Radioactivity - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 76

The Long and the Short of It

Ihave always liked this little phrase as a pithy way to wrap upa conversation. When my par-
entsusedit,Iknewthetimefordiscussion(anddissent)wasover.Ithasbeeninuseforquite
a long time because I remember encountering it at school when reading The Merry Wives of
Windsor and wondering if my parents picked it up from Shakespeare. You will meet it from
now on whenever I want to wrap up a chapter and move on to another topic and also at the
very end of the Arctic Messenger's story. What should we remember about radioactivity in
the Arctic? Here is my selection:

· For the circumpolar terrestrial Arctic, the major source of radiation resulting from

human activity remains atmospheric fallout primarily from the atmospheric testing
of nuclear weapons and, to a much lesser extent, from the 1986 accident at the
Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine. Although deposition is now low, the
Arctic terrestrial environment remains sensitive because its soils are thin. Its slow-
growing and long-lived flora includes a high proportion of mosses and lichens that
take their moisture directly from the atmosphere. Consequently, the deposited radio-
nuclides (fallout) are easily transferred up the food chain by such herbivores as cari-
bou and reindeer.

· Three simple lessons can be drawn from the experience of the negotiation of the at-

mospheric test ban treaties. Success was helped by there being a small number of
potential parties, by the existence of a strong supporting scientific foundation and
by the power of public opinion.

· The main source of marine radionuclide contamination to the Arctic has been waste

discharge from nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield in the United Kingdom and
at Cap de la Hague in France.

· Major incidents at Sellafield (formerly Windscale), Mayak, Three Mile Island,

Tomsk, Chernobyl and Fukushima show that despite extensive national and interna-