Moscow's plans to build over radioactive waste pipes are causing concern among experts and industry representatives

Almost four decades ago today, the Soviet Union witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history when the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded.

In the modern Russian capital, another potential radiation threat lies dormant under the feet of Muscovites.

In the Moscow district of Shchukino in northwestern Moscow, city authorities plan to build new buildings on underground pipes transporting liquid radioactive waste, as well as to build commercial and residential buildings, a school and a kindergarten.

Local residents and experts say the extensive construction work could damage pipes, potentially releasing radioactive waste into the environment.

“Inside the old pipes there are centimeter-long deposits of radioactive salts. There is a huge cocktail in which there are many different radionuclides,” said Andrei Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist and anti-nuclear campaigner.

“If a functioning pipe is damaged… this could lead to a simple spill of its contents, leading to local contamination,” Ozharovsky told The Moscow Times.

If the project goes ahead, it will entail the demolition of a garage complex on Rogovaya Street in Shchukino, further angering residents as cars from more than 1,400 garages clog up already crowded local yards.

Several scientific institutions are located in the Moscow district of Shchukino. The area was the cradle of Russia's nuclear industry in the 1940s and played an important role in the creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb.

Among them are the Kurchatov Institute and the Bochvar Institute of Inorganic Materials, which are still involved in nuclear science to this day. Over the decades, their research produced nuclear waste that was transported through underground pipes to a Moscow liquid radioactive waste processing plant in the same area.

Because of the secrecy surrounding this nuclear cluster, with information often classified during correspondence with authorities, the exact amount of radioactive materials involved and the scale of the hypothetical accident remain unclear, Ozharovsky said.

Experts familiar with nuclear research have expressed their assumptions.

“As a person with a specialized education, I can say that enterprises such as the radiochemical experimental workshops of the Bochvar Institute, as well as nuclear reactors and other facilities of the Kurchatov Institute, cannot operate without the generation of radioactive waste, primarily liquid,” Ozharovsky said.

In the worst case, Ozharovsky said, radioactive substances would leak from damaged pipes into the ground in liquid form and eventually end up in streams feeding the Moscow River, Moscow's main waterway.

“They [the spills] will disperse, creating a radioactive contamination zone that will need to be cordoned off,” he said. "There can be no construction in this area and cleanup will be very expensive because radioactive materials tend to disperse quite easily but are very difficult to put back together – we know this from Chernobyl and other accidents."

Vladimir Mordashov, a leading expert at the Kurchatov Institute, where he has worked since 1955, expressed similar concerns this month.

“The soil under the [garage] cooperative is, in fact, a cemetery for long-lived radioactive waste,” Mordashov said during a round table on this issue in the Moscow City Duma, which was attended by interested deputies, experts and local residents.

“The radiation levels there are [so high] that it’s not safe to build anything there. The only option for this area is to cover the entire cooperative with soil and vegetation,” he said.

In addition to the direct impact on pipes, the operation of heavy construction equipment can also cause ground movement. According to the general plan of Moscow, the facility is located in an unstable area prone to dangerous geological phenomena.

At the round table, several Shchukino residents also spoke out against the development plans and called on the authorities to stop the project.

“In general, all the people we talked to on the street … were unanimous that we need to save this [garage] complex. We don't need any specific development here; our area is already oversaturated with both cars and residential buildings,” said Alexander, who lives near the site.

Local resident Galina said that officials systematically ignored calls from residents, despite their numerous attempts to knock on all doors.

“Residents who are not very familiar with legislative activity write letters from the heart. And I believe that the Moscow government is simply, one might say, mocking the protesting residents, who cry out their hearts out, but receive only bureaucratic answers,” she said.

The petition against the construction has so far collected 1,200 signatures.