politicians did not really know the
difference between roentgens and
milli-roentgens; this ignorance has
made a great difference!
The estimation of the approximate
amount of released radioactivity and
the character of fine particles of
radioactive
materials which were
carried to high altitudes by hot air is
very important for the assessment of
the possible long term effect of the
contamination. The reactors of the
Chernobyl type (1000 MW) use 100
kg of uranium fuel per day14. The
isotope composition of the uranium
rods depends on the duration of the
reaction. The design of the RBWK
reactors makes it possible to replace
each of about 1600 individual uranium fuel elements independently.
The
Kyshtym
exclusion
zone,

together with the surrounding lakes,

contains between IO6 and IO Ci of
Sr (refs. 1,2) which corresponds to
eight to 80 kg of this isotope in spent
nuclear fuel. The isotope composition (radioactive fingerprints) of the
Chernobyl plume which has reached
Sweden has now been reported15. It
corresponds with the nuclide inventory of the reactor in which fuel had
been in operation for about 400 days.
Among the long-lived isotopes only
the more volatile caesium (13Cs and
134Cs) has reached Sweden. Swedish
experts did not find Sr on their
filters. This means that the particles
with strontium, which is less volatile
than caesium, fell out mostly in the
Soviet part of the radioactive
plume. The initial calculations indicate that about 6 million curies of
13Cs were
released
during the
disaster16. The ratio of 13Cs and Sr
in spent fuel is about 1:l. In the
Kyshtym exclusion zore the ratio is
about 1:9. oartlv, because the reprocessing methods extracted caesium
for some practical applications and
partly because the more volatile
13Cs was distributed over a larger
territory.
If the pattern
of the
Chernobyl-related fall out is similar,
about 10 million curies of Sr are
probably distributed over parts of
the Ukraine and Bvelorussia northwest of the stricken reactor. The
amount of released iodine-131 is
larc,dr, but it has a short half-life and
does not contaminate soil and air for
lona periods. From the pattern of the
evacuation it is obvious that about
2,000-3,000 km* of land is now considered as unsuitable for agriculture.
Intensive effort is needed to prevent
the natural growth of the contaminated areas (through soil erosion,
wind, etc.).
Futureeffects
Many isotopes will be leaked during sprina, summer and autumn into
the Pripyat river, into a large reservoir a few miles from Chernobyl, and
into the Uzh - a tributary of the
Pripyat. It may be assumed, from the
direction of winds during the first
few days of the disaster, that the
Pripyat marshes (a large area north
west of Chernobyl with a sparse
population) are also contaminated.
Only comparatively large particles of
the radioactive cloud fall out at short
distances from the fire zone. Fine
particles could stay in the air for
days. The leaked radioactivity will
eventually reach the Dnieper and the
Black Sea. The character of contamination of the large lakes in the
Kyshtym area which was studied
during 1960-1975 indicates that the
contamination of the surface water

TREE vol. 1, no. I, July 7986

could be expected to rise periodically

(particularly during the spring snow
melting) for many years.
It is very likely that the Soviet
Union, after some initial reluctance,
will eventually adopt the same attitude towards nuclear power stations
as was adopted by the United States
after the long public enquiry into the
accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.
As well as ending the propaganda of
the almost absolute safety of nuclear
power plants and labelling them as
potentially dangerous, the US government
also recommended
that
new nuclear power plants be located
in areas remote from concentrations
of population. The official Soviet
policy until the Chernobyl disaster
did not take the Three Mile Island
lesson into consideration. The long
term planning continued to locate
nuclear energy plants of different
types (including the fast breeders)
near large cities in order to heat
towns centrally
with hot water.
Voronezh,
Gorky, Leningrad
and

Since Darwin accepted the MalthuSian population

theory to solve the
demographic
problems
he thought
to be logically connected
with the
universal operation of natural selection, the numerical processes in both
populations
and communities
were
generally supposed to be governed
by competition.
For interspecific
relations this found expression in the
competitive
exclusion
principle.
After it was shown that coexistence
rather than exclusion of closely related species is the rule, this principle gradually
changed
into the
competitive
niche shift principle.
Recently the universality of competition has been increasingly
questioned, so that other interspecific
relationships
(especially
predation)
are revaluated as possibly governing
many natural population
and interpopulation processes.

By considering natural selection as

the driving force of evolution Darwin
created a new problem: to be naturally selected implies a better chance
of leaving descendants, and if conditions remain favourable numbers
are expected to increase. In his own
words: Owing to the high geometrical rate of increase of all organic
beings, each area is already fully
Pieter den Boer is at the Biological Station,
Wijster (Agricultural University Wageningenb
Kampsweg 27 9418 PD Wijster. The Netherlands. This article is Communication no. 309 of
the BiologicalStation at Wijster.

some other nuclear power stations

are beinq built much nearer to these
cities than the Chernobyl station to
Kiev. The Chernobvl disaster will
affect future plans, and will certainly
make a serious impact on the nuclear
generating strategy in many other
countries as well.

6 Bumazyan, A./. f1975)At. Energi. 39,

167-172
7 Mednik, LG., Tikhomirov, F.A.,
Prokhorov, V.M. and Karaban, P.T. (1981)
Ekologiya, no. 1,4C-45
8 Molchanova, I.V., and Karavaeva, E.N.
(1981) Ekologiya, no. 5,86-88
9 Molchanova, I.V., Karavaeva, E.N.,
Chebotina. M.Ya., and Kulikov, N.V.
(1982) Ekologiya, no. 2.4-g
10 Buyanov, N.I. (1981) Ekologiya, no. 3,

Acknowledgements

66-70

The author is grateful to Geoffrey R.

Banks for reading the manuscript and for
comments and editorial assistance.

11 Nifontova, M.G., and Kulikov, N.V.

(1981) Ekologiya, no. 6,94-96
12 Kulikov, N.V. 11981) Ekologiya, no. 4,
5-11
13 Vennikov, V.A. (1975) In

References
1 Medvedev, Z.A. (1979) Nuclear Disaster
in the Urals, W.W. Norton
2 Trabalka, J.R.,Eyman, L.D.,and
Auerbach, S.I. (1980) Science, 209,345
353
3 Soran, D.M., and Stillman, D.B. (1982)

An Analysis of the Alleged Kyshtym

Disaster, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Report LA-9217-MS
4 Die Presse, March 18,1959. Vienna
5 Guskova, A.K. (1967) Med. Rad. 7 7,

53-64

Methodological Aspects of Study of

Biosphere(in Russian), pp. 55-71,
Moscow
14 Polushkin, K. (1980) Nauka iilhizn, no.
11.44-52
15 Devel, L., Tovedal, H., Bergstrom, U.,
Appelgren, A., Chyssler, J. and
Andersson, L. (1986) Nature, 321,
192-193
16 Beardslev. T. 119861 Nafure. 321. 187
17 Aleksakhin, RIM., and Naryshkin, M.A.
(1977) Migration of Radionuclides in
ForestBiocoenosis (in Russian), Nauka

ThePresentStatusoftheCompetitive
Exclusion
Principle
Pieter J. den Boer
stocked with inhabitants;
and it
follows
from
this, that as the
favoured forms increase in number,
so, generally, will the less favoured
decrease and become rare. Darwin
thought that this generally occurred
by competition,
not only between
varieties of the same species, but
also between species: We have
reason to believe that species in a
state of nature are limited in their
ranges by competition of other organic beings quite as much as, or more
than, by adaptation
to particular
climates. Especially closely related
species would compete severely: As
species of the same genus have
usually, though by no means invariably, some similarity in habits and
constitution, and always in structure,
the struggle will generally be more
severe between species of the same
genus, when they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera.
With this conclusion of Darwin the
competitive exclusion principle was
born, though it is generally referred
to as Gauses principle: It is admitted that as a result of competition
two similar species scarcely ever
occupy similar niches, but displace
each other in such a manner that

each takes possession of certain

peculiar kinds of food and modes of
fife in which it has an advantage over
its competitor.
The niche of a
species is thought to consist of the
essential resources of the species
inclusive of conditions of time and
space as well as the strategy of life
which enable it sufficiently to make
use of these resources. Therefore,
competition is that kind of interaction between individuals of two or
more species, by which at least one
of the species is kept from sufficient
ly using its essential resources.
In the 1920s the principle of competition was formalized in the LotkaVolterra equations. Given the highly
restricting
assumptions
of these
models, which state that populations
of identical individuals of two species are growing together in a closed
and
homogeneous
environment
with
constant
physico-chemical
properties, the principle is tautological: the conclusions are implicit in
the assumptions3.
Laboratory exoeriments in the 1930s and 194Os,
usually
with
genetically
homogeneous stocks of Tribolium or Drosophila species, aimed at satisfying
as closely as possible the premises
of the competition equations. They
25