{"id":283145,"date":"2010-02-05T13:08:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T18:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/?p=9962"},"modified":"2010-02-05T13:08:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T18:08:14","slug":"did-russia-use-the-baltic-sea-as-a-nuclear-sewer-in-the-%e2%80%9990s-80beats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/283145","title":{"rendered":"Did Russia Use the Baltic Sea as a Nuclear Sewer in the \u201990s? | 80beats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9967\" title=\"balticsea\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/files\/2010\/02\/balticsea.jpg\" alt=\"balticsea\" width=\"425\" height=\"219\" align=\"left\"\/>There&#8217;s more bad news for the Baltic Sea. Reports had already indicated that it was one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world, and now a report from a Swedish TV station alleges that Russia dumped nuclear and other toxic waste into Swedish waters in the Baltic in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by the SVT network, <span style=\"color:#1c39bb;\">Russian boats sailed out at night to dump barrels of radioactive material, from a military base in Latvia, into Swedish waters. And even though the Swedish government at the time reportedly knew this, no action was taken to find the waste [<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/europe\/8499762.stm\">BBC News<\/a>]<\/span>. These accusations\u2014particularly that the Swedish government knew about the dumping and did nothing\u2014aren&#8217;t sitting well with current Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. But Carl Bildt, who was the country&#8217;s prime minister during the alleged dumping, says he never heard about it.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-9962\"><\/span>Russian Admiral Vladimir Yegorov, who commanded the Baltic fleet in the 1990s, balked at the charges and called them baloney. <span style=\"color:#1c39bb;\">&#8220;The naval forces that were pulling out of the Liepaja naval base in Latvia in the early 1990s did not have chemical weapons, radioactive materials and waste,&#8221; Yegorov insisted [<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.thelocal.se\/24822\/20100205\/\"><em>The Local<\/em><\/a>]<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The Baltic just can&#8217;t seem to catch a break. Last month <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2010\/01\/20\/next-global-warming-victim-centuries-old-shipwrecks\/\">we reported<\/a> on concerns that shipworms were creeping north and threatening thousands of shipwrecks that the sea&#8217;s normally brackish water (meaning less salty than normal ocean water) had preserved. And because the Baltic is largely enclosed\u2014emptying only through a small opening in the south, around Denmark\u2014toxicity takes a long time to escape. The sea was already in such peril, in fact, that <span style=\"color:#1c39bb;\">a summit of heads of state of countries bordering the Baltic Sea was to take place in Helsinki Wednesday to try to solve the problems [<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/afp\/article\/ALeqM5gyHPmAUmRCko60V-7uWUy-nqQmrw\">AFP<\/a>]<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Related Content:<br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2010\/01\/20\/next-global-warming-victim-centuries-old-shipwrecks\/\">Next Global Warming Victim: Centuries-Old Shipwrecks<\/a> [resting at the bottom of the Baltic]<br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2009\/12\/30\/russia-developing-a-secret-plan-to-divert-a-non-threatening-asteroid\/\">Russia Is Developing a Secret Plan to Divert a Non-Threatening Asteroid<\/a><br \/>\n80beats: <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/2010\/01\/19\/21-years-after-spill-exxon-valdez-oil-is-still-stuck-in-alaskas-beaches\/\">21 Years After Spill, Exxon Valdez Oil is *Still* Stuck In Alaska&#8217;s Beaches<\/a> <em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Image: flickr \/ <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/txd\/\">txd<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/lfPZPA-IF8V_ijYlRL3Nr2yA-I0\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/lfPZPA-IF8V_ijYlRL3Nr2yA-I0\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/lfPZPA-IF8V_ijYlRL3Nr2yA-I0\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/lfPZPA-IF8V_ijYlRL3Nr2yA-I0\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?a=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?a=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?i=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?a=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?i=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\"  href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?a=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/80beats?i=6BYqO9l4SKU:k9i590YtGvc:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/80beats\/~4\/6BYqO9l4SKU\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/DiscoverMag\/~4\/vwq1XqAt9Yc\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s more bad news for the Baltic Sea. Reports had already indicated that it was one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world, and now a report from a Swedish TV station alleges that Russia dumped nuclear and other toxic waste into Swedish waters in the Baltic in the early 1990s. According [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}