14. Protective Measures for Activities in Chernobyl's Radioactively Contaminated Territories

Abstract

Owing to internally absorbed radionuclides, radiation levels for individuals living in the contaminated territories of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia have been increasing steadily since 1994. Special protective measures in connection with agriculture, forestry, hunting, and fishing are necessary to protect the health of people in all the radioactively contaminated territories. Among the measures that have proven to be effective in reducing levels of incorporated radionuclides in meat production are food additives with ferrocyanides, zeolites, and mineral salts. Significant decreases in radionuclide levels in crops are achieved using lime/Ca as an antagonist of Sr-90, K fertilizers as antagonists of Cs-137, and phosphoric fertilizers that form a hard, soluble phosphate with Sr-90. Disk tillage and replowing of hayfields incorporating applications of organic and mineral fertilizers reduces the levels of Cs-137 and Sr-90 three- to fivefold in herbage grown in mineral soils. Among food technologies to reduce radionuclide content are cleaning cereal seeds, processing potatoes into starch, processing carbohydrate-containing products into sugars, and processing milk into cream and butter. There are several simple cooking techniques that decrease radionuclides in foodstuffs. Belarus has effectively used some forestry operations to create "a live partition wall," to regulate the redistribution of radionuclides into ecosystems. All such protective measures will be necessary in many European territories for many generations.