Coping with the USSR's Environmental Legacy
To Help “Stop the Bleeding”
By Lynda L. Maillet

Books in Brief: Current Issues

In Ecological Disaster, Murray Feshbach adds to his work on the disastrous environmental situation in the former Soviet Union. This most recent book builds on the foundation he and his co-author, Alfred Friendly, Jr., laid in their 1992 work Ecocide in the USSR (see E/W Letter, no. 1 1993, p.3). In Ecological Disaster, Mr. Feshbach not only describes again the horrific conditions in the region, but goes on to provide a strategy for the West to help ameliorate the environmental situation in the ex-USSR. He emphasizes the need for a central group to coordinate aid efforts and highlights concerns that must be addressed by the Russian and other governments. In contrast to Ecocide, which tended to be more anecdotal, the arguments in Ecological Disaster are carefully supported with scientific studies and empirical evidence -- making it more useful to those in the West who must justify the provision of aid.

One of the myriad factors contributing to the continued deterioration of the region’s environment is lack of oversight -- no one government agency is responsible for enforcing those safety and environmental regulations that do exist. The problem is especially acute in the nuclear power industry, which has a number of organizations responsible for safety. In addition, the military resists oversight of their facilities by non-military organizations. Safety and other regulations are hard to enforce uniformly in Russia because so many polluted sites, including whole industrial cities, are or were under military control and knowledge of them was often withheld even from other civilian authorities. “Secret” dumping or contamination sites are being discovered regularly by Russian officials. However, there have been several “breakthroughs”: local officials and Western observers now have much more information about once “secret” cities and any environmental damage that may have been caused by nuclear weapons production in these cities....

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