Socio-Demographic And Ecologic Situation,

Level And Way Of The Life Of Population

On Radiation-Contaminated Territories:

10 Years After The Chornobyl Disaster

(Zhytomyr Region, Narodychi and Ovruch Areas As An Example)

 

By Yuriy Sayenko and Oleksiy Rogozhin

 

Part 1. The Living Standard Of Population On Territories Contaminated With Radiation

 

1.1. Some major indicators of socio-economic situation in Ukraine.

 

It continues to fall the gross national product: in 1995 it has decreased by 12%, and in 1996 - by 10% in comparison to preceding year.

 

The officially registered unemployment rate at the beginning of 1997 has been equal to 1.3%. At the same time, 24% of working people are to be on unpaid leaves, and 9% of working people worked part-time daily (weekly).

 

After a slump in an average wage of workers and employees, it began to grow: it has been equal to 81 hryvnias in 1995, and to 138 hryvnias in 1996.

 

The form of the property of industrial enterprises is being changed. In 1996, the collective property has made up 70%; state-owned property has made up 29.8%; foreign organisations and physical persons - 0.2%. Capital assets have been of such a structure: private property - 2%; collective one - 36%; state-owned one - 62%. Privatized apartments out of total public housing resources made up 9.4%.

 

The population number at the beginning of 1997 has been cut in comparison to early 1989 by 800 000 persons, and for the last year it has decreased by 400 000 persons (population in cities and towns  - by 300 000 persons, in rural regions - by 100 000 persons; men - by 200 000 persons, women - by 200 000 persons).

 

The birth-rate has fallen from 12.7 per 1000 persons in 1990 to 9.1, and the mortality rate for this period has grown from 12.1 to 15.2. The number of murders for this period has increased in 1.9 times, and the number of suicides has increased in 1.4 times.

 

For the 1990-1996 period, the expected duration of life has shorten from 71  to 67 years, i.e. by 4 years (among men from 66 to 61 years, i.e. by 5 years; among women - from 75 to 73 years, i.e. by 2 years).

 

There have been studied, during this period, in high educational establishments 7134000 pupils. This number remains to be unchanged. The number of students in vocational training schools has decreased by 18%; in higher eductaional establishments of I and II accreditation level it has decreased by 21%, and in higher eductaional establishments of III-IV accreditation level it has increased by 11%.

 

1.2. Sociological sources of information

 

In Ukraine, unfortunately, an administrative statistics does not calculate the average monthly income of families suffered due to the the Chornobyl disaster. There have been analyzed here the data obtained as a result of sociological research carried out in March 1997 by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv,  according to the program of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine and funded by it. There have been questioned 1200 respondents (the 2-nd zone: Zhytomyr Region, Narodychi Area - 300 persons; the 3-d zone: Zhytomyr Region, Ovruch Area - 300 persons; re-settlers: Kyiv Region, Baryshivsky Area - 300 persons, a "clean" region: Poltava Region, Grebinkivsky Area - 300 persons).

 

1.3. Official poverty "thresholds" in Ukraine

 

The lower threshold of poverty (the "threshold of biological survival"), recognized by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 1997, amounts to 70.9 hryvnias a month per a person, and 213 hryvnias per a family, composed of three persons in average at suffered people.

 

The upper threshold of poverty, according to the calculations of minimum consumer basket, makes up 224 hryvnias per a person a month, and 672 hryvnias per a family.

 

1.4. Average monthly aggregate income of suffered population families

 

The aggregate income consists of two parts (see Table 1.1.):

 

1) money income: salary, non-Chornobyl pensions and extra charges and "Chornobyl" additional charges (Table 1.1., Items 1 and 2);

 

2) calculated cost of other income.

 

All types of income have been calculated on the basis of the sociological research data and average norms.

 

The cost of aid in the form of "clean" products (Table 1.1., Item 4) is calculated, proceeding from the fact that their average monthly cost makes up 20 hryvnias, and they are received, e.g. in the Village of  of V'yazivka of Narodychi Area (calculations will be given further for this region), only by 25% of families: 20x0, 25=5 hryvnias.

 

The cost of aid in the form of preferential vouchers is given in Table 1.1, Item 5. The cost of a voucher equal to 170 hryvnias multiplied by the share of those families who obtain it: 170x0, 92=157 hryvnias.

 

The cost of "humanitarian" aid is given in Table 1.1, Item 6. The average cost of this aid equal to 20 hryvnias multiplied by the share of families who get it: 20x0, 025=0, 5 hryvnias.

The cost of products produced in household has been calculated, proceeding from the fact that an average family, that has a household (a lot of 0.4 hectares, poultry, cow, pig) receives an income from an average monthly products in the amount of 150 hryvnias. Depending on what share of families gains such an amount of products always, frequently or sometimes, we receive calculated results. It is clear that in a rural locality they are the highest: 136-140 hryvnias, in Narodychi, a settlement of urban type, they are lower - 72 hryvnias, and in the town of Ovruch they are smallest - 24 hryvnias.

The cost of " forest gift". In spite of the fact that mushrooms and berries in forests still have quite a high, harmful for a health, level of contamination with radiation, 74% of habitants of Village of V'yazivka, 64% of the settlement of urban type of Narodychi, 54% of Village of Slovechno and 26% of the town of Ovruch pick up mushrooms and berries, and complement them to their ration of meals.

Provided that their cost has been taken according to market prices, we receive the data, given in Table 1.1, Item 7.

 

 

 

Narodychi Area

Ovruch Area

 

Indicators

Village of  Vyazivka

(n=158)

Town of Narodychi (n=140)

Village of Slovechno (n=146)

Town of Ovruch (n=145)

A

B

C

D

E

F

1.

Money income

102

103

97

107

2.

"Chornobyl" additional charges

81

72

103

117

3.

All money income(1+2)

183

175

200

224

4.

The cost of aid in the form of  "clean" products

5

5

5

8

5.

The cost of aid in the form of  preferential places in sanatoriums for treatment and recovering

157

160

148

154

6.

The cost of “humanitarian” aid

0.5

0.3

0.9

0.3

7.

The cost of products produced in the household

140

72

136

24

8.

The cost of “gift of forest”

20

18

14

8

9.

The cost of other types of income

323

237

308

194

10.

Aggregate income

506

412

508

418

 

Table 1.1. The average monthly aggregate income of  an average three-person suffered family in hryvnias

                  (1 Hryvna=$US0.546) in Zhytomyr Region, Narodychi Area (n=298 respondents) and Ovruch Area (n=291 respondents), March 1977.

 

According to such a way of calculations, the total average monthly income of a suffered family makes up 506-508 hryvnias in the rural locality and 412-418 hryvnias respectively in a town: an aggregate income of a rural family exceeds by 100 hryvnias an aggregate income of an urban family. This event, first, is confirmed by a history - in a village there has been always more easily to survive in a crisis situation, second, this is confirmed by the data of administrative statistics and other national sociological researches.

 

The aggregate income, we calculated, is in a poverty range (213-672 hryvnias) on the border of biological survival. The trustworthiness of received value of a family aggregate income confirms the following question of self-appraisal by population whether the income is sufficient (Table 1.2.): 80% (76%-88%) of families make hardly both ends meet; 8% of families (1%-10%) lack money for food sometimes; at the same time, for 12% of families (7%-17%) the received income is sufficient for living.

 

Whether a received income is sufficient for your family?

 

Narodychi Area

Ovruch Area

 

Village

Town

Village

Town

 

We lack sometimes money for food

10

6

7

1

 

We make hardly both ends  meet

83

82

76

88

 

It is suficient for us

7

12

17

11

 

 

The most important types of social aid.

What an aid is necessary for you? (%)

 

 

Narodychi Area

Ovruch Area

 

 

Village

Town

Village

Town

1.

Pecuniary aid

98

98

95

98

2.

Personal treatment

95

95

79

88

3.

Treatment of children

72

74

61

57

4.

Employment

20

23

16

18

5.

To obtain a new profession or be retrained

15

13

16

21

6.

To move to a new place of residence

12

10

10

11

 

Table 1.2. Whether a received income is sufficient for your family? The most important types of social aid. What an aid is necessary for you? (%)

 

The consequences of nation-wide crisis, when payment of salaries and wages, pensions and "Chornobyl" aid is delayed, on average, for three or four months, force the people want, first of all, to receive a pecuniary aid. Because it is the money that the people lack acutely for their daily living. And the said table above testified this fact

 

The treatment problem is in the second place. Unfortunately, an aggravation of  health condition of the suffered is complicated by the lack of funds, medicines, medical equipment and skilled personnel.

 

The other problems are not so acute, nevertheless, the fifth part of the suffered people, i.e. each third person in an able-bodied age, is concerned with the problems of an employment. The problem of employment of the suffered people is not being solved. The social and psychological tension is increased. The suffered people are excluded out of the sphere of active activity, when being involved in it, a man could be diverted from everyday press of economic problems.

 

Hence, each sixth adult suffered person wants whether acquire a new profession, or be retrained, however, nobody helps him to do it. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the system of vocational training and retraining. The more so, as 80%-90% of the suffered people are ready to contintue to live in old places. And only 10% of the suffered people need an aid, in order to go out of the second or the third zone of radioactive contamination. And when the matters are such ones, it arises a pressing problem to adjust all the aspects of fool-blooded life in all the territories.

 

All the suffered people insist exceptionally on the fact that the most important types of aid for them are the following:

 

1. Free treatment and recovering.

2. Providing the children with "clean" products.

3. Free medicines for children.

4. Free food for children in pre-school establishments and schools.

 

 

Part 2. Post-Chornobyl Transformation In Ecological Conditions and Its Effect On The Life of Autochthonal Population At The Time Of Protracted Socio-Economic Crisis Of Post-Communist Transition

 

2.1. Geographical position, natural and landscape conditions and special features of using the nature

 

The research is carried out, using as an example two neighboring rural administrative ditricts - Narodychi Area and Ovruch Area of 1288 sq. km. and 3345 sq. km. respectively. They are located in a forest natural zone (Polissya) in the North of  Zhytomyr Region, bordering on Bilorus in the Southern periphery of marshy Prip'yat low ground of aquatic-glacial origin.

 

These areas are characterized by specific diversity of natural and landscape conditions. It is just here where Slovechansko-Ovruch Area Mountain-Ridge is located (its height is up to 316 m.), which is the Northern outskirts of Ukrainian crystal shield. Though a hilly relief is immanent only to the Eastern and Central part of Ovruch Area, the crystal rocks (chiefly, pink quartzites and granites) litter, practically, the whole territory of both areas.

 

The present soils and herbage have been formed here only in holocen - after the last glacial epoch (11-12 millennium B.C.). The grass and podzol, as well as sandy and sandy-loam soils, under miscellaneous pine and oak forests, are predominant. A separate tract and massif is formed by the far more fertile grey forest soils under the oak-woods, largely cut down (in the mountain-ridge), and turf and meadow as well as peat soils on flood-plain lands of the Uzh and Noryn Rivers.

 

This “isle“ of soils, suitable for agriculture, in the middle of the “sea“ of sands has attracted a man from old times. Primitive cattle-breeders and crop-growers (Indo-Europeans) have appeared here in the IV-III millennium B.C. Before the Xth century A.D., on this territory, there have been prevailed the slash-burn clearing and ploughing, arable farming and field cropping with animal husbandry on personal plots of land, as well as gathering of forest gifts. Up to the end of the XIXth century A.D. there has been dominated here a natural peasant economy with the overwhelming development of dairy and meat animal husbandry (fertile soils were in lack, instead of it there was a plenty of meadows and forest grazing pastures), a forestage was broadly used.

 

The industrial revolution of the end of the XIXth century and/or the beginning of the XXth century have resulted in building railways and main roads that have come across through the Town of Ovruch. It activated the commercial production of local significance (except for mining the quartzites and peat): dairy products, flax, rye, hop, timbers and building materials.

 

Such a specialization and such a structure of economy have been kept up to the present day. The paces of industrial development in Soviet times were moderate, the destruction of landscapes (by building open-cast mines, quarries and pits as well as erecting the firing, proving and training gounds) was local. Even taking into consideration chronic overcutting down the wood in forests, exhausting peat-beds, intensive mining quartzites, mass-scale draining works and chemicalization of agriculture with exceeding an average region (oblast) level (Table 2.2), here it is maintained a high level of woodlands (Ovruch Area - nearly 65%!) and meadow lands, a low density of population, insignificant level of urbanization (Tables 2.3 and 2.4).

 

It secures the reproduction of basic natural components at the expense of the preservation of the self-restored and self-cleared capability of natural ecological systems - they are significantly anthropogenized, but not destroyed. Therefore, the berry, mushroom, medical raw herb and flower places in Ovruch Area and Narodychi Areas have one of the highest efficient potentials in Ukraine.

 

The state of environment before the the Chornobyl disaster can be described with such parameters:

 

·      radiation background:                      10-25 mR/year;

·      content of the Cs-137+137 and Sr-90 in soil:       up to 0.05 Ci/km;

·      geochemical type of water:                   gumine-hydrocarbon-calciumn                                                  (or sulphate-calcium) with total                                                  mineralization up to 200 mg/l;

·      natural geochemical anomalies of metals,

including Be (more than the 10-clark content):        only a few of villages in the                                                    South and in the far West of                                                  the Ovruch Area;

·      moderate natural radioactive anomalies

in underground waters (Rn, 30-150 eman):        Central and South-Eastern part                                                  of the Ovruch Area, Western                                                  part of the Narodychi Area;

·      forest, meadow and bog as well as river valley landscapes;

·      natural diet:                                    chiefly, dairy and vegetable                                                         (potatoes, bread, vegetables)                                                      with increased consumption of                                              forest berries, mushrooms, and                                           honey.

 

2.2. Autochthonal population, its history, traditions, “pre-Chornobyl “ health

 

The special feature of the district under research is the fact that for several thousand years of its history, there has been never full substitution of aboriginals for newcomers. The roots of present population are traced distinctly (in cultural, linguistical, anthropological, genetic way) to the times of early slavic ethnogeny (the IInd-Vth centuries A.D.), when the late zarubynetsky substratum joined Kyiv, and later Praha and Korchak (sklavines) cultural and ethnic community. The Ovruch volost (small rural district) entered Dulebsky center (the VIth-VIIth centuries), it was the second, by its significance, center of Old Slavic Union of tribes - the rival of Kyiv (the VIIIth-Xth centuries), by armed force adjoined to Kyiv the caganat (polyan-rusi) by princess Olga, and since that time it became the part of Kyiv land to the end of the XVIIth century (in the composition of Kyiv Rus’, Kyiv Principality, Office of Voevode (Governor of Province) of Great Lithuanian Principality and Polish Rich Pospolite). It is the town of Ovruch (by annals, Vruchii) is mentioned, for the first time, about 946 year. The Ovruch land was burgled by the Tatars in 1240 and, in late XIII century, has become a castle volost (a small rural district, the Ovruch Castle of Kyiv Appanage, later, the Great Lithuanian Prince), and, since that time, descendants of the old Drevlyans tribes lived out in a low voice their days in their forests, until a outbreak of ethnogeny of contemporary Ukrainians did transform them into violent cossacks of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries. The times of cossacks changed the face of ancient land, the majority of present villages have arisen in those times, till the XVIIIth century (including Narodychi, Slovechno - in the XVIIth century). The main anthropologic and ethnocultural features of contemporary autochthonal population have been stabilized also at that time, when a typical slavic substratum absorbed a large massif (up to 30% of the whole population) of the Southern Ukrainian people from a steppe - largely, of the Turkic origin (the baptized Polovtsians, Torks).

 

In the god-forsaken forests and bogs at the right bank of the Prip'yat River, there has been formed the engaged only into its everyday life Ukrainian-speaking subethnos of the Polishchuks that, by its traditions and behaviour, retained much from a culture of the old slavic times. The Northern and Western periphery of Ovruch Area borders on the area of outspread of Polishchuks.

 

Thus, on investigated territories we observe a transitional zone from a contemporary Ukrainian type (lively, dynamic “cossack“) up to a persistent type that hides from the world into a long-standing tradition and forest and bog landscape. Such a man needs only to have the forest and meadows, raw economy, and wants to be left alone. And without taking into consideration this circumstance (a degree of outspread of the Polishchuks’ psychology), it is impossible to explain the reaction of the autochthonal population, suffered due to the Chornobyl disaster and its further outcomes.

 

The present number of population in the Narodychi Area is equal to 12 000 persons (including the urban one - 10.8%), in the Ovruch Area - 76 000 000 persons (including the urban one - 28.5%). The autochthones make up absolute majority of population, especially, of the rural one. Just in the towns of the Ovruch Area there are plenty of newcomers among industrial and transport workers. In the result of the Chornobyl disaster, the large part of autochthones has been forced to become the resettlers. There have been disappeared from the map the rural communities that existed for several centuries (in Narodychi Area there have been disappeared more than 16 villages, in Ovruch Area - more than 3 villages). Still more people have gone out voluntarily. It is the Narodychi Area that has suffered especially from irrevocable migration, having lost 14 000 persons since 1986 (more than a half of pre-Chornobyl disaster population), because, practically, the whole its territory is registered officially as the zones of the compulsory and voluntary settling out. At the same time, the Ovruch Area has lost as migrants only 7 000 persons.

 

Before the Chornobyl disaster, the population of investigated areas (except the Ovruch Area in 1985) is characterized by lower sickness rate both of children and adults, in comparison, on average, to Zhytomyr Region and Ukraine as a whole, and higher duration of life (according to the statistical data of Ukraine).

 

2.3. The transformations of the ecological conditions of life and use of nature upon the Chornobyl disaster

 

 Arising of the radioactive and ecologic factor

 

The investigated areas have turned out to be on the axis of Western trace of radioactive precipitation from the blown up Chornobyl Atomic Power Station, pulled out in meridional direction and enriched mainly with radioiodine and radiocaesium. There have been present there also in much lesser concentrations strontium, plutonium, and other transuranides. There has been observed all the spectrum of radioecologic conditions, characteristic for the Western trace of contamination - the high, moderate and low levels of contamination, the moderate, high and superhigh intensity of biogeochemical migration of radionuclides in natural bodies and nutritious chains.

 

The special feature of the irradiation of “Chornobyl“ type is its combined and multi-isotope character, both acute short-term, and prolonged (up to the permanent ones on the territories contaminated with long-living radionuclides). The damage has been brought in mostly by an acute irradiation - up to 50% of wrecking dose for the first year of Chornobyl disaster, including up to 40% “iodine blow” of its first weeks. It is a volatile and mostly biologically active radioiodine (mainly I-131) has resulted in the superthreshold (in the range of big doses, more than 50 cGy) local irradiation of particular organs and systems (thyroid gland, blood, skin) in the children of investigated areas. Especially, it concerns the Narodychi Area, where “iodine blow” practically the biggest in Ukraine (see Table. 2.1).

 

The second element, forming a dose, by its significance, next to radioiodine is radiocaesium, during the first 2-3 years upon the Chornobyl disaster - Cs-134, later - Cs-137 (during more than 60 years). Since 1989, the major part of total dose is caused by internal irradiation from radionuclides incorporated with food and water, at the same time, today Cs-137 gives 95% of the dose of internal irradiation. Practically, the mostly contaminated place in Ukraine is the Narodychi Area.

 

 

 

Narodychi Area

Ovruch Area

1.

An average level of contamination of cow milk with

I-131 on May 5, 1986 (nCi/l)

@1500

@890

2.

An average density of contamination of the souls in settlements with Cs-137 in 1987 (Ci/sq.km)

12.5

3.8

3.

Maximum density of contamination of souls in settlements with Cs-137 in 1991 (Ci/sq.km)

20.45

14.92

4.

Average calculated dose of I-131 on thyroid gland of children born in 1968-1986, April-June 1986 (cGy)

 

162

 

@50

5.

Average calculated total annual dose in 1991-1993 (mSv)

1.632*

1.799*

6.

Maximum calculated total annual dose in 1991-1993 (mSv)

6.68*

14.6-30.9*

*) Without taking into consideration the most contaminated settlements,

whence the population has been settled out.

 

Table 2.1. The level of the radiation impact of the Chornobyl disaster on population of Narodytsky and Ovruch Areas.

 

The Sr-90 contaminates significantly the Northern part of Narodychi Area and the North-Eastern part of Ovrutskн Area. The level of contamination here sometimes exceeds 3 Ci/sq.km (that was a ground for settling out several villages), and calculated annual doses reach 0.2-0.4 mSv.

 

The plutonium (Pu) and its “daughter” transuranides are fixed in the North-Eastern part of the Ovruch Area, in the Northern and Southern part of Narodychi Area. The contamination level sometimes reaches 0.05 Ci/sq.km, however, calculated annual doses today do not exceed 0.01 mSv.

 

Up to 1992-93 there has been observed the consistent decrease of dose load of the internal irradiation of population residing there. Later, there has been started a rash growth of it, because of increase in the consumption of contaminated food of local production.  The dose load today in Ovruch Area is bigger, than those in Narodychi Area, in spite of the fact of the Cs-137 lower contamination levels (due to bigger intensity of biogeochemical migration and growth of partticle of small fractions of aerosol fall-outs with advancement in the Western direction from the wrecked Chornobyl Atomic Power Station).

 

Approximately, in 40 years upon the Chornobyl disaster, when the greater part of  Cs-137 and Sr-90 will decay, on the territories, where now the Pu-241 is present, there will be aggravated the problem of mostly dangerous alpha-active (and chemically toxic!) contamination with Americium (Am-241) that is accumulated as a result of the Pu-241 decay. The Am-241 half-value period is equal to 458 years, at the same time, it is transformed into also dangerous Neptunium (Np-237) with the halflife equal to 2.14 mln years. Thus, some places of investigated areas will become unsuitable for people to reside there for ever (see the monograph: Chernobylskaya katastropha. /Ed. by V. G. Bariakhtara. K., Naukova Dumka, - 1995, pp. 343).

 

 

The impact of ecological factors of the Chornobyl disaster

 

The impact of ecological factors of the Chornobyl disaster is insignificant in comparison with the radiation influence. First, it is a contamination of environment with stable isotopes of heavy metals, especially, Pb, as well as Cr, Cu, Zn; second, it is a sharp increase of volumes of applying mineral fertilizers and pesticides in the first three years after the Chornobyl disaster.

 

Metals have been dispersed unevenly, in hardly soluble form (metalized particles), they formed several soil “spots“ of concentration more than 20 mg/kg in Narodychi Area and in the North-Eastern part of Ovruch Area. Under the influence of “acid rains”, step by step, there will be increased the concentration of salts of these heavy (and toxic) metals.

 

The goal of applying mineral fertilizers (mainly K) was to block the Radiocaesium, to prevent its accumulation in plants. The efficiency of these measures has turned out inadequate and too expensive. With deepening an economic crisis (after 1990), the volume of applying mineral fertilizers has fallen lower than the pre-Chornobyl disaster level.

 

Much more harmful action was an attempt to increase sharply the volume of applying the pesticides. It happened not incidentally, but due to rash efforts, at any cost, to retain in areas contaminated with radionuclides the pre-Chornobyl disaster forms of management, including the highly marketable production of agricultural raw materials (first of all, the hop). The efforts aimed at the fulfilment of “wise” Communist Party direction to “overcome” quickly and forget the “consequences of the Chornobyl disaster”. As a result, there has been set an experiment on people as to the synergistic reinforcement of the negative influence of radionuclides on the health of people (on oncogeny!) by the way of the wide-scale application of pesticides. It has been interrupted by the outbreak of “anti-Chornobyl“ populist actions (in 1989-1990) coincided in time with the aggravation of economic crisis.

 

 

Pesticides, total, acting substance (kg/ga, arable land)

 

1983