Chernobyl’s Silent Exclusion Zone (Except for the Logging)
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

PRIPYAT, Ukraine — The road through the forest, abandoned, is at times barely discernible, covered with the debris of fallen tree limbs, vines, leaves and moss pushing up through cracks in the crumbling asphalt.

The moss is best avoided, says our guide, Artur N. Kalmykov, a young Ukrainian who has made a hobby of coming here to the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, set aside in perpetuity after the catastrophe in 1986. It can be radioactive, having carried buried radiation to the surface as it grew.

Above all, he says, watch out for windblown dust, which could well be laced with deadly plutonium.

Despite the dangers — which are actually minimal these days, except when the wind is howling — and the risk of arrest, Mr. Kalmykov is at home here. “In Kiev my head is full,” he said. “Here I can relax. I could hang out in Kiev. But this is more interesting.”

What Mr. Kalmykov and fellow unofficial explorers of the Chernobyl zone, members of a peculiar subculture who are in their 20s and call themselves “the stalkers,” have found is more interesting still: vast tracts of clear-cutting in the ostensibly protected forest.

Mr. Kalmykov, a computer programmer who discovered the clear-cut areas while exploring the zone on his weekends, took his findings to Stop Corruption, one of the civil society groups that popped up in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution two years ago, events supposed to usher in a new era of clean government in Ukraine.

And yet on Ukraine’s dirtiest patch of land, Stop Corruption says, based on the stalkers’ evidence, the under-the-table dealings of the bureaucrats who manage the area are flourishing as always. Distracted by the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe on April 26 and the general turmoil in Ukraine, the group says, the Exclusion Zone Management Agency has turned a blind eye to the Chernobyl logging.

The Zone of Alienation, as it is also known, is a rough circle with an 18-mile radius, fenced off with barbed wire. Access is strictly controlled, so that delegations and guided tours typically travel a few fixed routes. Outside those areas frequented by tourists, Stop Corruption said, under the guise of salvage logging of trees killed in wildfires, healthy pines are being felled in great numbers for sale in Ukraine and Romania, from where the timber may be resold throughout Europe.

“We thought these incidents were isolated and unimportant, but when we started to investigate, it turned out the problem was gigantic and systemic,” said Vadim V. Vnukov, the group’s head lawyer.

Lumber from Chernobyl, while not exactly glowing in the dark, would pose risks to anybody living in a house made from it, Mr. Vnukov said.

“There is a clear health risk here,” he said. “We ran into a system worked out over the decades, and under any government, this system of corruption was preserved.”

Today, scientists say, the average radiation level in the zone is about a quarter as harmful to human health as it was in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and fire. A typical reading in the zone is about 100 microsieverts, or comparable to the exposure that an airplane passenger might receive on a trans-Atlantic flight.

But harmful risks lurk. Placed near the moss, for example, a Geiger counter hummed like an electric shaver.

“It’s not as dangerous as it seems,” Mr. Kalmykov said with a shrug. “Some people are just radiophobic.”

In an interview in his offices in Kiev, Vitalii V. Petruk, the head of the Exclusion Zone Management Agency, denied that any illegal logging had taken place since he assumed the job in September. But since the revolution, he is the fifth director of the zone, which like the rest of Ukraine has been in a state of flux.

Loggers fell burned trees after forest fires, to avoid pest outbreaks, and cut firebreaks and routes for electrical wires, he said. Since 2004, it has been legal in Ukraine to sell timber from the zone if it passes radiological controls.

Mr. Petruk is an unabashed advocate of increased commercial activity in the zone, including logging.

“How do we turn our shame into our advantage?” he said. His answer is “Zone of Change,” a proposal by his agency for increased logging to feed a chip-fueled steam power plant at the site that he noted would reduce dependence on Russian natural gas.

Into this landscape recently, one careful step after another, Mr. Kalmykov pushed deeper into a thicket of vines and fallen branches.

(To show reporters sites where he suspected illegal logging activity, Mr. Kalmykov and all in his party obtained permits to visit the zone, in contrast to his usual practice of slipping in to explore surreptitiously.)

At an abandoned house on the roadside, with the rhythmic chirp of a Geiger counter in the background and moldy children’s clothes lying about, an eerie sense arose of a sneak preview of the end of the world.

The concept of the exclusion zone, an important experiment for the nuclear industry, was to limit, through isolation, the lethality of an accident at the nuclear plant. (Fewer than 200 people stayed here after the evacuation of more than 100,000.) Radioactive elements degrade at predictable intervals, called half-lives, that can vary enormously. Particles left in the soil while their half-lives tick past harm nobody; the average particle half-life at Chernobyl is about 30 years.

But logging in a postapocalyptic forest would pose a number of health concerns. Trees, like moss, absorb radiation from the subsoil. Also, clear-cutting churns up soil, stirring radioactive dust and accelerating erosion.

At one point along the road, the forest opens to a clear-cut area of several acres, sliced into healthy pine groves, though near a burned patch. “Look, they didn’t touch the dead trees,” Mr. Kalmykov said, pointing to the still standing, blackened pines.

“During the change in government, nobody was paying attention, and people didn’t miss this moment” to make some money, he said of the loggers. “Everybody knows. The necessary people get the necessary money.”

A logger, his sweaty face flecked with dust and sawdust, said he simply cut the trees marked by his bosses at the exclusion zone administration. “I don’t decide,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “They say we don’t need the burned logs.”

Asked if he worried about radiation, he said he did not, as by now the radiation had settled deep into the soil.

“We stamp it down so it does not come out,” he said, patting the ground with his boot. “Want to buy some wood?”

車諾比盜木猖獗 輻射家具銷歐洲

紐約時報記者克雷默在烏克蘭車諾比核災卅周年前夕，深入車諾比核電廠半徑卅公里的管制區，揭發業者在管制區內大舉伐木，運到烏克蘭和羅馬尼亞的工廠加工成家具銷往全歐洲。雖然科學家表示，該區輻射已降到災變時的四分之一，但仍有人擔心車諾比木材恐有礙健康。

一九八六年四月廿六日，車諾比核電廠四號機因為輸出功率遽升，爐心熔毀引發氣爆火災，高於正常值一點五萬倍的放射性物質外洩；核電廠周遭十萬多人緊急撤離，災區半徑卅公里至今列為禁區。卅年後，少數不怕危險的遊客會去車諾比禁區短暫旅遊。但在遊客路線以外宛如鬼城區域，非法盜木正蓬勃發展。

殘破柏油路 飄來放射塵埃

枯枝落葉與青苔灰塵覆蓋了殘破的柏油路，難以辨別通往森林的道路。年輕導遊卡爾米柯夫提醒紐時記者避開青苔和隨風飄起的塵埃，這些塵埃可能披覆致命的放射性鈽。卡爾米柯夫等車諾比禁區探險家自稱「潛行者」，他們認為這片表面上受到保護的林地相當有趣。

卡爾米柯夫將他發現業者盜伐的證據交給市民團體「停止貪腐」。該團體表示，烏克蘭官僚在這片禁區的台面下交易相當興盛，且負責管理這片土地的「禁區管理局」對業者伐林視而不見。「停止貪腐」首席律師弗努科夫說：「我們原以為這些盜伐事件只是個案，深入調查後赫然發現，這是個巨大且有系統的問題。」

祝融下救木 成盜伐保護罩

這片半徑卅公里的「疏散區域」外圍由帶刺鐵絲網圍起；當局嚴密管控出入人員，遊客依照幾條既定路線行動。「停止貪腐」表示，在這些挽救遭野火祝融的伐木偽裝下，健康的松樹遭大量砍伐，銷往烏克蘭和羅馬尼亞，並在當地製成家具銷往全歐洲，但車諾比木材製成的家具可能對人體有害。

測路邊苔蘚 輻射量仍異常

科學家表示，車諾比災變區的輻射量已降至災變時的四分之一，約一百微西弗，相當於人們搭乘橫越大西洋航班的曝曬量。不過，輻射風險顯然還是存在。拿一具偵測輻射量的「蓋革計數器」靠近管制區路旁的苔蘚，機器馬上強烈震動有如一具電鬍刀，顯示輻射量還是異常。卡爾米柯夫聳聳肩說：「這裡並不是那麼危險，但一些人就是有輻射恐懼。」

「禁區管理局」局長佩楚克否認當地有非法伐木的情況，至少在他去年九月就任以來沒有。他說，伐木工在森林大火後伐林，以免害蟲擴散並製造防火道以保護電線。二○○四年後，在烏克蘭販售通過輻射檢測的禁區木材已屬合法。佩楚克認為，振興禁區內的伐林等商業活動並無不法，且擴大伐木的「改變區計畫」不僅能「化羞辱為優勢」，也能減少烏克蘭發電廠對俄羅斯天然氣的依賴。

不願具名的一名伐木工表示，他只砍禁區管理局老闆做記號的樹。紐時記者問他擔不擔心輻射問題，他回答，輻射物質都已落入土裡，不必煩惱。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/world/europe/chernobyls-silent-exclusion-zone-except-for-the-logging.html

Slideshow：Inside Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016/04/23/world/europe/inside-chernobyls-exclusion-zone/s/20160424-UKRAINE-slide-SBUP.html

2016-04-25．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韻涵