The paper reports on the results of a ground walking gamma- and gamma-spectrometric survey made in the impact zone of the accidental underground nuclear explosion "Kraton-3". Patterns of migration, 137Cs, 90Sr and Pu distribution in the soil-vegetable cover of the northern taiga on permafrost are considered. Radioeco- logical situation within the territory surveyed is noted as unfavorable.
For 35 years Krasnoyarsk Mining-Chemical Combine (MCC) manufactures weapon plutonium in single-pass production reactors cooled with water of the Yenisey River. Water discharge from these reactors is the major source of radioactive contamination of the Yenisey River. We have demonstrated that after putting the reactors out of operation (in late 1992) the contamination level of the Yenisey River with short-lived radionuclides considerably decreased, and now the radioactive contamination is caused essentially by Cs-137, Eu-152, Pu-239,240, Sr-90, and Am-241, whose concentration in the aqueous phase is lower than in bottom sediments and, particularly, flood-land deposits by several orders of magnitude (except for Sr-90). The flood-land deposits are classified with the most contaminated environmental objects in the territories under the impact of MCC: their radioactivity is comparable with that of low-level waste. Taking into account the considerable depth and area of the flood-land deposits, this allows their classification as a great technogenic radiation anomaly. Comparison of the maximal Cs-137 and Pu-239,240 levels in flood-land soils and bottom sediments of the Yenisey River with those in bottom sediments of the Pripyat' River and the Kiev reservoir shows that these values are close each to other. A direct correlation is found between the spatial distribution of Cs-137 on the one hand and Pu-239,240, Eu-152, and Am-241 on the other hand in the aqueous phase and bottom sediments, which is not the case for Sr-90. Data on the distribution coefficients of the indicated radionuclides between the deposits and aqueous phase (obtained with actual and model systems) and also on the radionuclide distribution throughout geochemical mobility forms suggest that the essential part of Cs, Pu, Eu, and Am migrates with fine-disperse suspended material, the transport and distribution of which is controlled by the hydrological regime of the Yenisey River. By contrast, strontium migrates as soluble species weakly sorbed by the solid phase, causing the observed low content of Sr-90 in flood-land deposits and bottom sediments of the Yenisey River. The indicated migration behavior of radionuclides is characteristic of the Yenisey Gulf and the adjacent part of the Kara Sea also. We made similar conclusions when studying the migration behavior of Cs-137, Pu-239,240, and Sr-90 in the Kiev reservoir (1987). The formation of radioactive flood-land deposits is provided by rapid deposition of suspended material in stagnant zones during periodical flood. Humus compounds contribute significantly to accumulation of radionuclides in the flood-land deposits and bottom sediments, which is supported by the observed correlation between the radionuclide (Pu, Am, Eu) and total organic carbon distributions in them. Radiochemical analysis of separate fractions showed that about 20% of Pu and Am are associated with the organic fraction: Pu is nearly equally distributed between humic and fulvic acid fractions, whereas Am is preferentially associated with the fulvic acid fraction (the most mobile fraction of humus matter). It was demonstrated in model experiments that the calcium-hydrocarbonate type of water of the Yenisey River causes suppression of formation of mobile fulvate complexes of hydrolyzable radionuclides and, therefore, their transfer into the aqueous phase. In combination with the observed very high distribution coefficients of the radionuclides and low content of their mobile geochemical forms in flood-land deposits of the Yenisey River this suggest that they cannot contribute somewhat significantly to the secondary radioactive contamination of the river water by all mechanisms except migration by mechanical transfer. (author)