Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl

254 Pages·024.169 MB·English

by  Mary Mycio

Contents
Preface ix
1 Wormwood 1
2 Four Seasons 35
3 Birding in Belarus 67
4 Nuclear Sanctuary 99
5 Back to the Wild 127
6 Wormwood Waters 153
7 Homo chernobylus 183
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
Mary Mycio
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
Joseph Henry Press • 500 Fifth Street, NW • Washington, DC 20001
The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academy Press,
was created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and
health more widely available to professionals and the public. Joseph
Henry was one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences
and a leader in early American science.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed
in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mycio, Mary.
Wormwood forest : a natural history of Chernobyl / Mary Mycio.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-309-09430-5 (cloth)
1. Radioisotopes—Environmental aspects—Ukraine—
Chornobyl Region. 2. Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobyl,
Ukraine, 1986—Environmental aspects. 3. Radioisotopes—Health
aspects—Ukraine—Chornobyl Region. I. Title.
QH543.5.M93 2005
577.27′7′094777—dc22
.d 2005012715
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
To my parents
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:20.
Slavutich
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Egret MiresreviR aknigarB Paryshiv II Paryshiv I Ladyzhychi Otashiv
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Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:42.
Preface
W
hen evidence of a mysterious Soviet nuclear incident leaked
out of the radiation detectors of a Swedish nuclear station
on April 28, 1986, I had just moved from New York to start
my new job as an associate at a big Los Angeles law firm. Temporarily
ensconced behind an absent partner’s expansive desk while my own
office was being made ready for me, I was working on some case files
when the phone call came from New York. “A nuclear bomb exploded
in Ukraine,” exclaimed a friend who had not yet really forgiven me for
leaving Manhattan. I don’t recall how I expressed my shock, but after
gleaning from her what little information she had, I dashed to the law
firm’s kitchen and tuned into CNN on the kitchen’s TV set.
Western scientists quickly determined that the type of radiation
that had invaded several European borders came not from a bomb but
from a civilian nuclear power plant. Soon afterwards, the Soviet Union
admitted that an accident on April 26 had destroyed part of what was,
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r sth Watching television during working hours was not an activity that
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.sse that had just started their jobs. But the nuclear disaster riveted nearly
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thg lacked a legal “fire in my belly.” He was absolutely right. I had a fire in
irypo my belly, but it was not a legal fire. It was an atomic fire—a determina-
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tion to find out the truth about Chernobyl.
ix
Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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x PREFACE
Uncovering that truth proved to be a daunting task, at least in the
beginning. Unlike the disaster of the space shuttle Challenger, which
had exploded on television screens just a few months earlier, the pub-
lic saw no live, dramatic images of Chernobyl, just some grainy photos
of the blackened crater in the ruined fourth reactor block. But that
was merely a building, like a charred piece of furniture, and not an
object to evoke horror, sympathy, or even much anxiety. It was static
and far away, unlike the radioactive cloud that drifted around the
northern hemisphere, prompting L.A. disc jockeys to joke about buy-
ing Chernobyl umbrellas when the cloud hit Southern California in
early May.
There weren’t even many voices to humanize the dry pronounce-
ments of official Soviet news agencies and scientists. In the days before
the Internet, only an occasional letter or ham radio operator could
break through the impenetrable Iron Curtain to provide some uncen-
sored news about the disaster. Well, “news” might be too kind a word.
It was mostly rumor, speculation, and science fiction, like a wacky story
in some supermarket tabloid about a six-foot-tall Chernobyl chicken. I
didn’t believe it, of course, but I duly clipped it and placed it in my
fattening research files.
Like the radiation itself, the Chernobyl story was also invisible,
rendered so by the habitual Soviet secrecy that even Mikhail
Gorbachev’s glasnost policy did not initially overcome. But even when
glasnost did emerge victorious, the traditional secrecy of the interna-
tional nuclear industry took over. Thus, when Soviet scientists met
.d their Western counterparts at an unprecedented meeting to discuss
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yrne After quitting full-time law in 1988, I spent a year as a bicoastal
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00 short-term legal job. My favorite place was the restricted library at
2
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the “Minsk shoe” I mention in Chapter 1. I had hoped to write a book
Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest : A Natural History of Chernobyl, Joseph Henry Press, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wpi/detail.action?docID=4388342.
Created from wpi on 2017-09-11 08:00:50.