Answer to Question #6448 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

Your question is quite sensible, in that the Chernobyl accident caused very wide-spread contamination, particularly in Belarus. The short answer to your question is that the children coming from Belarus (or Ukraine or Russia for that matter) do not carry on their clothes or bodies contamination that could then affect you or your family.

And now for the long answer. It is true that the land where the children live is still contaminated. That is, if I were to take a soil sample I would, with sensitive instruments, be able to detect radioactive caesium and a few other radionuclides.

However, today, over 21 years after the Chernobyl accident, much has changed in the contaminated areas. Of course there have been massive works to remove contamination from public areas (for example, streets, houses, schools, etc.), and these have been aided by natural processes (wind and rain) to "wash away" the contamination. By wash away, I mean that some has seeped into the ground and groundwater, and some has been carried away by surface water. These dilution processes do redistribute the contamination, yet the amount of contamination in the ground and water in these regions today is well below allowable limits and is not a health issue (I would let my 11-year-old and my six-year-old drink that water for example). All this to say that while the children in Belarus do live in a "contaminated environment," they are not "wallowing" in contamination.

So, you then ask, what is the problem in Belarus? Well, in fact, there are two problems. First, in Belarus much of the food that is eaten by people living in the contaminated areas is grown in the contaminated areas. These are poor, rural areas where not much is imported. As I just explained, the contamination levels (including on farms and fields) are low and decreasing, but fruits and vegetables will still take contaminants from the soil and concentrate them, and then if these are eaten the contaminants will cause exposure in people.

There are lots of processes in place to assure that the food that is eaten is not contaminated, but some of it still is, so people still get some dose from the food they eat (particular foods, like mushrooms from the forest—a delicacy among villagers in Belarus—are more contaminated than others).

The second problem is that even with very small amounts of contamination still left on surfaces (for example, roads, walls, roofs, etc.) the people living there will be exposed to radiation from these sources. And what does this mean to these people? Well, one report I read characterised these folks as "ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances." I think that this says it all. However in terms of their radiation dose, these days they are virtually all below what you and I are allowed to get, that is, 1 millisievert per year. Yes, there are a few above this level, but there are efforts to bring these people's dose to below 1 millisievert per year.

Okay, so back to your question about children coming to the United Kingdom for vacations. Given that the contamination levels in Belarus are very low today, and given that the people living in the contaminated areas are not "wallowing in dirt," the children who get off the plane in the United Kingdom will not have contamination on their clothes or on their bodies and will not cause any health risk at all to anyone with or near them.

Edward N. Lazo, CHP, PhD