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The Mystery of Sand Sickness
FOR year*, students temporarily helping out at farms In Krasno uflmsk. in the Ura) region of ihe former Soviet Union, have fallen 111 with symptom* ranging from headache* to nausea and flu
The cause had never been Identified — until lately. Health experts now say the students' mysterious Illness may have been caused by exposure to stack* of sand in 24 wooden grain storage sheds at the Pobeda Integrated Store*, along-term storage facility meant for food.
Kept there since 1960. the 82,000 tonnes of concentrated monazite sand* have been found to contain thorium the radioactive metal that can be used to fuel nuclear reactors Instead of uranium.
Outside the stores, which are run down, badly protected and only 600 metres from the nearest village, radiation levels reach 1.500 microroentgens per hour. say*. Gennadi Alyyabishcv, deputy head of the Krasnoufimsk Administrative District. This mean* the maximum tolerable exposure Is about three minutes.
Local pressure for removal of the sand* has been building up for the past two year but the situation has only recently become more widely known.
Members of focal environmental pressure groups are now threatening to tie them selves on the railway line that runs past the store unless the sandbags are taken sway
The sand was reportedly delivered from Korea and were Intended a* raw for a thorium unclear fuel But plan was dropped because enrichment was found to be loo costly and large amounts o( uranium were discovered tn the former So viet Unton.
The sand wns the handed over to Pobeda for long-term storage, even If may thought the shed*, built In 1941 to store grain and sugar, were unsuitable for the purpose.
But the storehouse* were emptied and refilled with sack* of auburn coloured sand brought in by railway. The same railway car* were used to take away car* were used to take away the grain that had been hastily removed from the sheds.
Local people remember the sand being unloaded by prisoners who had been sentenced lo short terms of forced labour. They say the prisoners carried it tn on their backs and sat on it to eat their lunch.
None of those handling it, including the store official*, were told of the dangers Involved. And the delivery note*
describing the sand a* monazite ore containing up to 8 per cent of thorium 232 did not arrive until six months later.
That rang the alarm bells for the local sanitary inspectorate. which became worried over the presence of the radioactive material It filed an enquiry with the Russian Health Ministry. Four month* later, the ministry sent back Its approval of the arrangement.
Unsatisfied, the Inspectorate tried lo prevent any more deliveries of sand. But the health ministry said the •and was safe and Insisted that storage be maintained.
Eventually, a compromise was reached with the demarcation of a "no go" area of 600 metres around the store. But while the health ministry agreed lo resettle 200 resl dent* of a small workers' settlement inside the danger zone, this was not 4one until five year* later
Over the year*. store houses deteriorated. .In 1986 one of the roofs fell in|, sending up clouds of radioactive dust
Just IOC metres away, train* carrying explosives and dangerous chemical*, passed regularly On one oc^aston. a rail car carrying ansmonlum nitrate caught fire while it was making a delivery I to the neighbouring fertilizer .store.
If the fire had spread, the ammonium nitrate already store there could have ex- -ploded sending radioactive sand over a vast area and creating a Chcrnobyl-scale disaster.
Protests grew in the glasnost year*. By 1989, the Union Research Institute for ndus-trial Technologies relei sed a study of the situation The classified study found th it the "Inhaled products of de com position found inside the stores and up to 700 metre* away pose the gravest danger
The concentration of those product* was found to be 70 times the normal tolerance level. People were not to be within 600 metres of the storage hoses for more than three hour* a day
The tnatttute Is now considering way* of dealing with the sand and has come up with a variety of suggestion*, ranging from burying it under artificial hills to putting ft In Iron mses and dumping it In aban doned mines
Businessmen from the Baltics have been offering to take the sand But Russia, which had previously obtained Il from Kazakhstan, may decide to keep the sand for it* valuable elements.
One tonne is estimated to be worth around 60.000 rouble*. The Baltic businessmen, however, have said they want to return the radioactive thorium after removing other valuable rare-earth elements the sand contains.
Meanwhile, the bags of sand continue to sit in the old storehouses, as dangerous as ever — IPS