FINAL PROJECT REPORT

EMPOWERING RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN NGOs

TO ADDRESS ISSUES OF FUTURE SUSTAINABILITY

Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D.

Professor of Environmental Psychology

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Project Director

February 20, 2005

Introduction

In Spring 2002, the Trust for Mutual Understanding granted Ramapo College of New Jersey $40,000 for a project of exchange and joint investigation concerned with the comparative issues of how contamination is addressed in Russia and the United States. Dr. Maria Tysiachniouk of the Center for Social Research in St. Petersburg served as the Russian partner.

The project succeeded in creating a fascinating series of continuing exchanges on this topic, allowing for first hand investigation and site visits in Russia and America and paving the way for a final creative project document that is still in development. The level of depth in these exchanges and investigations should be emphasized. We were able to attract outstanding social science professionals from both countries. We were then able to take these professionals to some of the most important contaminated sites in each country, along with encounters with local professionals knowledgeable about the specific cases. A series of conferences, roundtables and workshops was held that afforded ample opportunity for idea and research sharing, opportunities for training, ways to improve policy and practice, and means to better respond to ecological disaster and its victims. The combination of these quality site visits with ample opportunities for exchange members to share, discuss, and debate their work resulted in a level of high professional excitement and new learning.

The quality of the various exchanges was so extraordinary that it became obvious that a perfunctory final document was inadequate. As a result, the Project Director developed a proposal for a professional volume to contain the best work outcomes from the exchange. His proposal was accepted by the Journal of Social Research for publication in the journal in 2006 and simultaneous publication as a book by Elsevier Publishers. While the book/journal project is technically outside the scope of the Trust grant, this report has been delayed until we could report that the volume has been contracted. Thus, although the formal grant activities ceased some time ago, active work on the output of the project continues. An extensive effort to translate and edit chapters is underway. The Trust for Mutual Understanding will receive full and deserved credit in this publication.

In this report, we will describe in detail the two primary exchanges that occurred and characterize the quality of both the site visits and the active professional exchange process. We will then describe the emerging volume. In sum, expectations from this project were more than met.

Project Preparation

From the time of the award, the project was launched quickly. The Project Director and Dr. Tysiachniouk notified their respective teams to prepare for travel in summer 2002. Reflecting the budget, some destinations in Russia were cut and the project was shaped into the three final portions to accommodate schedule constraints for both teams.

Participants in the Exchange:

The Russian Team:

Traveling to the U.S.

Maria Tysiachniouk, Ph.D. -- Dr. Tysiachniouk is chair of the Department of Environmental Sociology of the Center for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Olga Tsepilova, Ph.D. -- Dr. Tsepilova is a sociologist working for the Institute for Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg branch.

Natalia Mironova, Director, Nuclear Safety Movement, Cheliabinsk and former vice president of the ecological commission of the Council of People’s Deputies. A physicist, Ms. Mironova is currently completing a Ph.D. in Environmental Sociology.

Tatiana Andrushenko, Ph.D. Dr. Andrushenko is the Dean of the School of Psychology and Social Work at Volgograd State Pedagogical University.

Alla Bolotova, Ph.D. -- Center for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Dima Vorobiov, Ph.D. – Center for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Participating in Russia:

Antonina Kouliasova, Ph.D. -- Dr. Kouliasova is an economist whose research focuses on how the transition to market economy can ensure social protection for those faced with contamination.

Nadezda Kutepova, a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology.

Boris Filatov, Ph.D. Director, Research Institute of Hygiene, Toxicology and Occupational Pathology (RIHTOP), Federal Directorate of Medical, Biological and Extreme Problems, Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development , Volgograd, Russia.

The American Team:

Traveling to Russia:

Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D., Professor of Environmental Psychology, Ramapo College of N.J. and President, Orange Environment, Inc. Principal investigator and grant director.

Margaret Gibbs, Ph.D., Fairleigh Dickinson University, Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology and Board member of Orange Environment, Inc.

William Hallman, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University

Susan Maret, Ph.D. and librarian, University of Denver

Lyudmila Smirnova, Ph.D. Professor of Education at Mt. St. Mary's College, Newburgh, N.Y.

George Thurston, Ph.D. Professor of Public Health at New York University

Jonathan Reisman. Project Assistant.

Sara Tice. Student (self funded)

Participating in America:

Stephen Couch, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Penn State University

Michelle Garcia, Ph.D. Environmental Justice Coordinator, Ironbound Community Center.

Judith Johnsrud, Ph.D. American Nuclear Activist

Adeline Gordon Levine, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus or Sociology, University of Buffalo

Murray Levine, Ph.D. Professor of Clinical Psychology and Law, University of Buffalo

Janet Hastrup, Ph.D. Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Buffalo

Madelyn Hoffman, Community Activist, Grass Roots Environmental Organization of New Jersey

Susan Scher, Ph.D. Professor of Social Work, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Patricia Seppi. U.S. EPA

Abraham Wandersman, Ph.D. University of South Carolina, Professor of Community Psychology

Exchange One: Americans to Russia, Summer 2002

The 2002 summer travel to Russia for the purposes of this exchange was broken into three parts, reflecting the great distances and therefore time involved in covering the desired areas of Russia. Members of the American team were given the option to participate in any or all.

Leg One: The Contaminated Cities of Volgograd and Volksy

The Project Director and Dr. Ludmila Smirnova traveled to Volgograd in late May. At Volgograd, the team worked closely with colleagues at Volgograd State Pedagogical University, most notably Dr. Tatiana Andrushenko, Dean of the School of Psychology and Social Work. Dr. Andrushenko is a pioneer in new fields of social service for Russia that offer the potential to become involved in addressing the social and psychological damages associated with contamination. We found her eager to participate and to bring these issues into the curriculum in her school. Her participation was extremely important because she is in a position to develop in Russia a field paralleling the development of environmental social work in the U.S. (Ramapo College is a leading locus of this development). Dr. Andrushenko promised both to join the team later in St. Petersburg and also to visit the U.S. as part of the Russian delegation.

While In Volgograd, the team visited with a network of people involved in addressing environmental contamination issues in order to begin the research phase of the project. The team spent a fascinating morning with the top environmental leadership of Volgograd oblast, seeking to gain an understanding of how hazards are identified and remediated. The meeting was set up by a Volgograd city council member, an acquaintance of Dr. Smirnova. With Dr. Smirnova translating, the project director had an intensive conversation with the officials in which he repeatedly sought to inquire about how they have historically addressed contamination problems and dealt with contamination victims. To his surprise, each query was met by “a party line” that “there are no pollution problems here and no victims of contamination.” This line was defended despite the effort to discuss scores of serious environmental problems in the city and oblast. This was a fascinating exercise in either official denial or else a disconnect about the meaning of contamination and victimization. The afternoon was spent decoding the event with the city official. The project’s first formal investigation had unexpectedly run up against an official denial of even well documented problems. Intriguing.

The next day was spent with Dr. Boris Filatov, Director of the Southern Center for Hygiene, an environmental health institute located in the former chemical weapons facility. Dr. Filatov is a primary expert on contamination and remediation, as well as the health effects of environmental exposures. He is the leading expert in Russia on dioxin. And he is a leader of efforts to reduce the stockpiles of chemical weapons and clean up weapons facilities. Dr. Filatov was able to provide the other side of the official line given by the oblast officials. A frequent collaborator with the U.S. EPA, Filatov was in the position to discuss how the problems denied by the officials were actually handled. Dr. Filatov promised to join the team later in St. Petersburg.

While in Volgograd, the team also visited the Ecological Gymnasium that Dr. Smirnova helped develop in the hyper-contaminated Krasne Armaesk district, other Volgograd Schools with environmental curricula, and various neighborhoods in Volgograd and Volsky with contamination issues. A lengthy interview with one of the Chernobyl mitigators flip also was held.

Leg 2: Cheliabinsk and the Urals

Dr. William Hallman, Environmental and Community Psychologist, Cook College, Dr. Susan Merit, Librarian and expert on environmental communication, University of Denver, and

Jonathon Reisman, project assistant, arrived in St. Petersburg in late July. Dr. Merit unfortunately became deathly ill and remained in St. Petersburg (and eventually returned to the U.S.).

Dr. Hallman joined the Project Director, Dr. Tysiachniouk, Mr. Reisman, and several members of the Russian team, Dr. Olga Tsepilova and Dr. Ala Bolotova, to travel several days East by train to the Ural Mountains. Near the boundary of Asia and Europe, we arrived at the epicenter of Russia’s historic legacy of radioactive contamination, the contaminated regional center and former closed city of Cheliabinsk. Here we joined Dr. Natalia Mironova, also part of the Russian team, and her staff at the Headquarters of the Movement for a Nuclear Free Russia. The team was briefed on the current and historic situation in the Urals. Cheliabinsk is nearby the closed nuclear city of Ozersk, where an accident at the Myak plutonium production plant in the 1950s resulted in the world’s first and perhaps worst radiological disaster. A large area nearby the River Techa is a permanent dead zone as the result of the accident. Some local villages, notably Muslyumovo, continue to be inhabited despite high levels of radioactivity. The situation has made this area a center for anti-nuclear activism, with activists lead by Dr. Mironova currently concerned with the threatened import to Russia (and Cheliabinsk oblast) of nuclear materials for disposal.

The team joined Dr. Mironova and her staff in traveling into the countryside to an old Soviet-era rest camp beside beautiful Lake Turgoyak. Here Dr. Mironova arranged a multi-day conference of environmental activists from the region entitled "Coping with Issues of Contamination, Social Movements and Mobilization within Contaminated Communities." A group of some twenty activists joined us. Over our time there, the American and Russian teams lectured about grassroots organization and the impacts of contamination to the assembled group, occupying an open door amphitheater sitting above the lake. Pictures of this event still adorn the website at http://www.nuclearpolicy.ru/programms/02‑08‑2002/photos3.shtml.

The conference was an extraordinary event, as each of the activists told the stories of their groups and issues and long and thoughtful exchanges of ideas and experiences occurred. Given excellent translation, the event was seamless despite the language differences.

Representatives of the following organizations were present at the conference:

The following environmental organizations will participate in the roundtables in Cheliabinsk:

Aigul (a women’s association which works with victims of radioactive exposure)

Cheliabinsk Public Fund Ecology (publishes Open Position),

Environmental Enlightenment Organization Techa (which was formed by activists suffering damage from Mayak and carried out various projects including maintaining a food monitoring post),

The Movement for Nuclear Security (which has recently won a lawsuit with the plant Mayak resulting in one of the first instances of victim compensation in Russia),

White Mice (a group of “nuclear hostages” of the village Muslyumovo who work to unite people living on contaminated territories and who have suffered due to the accidents at Mayak)

Youth Organization Consciousness of Rights (which initiated unsuccessful litigation with Mayak demanding the cessation of discharge of radioactive waste into surface waters),

Youth Movement Ecofront (formed in 1999 to act against import of radioactive wastes for storage in Cheliabinsk and other Russian sites, and has launched the Ecological Student Inspection in Cheliabinsk and pro-active Eco City),

It was fascinating to be at the rest camp, where hundreds of Russian families were vacationing much as Russians have done since the camp was originally built in the 1920s. Many of the vacationers seemed never to have encountered Americans previously, but despite some polite encounters they largely kept their distance, focusing on family and the large friends and relatives that they came with. The overall atmosphere was dynamic and enjoyable.

During this stay, the team was joined unofficially by an assumed agent of the FSB, posing as a vacationer. No matter where we strolled, he just happened to be going the same way. He accompanied us whenever he could. He was available to play ping pong at virtually any hour. It was assumed that he was present to keep tabs on the large assembly of activists brought together by Dr. Mironova. Several of us had long and pleasant chats with him, having nothing to hide.

The team elected not to actually go to Muslyumovo, to the Project Director’s disappointment. However, key leaders of the Muslyumovo grassroots organization where at the conference and made themselves available for extended interview with the P.D. It was also fascinating to speak with Bashkiri people from local villages also exposed to contaminants. It became clear to the P.D. that there are Environmental Justice issues involved in a contaminated region populated by Tartar and Bashkir minorities. A return to the region is required in order to explore this idea in more depth.

Dr. Mironova accompanied the team as we headed back toward St. Petersburg by rail. One of the conference participants, Nadezda Kutepova from Ozersk, also agreed to join the team in St. Petersburg later. The multi-day train ride afforded ample opportunity for continued discussion. Before going to St. Petersburg, the team stopped in the capital region at Russia’s leading chemical city Dzerzinsk. Approaching Dzerzinsk by small rail line from Nizhny Novgorod, the team entered into a formerly closed but still very veiled industrial city. Here a ring of huge industrial production plants have caused levels of continual pollution that have created intense ongoing exposures for residents.

In Dzerzinsk, we first held a morning long conference with local activists, who described the threats and their efforts to organize to address them. Then we were taken to a section of the city where people lived in small traditional farm houses and raised their food from the land despite being adjacent to and downwind from a string of massive industrial facilities. We had a chance to hold extended impromptu discussions with residents. A particularly touching moment was Dr. Hallman’s presentation of gifts to children of the neighborhood and the resulting quick and deep bonds of affection produced with the local residents. This was a particularly blatant case of environmental risk, and the residents had many health horror stories to document the obvious hazards.

Leg 3: Kirishi and St. Petersburg

The team returned by night train to St. Petersburg on August 7 to a joyous reunion with the rest of the American team, now arrived, and the rest of the Russian team, now assembled. The American team, scattered across the city in the homes of their counterparts, now included Dr. George Thurston, Environmental Epidemiologist, New York University and Dr. Margaret Gibbs, Clinical Psychologist, Fairleigh Dickinson University.

In St. Petersburg, the center of activity was the host Center for Independent Social Research. On one of the first days, the Russian and American teams accompanied Dr. Olga Tsepilova to her longitudinal study site, the industrial city of Kirishi, north of St. Petersburg. Kirishi was the epicenter of the new Russian environmental movement that emerged during Perestoika. It arose here in response to the major concentration of contaminating industries and the impatience of a population wanting to be freed of risk. Dr. Tsepilova orchestrated a magnificent program of presentations by civic leaders and activists, culminating in a meeting with the mayor, himself a former environmental leader. Before leaving, the team visited an industrial plant shut down by popular opposition and then retooled into a vodka factory. The Russian and American teams joined in a toast to the success of the effort drawn directly from production line.

Back in St. Petersburg, a three-day conference was held at the Center for Independent Social Research. Here each team member gave an hour presentation on their work with an hour for group discussion. Various other professionals dropped in and the event proved to be an uncommon opportunity for deep sharing among peers. The program ended on August 14.

Exchange Two

The key focus of the visit was to compare the Russian and American approaches to contamination. The Russian team indicated a particular interest in opportunities to discuss the resulting social movements and to meet with social scientists. This schedule attempted to balance the goals of the grant with everyone’s wish list.

The visiting Russian team arrived on Friday, November 1 and were picked up by the P.D. from the airport in a Ramapo College van used for the entire program. They were taken to their accommodations in homes of the American team in Orange County, New York after an opening reception at the home of Drs. Edelstein and Smirnova on behalf of host NGO Orange Environment. An overview of the schedule was given.

On Saturday Nov. 2 , the team traveled to the Black Rock Forest Preserve to meet with board members of Orange Environment, Inc. A program was held by activists from the “Indian Point Safe Environment Coalition” to discuss the movement to close the Indian Point nuclear Power Plant. The program and a subsequent tour ending in a hike at Bear Mountain State Park was led by Manna Jo Greene of Clearwater and Kyle Rabin of Riverkeeper, Inc.

Returning to team member Gretchen Gibbs’ home, the team was joined by Nuclear Activist Judith Johnsrud and by environmental psychologist Abraham Wandersman. An extended conference session was held, allowing Natalia Mironova and Judith Johnsurd to share comparative stories of their nations’ respective anti-nuclear movements and giving Dr. Wandersman a chance to present his work.

On Sunday Nov 3, a program on reclaiming contaminated sites as “Brownsfields” was hosted by Jean Ann McGrane and Manna Jo Greene, members of a previous Trust program to Russia and experts on environmental cleanup. Ms. McGrane is a former regional director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Ms. Greene is a staff person of the Clearwater NGO. The team traveled to Kingston, New York to view a successful Brownsfields program, eating a picnic lunch at the Kingston waterfront. In the late afternoon, the group toured a new sustainability center created by Ms. Greene and then attended a dinner “event” at Ms. McGrane’s that featured a talk on the coalition formed to promote cleanup of PCBs from the Hudson River.

On Monday November 4 the team traveled to Pennsylvania to meet with Penn State Sociologist Steve Couch and tour the Centralia underground mine fire site that he and Steve Kroll-Smith studied in their classic examination of community disintegration in the face of contamination and relocation. A highlight of the tour of this nearly abandoned village was a meeting with the former major in his home, one of the few homes left standing there. Next, the team lunched at the Hazleton Senior Citizens' Center as guests of a local grassroots group, GAG (Group Against Gas), actively seeking to publicize the problems faced by residents of a mile-square area contaminated with petroleum products, mainly benzene. After lunch, a tour of the neighborhood was given, ending with a reception in one of the activists’ home. The rest of the afternoon involved a conference session at Penn State Hazleton in which Dr. Couch shared some of his work with the team. After taking Dr. Couch out to a local restaurant to thank him, the tired team headed home.

Tuesday Nov 5 found the team in New Brunswick, N.J. for a conference with leading environmental social scientists from Rutgers, NJIT, and other nearby colleges organized and chaired by team member William Hallman. The event involved intensive sharing by members of the visiting and host teams. A public presentation was held at Rutgers in the evening.

On Wednesday, November 6, an Environmental Justice tour of the Ironbound section of Newark was given by Michele Garcia of the Ironbound Community Center. Some members of the group attended an evening community planning charette conducted by Orange Environment, Inc.

On Thursday, November 7, a series of programs was held at Ramapo College. Team members spoke at varied classes and events, including a public luncheon meeting of the Culture Club on “Sustainability and Contamination.” Dr. Andrushenko was a featured speaker of the Social Work and Psychology Clubs. Dr. Mironova presented an afternoon lecture entitled “Focus on the History of Plutonium Contamination and Other Contamination Events in Russia.”

On Friday, November 8, Dr. George Thurston, a team member, took the team on an intensive visit of the World Trade Center site and neighborhood, including an intensive discussion with a neighbor to the site and with a Russian who is the superintendent of a neighboring building. A luncheon was hosted by the former Ramapo College librarian, followed by a team sightseeing trip on the Staten Island Ferry and dinner at a New York City restaurant.

Saturday November 9 involved an internal conference to discuss the concept of a book of readings to be generated by the project. In the evening, Dr. George Thurston and his wife hosted a party in honor of the visiting team.

On Sunday November 10 the team traveled to Buffalo, New York where they were hosted by Drs. Adeline and Murray Levine and Dr. Janice Hastrup of the University of Buffalo. Dr. Hastrup hosted a morning brunch on November 11 where she presented a discussion on the University of Buffalo Hodgkins Disease Cluster. In the afternoon, an intensive tour of Love Canal and neighboring hazardous waste sites was directed by activist Luella Kenney. The team also got to visit Niagara Falls. That evening, the Levines invited the team for dinner. Murray Levine is the long term head of the board for the national Center for Health and Environmental Justice (the group headed by Lois Marie Gibbs) and a noted community psychologist, Addie Levine is a sociologist and author of the primary work on Love Canal—the classic Love Canal, Science, Politics and People. She presented a slide show and discussion of Love Canal to the team. Murray discussed the national grass roots environmental movement. On November 12, a briefing was given by the EPA Superfund office at Love Canal under the direction of environmental scientist Michael Basile. The team spent the remainder of the day returning to Orange County.

On Wednesday November 13, Ramapo Social Worker Susan Scher and EPA psychologist Pat Seppi hosted the team in an intensive tour of the Manville, New Jersey Superfund site, including discussions with affected residents. A luncheon was hosted by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission at their Environmental Center and Headquarters, on land reclaimed from an old landfill. New Jersey Environmental Activist Madelyn Hoffman met there with the team to discuss how contamination issues are addressed in the U.S. and the nature of the American grassroots movements. In the evening, a farewell party was held at Ramapo College hosted by the Russian faculty at the college. Many of the Russian team dispersed the next day to do private travel before returning to Russia.

Summer 2004

Dr. Edelstein and Dr. Smirnova traveled one more time to Volgograd and Moscow in the summer of 2004 to complete some loose ends associated with this project and particularly to meet with two authors of chapters for the book project to give feedback on draft chapters. Two additional participants for the book project were recruited.

Preliminary investigations were also carried out toward a potential subject for a new Trust Project. This prospect particularly took shape during a meeting set up by VSPU’s Dr. Andrushenko with the former Rector of VSPU, Stanislav Glazachev, who is now at Moscow State University, where he is the Director of the Institute of Ecological Education for the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Glazachev is a world leader in defining this field. He has been a guiding force in the creation of a series of Ecological Gymnasiums in Russia, the most advanced being the one in Volgograd which has been investigated for this and prior Trust projects. Dr. Smirnova was a founder of this Gymnasium under Glazachev’s leadership. Another of Glazachev’s collaborators, a former colleague of Dr. Smirnova, is now doing his second dissertation (Doctorant) studying the Ecological Gymnasium movement.

Dr. Glazachev’s son, Oleg, is also at Moscow State, where he is Director of the International Institute of Social Physiology of the Russian Academy of Science. He has done substantial work on Chernobyl victims and is a proponent of the concept of endoecology, and emergent concept identified in Russia as part of the Project Director’s investigations.

The relationship with the Glazachev’s is fertile ground for a new proposal to the Trust.

The Book/Journal Project

Members of the Russian team were eager to see their work published in a Western peer-reviewed journal. At the same time, it is useful to have the work appear in book form. That prospect however requires identifying a publisher willing to put out a volume that is not intended for a significant academic or trade market. As a perfect compromise, the Project Director approached Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, published by Elsevier Ltd. in a bound monograph form. This arrangement allows the journal, marketed with a book title, to reach a much larger and continuing audience than does a conventional journal.

In February 2005, a contract for a volume entitled Cultures of Contamination: Legacies of Pollution in Russia and the U and constituting Volume 14 of Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, was received, to be edited by the project director and Drs. Tysiachniouk and Smirnova. The project must be completed by October 2005.

An overview of this volume is attached.

Cultures of Contamination: Legacies of Pollution in Russia and the U.S.

Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D., Maria Tysiachniouk, Ph.D. and Lyudmila V. Smirnova, Ph.D. EDS.

Forthcoming as Vol. 14 of Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Elsevier, 2006

Introduction

Cultures of Contamination is the result of a Russian-American exchange program funded by the Trust for Mutual Understanding. In August 2002, a team of Americans visited hypercontaminated environments in Cheliabinsk in the Urals, Dzerzinsk in Moscow’s western ring, St. Petersburg and nearby Kirishi. They had been preceded in June by a smaller group visiting Volgograd and Volsky in the south. The following November, a Russian team came to the United States, visiting some twenty sites in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including Love Canal, the Federal Creosote Superfund site, Centralia, Indian Point nuclear power plant, the Ironbound Section of Newark, and the site of the World Trade Center disaster. Conferences and workshops for participants were held in the Urals, in St. Petersburg, in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

The title of the project was “Empowering NGOs in Contaminated Territories to Address Issues of Future Sustainability.” Its purpose was to compare and contrast the ways that Russians and Americans address issues of contamination with the outcome of a better understanding of how victims and their representatives can be empowered to help prevent and/or recover from ecological disaster. The visiting teams and hosts were selected to create the potential for mutual learning in policy, health and social science through the creation of partnerships and networking of NGOs and professionals in the U.S. and Russia resulting in better strategies for addressing contamination.

Cultures of Contamination

For decades, two contradictory systems faced off across the iron curtain in a contest to represent the model for national and world hegemony. Within modernity, they were as diametrically opposed as any systems for societal organization might be. But these arch rivals similarly spawned cultures of contamination. Both capitalist and state socialist production and waste systems left lasting impacts on the landscape: the quality of air, land and water, and the health of its people. Moreover, the military-industrial complex that serviced the two power’s shadow play war evolved institutions wrapped in secrecy and deception to hide widespread and catastrophic pollution. Now, a decade and a half after the iron curtain was drawn, what can we learn by comparing how contaminated landscapes and toxic victims are viewed and addressed in Russia and the U.S.?

Cultures of Contamination illuminates striking differences but also surprising similarities in weighing the impacts of these toxic legacies. Using significant case studies of toxic victimization, the respective cultures of contamination are explored, contrasting such issues as perception of environmental risk, systems to prevent pollution, the response to solving ecological problems, and how victims fare. Of major import is the cross-generational and environmental justice impact of these events. This contaminated legacy has future implications for efforts to create civil societies based upon environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Cultures of Contamination provides a unique insight into two cultures and their struggles to address self-generated wrongs against nature and against their natures. The differences are fascinating, but the similarities particularly illuminating. The book is intended to serve courses and interested readers addressing the Cold War legacy, cross-cultural and global study, the psychology, anthropology, and sociology of culture and environment, and the challenge to right environmental wrongs and create environmental justice.

The working list of chapters follows:

Introduction:

Michael R. Edelstein “Sustainability and the Need to Deal with the Contaminated Legacy: A Comparison of Russia and the US”

Part 1: Case Studies of Toxic Disaster and Community Impact

Adeline G. Levine—“The Love Canal: Social Science Research in a Community in Crisis.”

Olga Tsepilova—“The Kirishi Case, a Longitudinal View of a Contaminated Community.”

William Hallman and Abraham Wandersman–“GSX, an American Experience of Contamination.”

Alla Bolotova—“Dzerzinsk: “Capital of Soviet Chemistry.”

Janice Hastrup and Michael R. Edelstein—“Contamination in the Southern Appalachians”

Antonina Kuliasova—“Contamination in Sokol Russia “

Part 2: Case Studies of Radiological Disaster and Community Impact

Natalia Mironova, Jonathan Reisman, Maria Tysiachniouk and Michael Edelstein— “Community Responses to Long-Term Radiological Disasters in South Ural Region of Russia”

Nadezda Kutepova and Olga Tsepilova— “Closed City, Open Disaster”

Michael R. Edelstein----“Hanford, Secrecy and Denial and Public Impact”

Susan Maret and Judith Johnsrud—“Secrecy and the U.S. Anti-Nuclear Movement”

Michael Edelstein and Ludmila Smirnova—“Chernobyl: A Liquidator’s Story”

Part 3: Social Dynamics

Michael Edelstein, George Thurston, and Catherine McVay Hughes —“The World Trade Center Disaster---Environmental Risk, Public Fear, and Changed Realities”

Boris Filatov— "Cleaning Up From the Cold War: The Russian Experience with Chemical Weapons Destruction."

Jean Ann McGrane and Madelyn Hoffman—“From Superfund to Brownsfield: An American Response to Contamination.”

Polina F. Agakhaniants—“The Russian Government Response to Contaminated Environments.” Susan Scher and Patricia Seppi—“Federal Creosote: EPA’s Learning Curve on Community Impacts”

Ludmila Smirnova and Stanislav Glasichev—“Volgograd’s Ecological Gymnasium: Adapting Children to a Contaminated World.”

Jean Ann McGrane—“Public Mobilization and the Pressure on GE to Clean up the Hudson”

Part 4: Perspectives

Janice Hastrup—“Disease Clusters: Toxic Consequences But What are the Causes?

Oleg Glasichev “Training People to Adapt to Air Pollution.”

Tatiana Andrushenko and Margaret Gibbs — “Environmental Altruism: A comparison of Russia and the United States.”

Steve Couch, Michele Garcia and Michael Edelstein---Environmental Justice and the American View of Contamination, Implications for Russia.

Michael R. Edelstein “An American Perspective on Comparative Cultures of Contamination”

Maria Tysiachniouk “A Russian Perspective on Comparative Cultures of Contamination.”

NARRATIVE

Introduction and Goals

This exchange program will compare and contrast the ways that Russians and Americans address issues of contamination. Problems associated with exposure, and avoiding risks in siting of hazardous facilities will be explored, as well as establishing sustainable practices for the future.

The specific goals of the exchange are:

1.To provide a comparative framework for understanding the similarities and differences in the management of contaminated environments

2.To address methods for restoring the ecosystems and lives of residents in hypercontaminated areas

3.To provide new models for local governments and NGO representatives to cooperatively address toxic contamination

4.To provide information sharing about approaches to address such issues as counseling and stress management, property damage restitution, facility siting, health monitoring and treatment, victim support and restoration of quality of life.

Background

Because the ability of government to address issues of contamination is inherently limited, and democratic structures are believed to lead to better outcomes, there is an urgent and vital role for NGOs in the development and implementation of any comprehensive policy seeking to address the legacy of contamination.

In the U.S., a series of chemical and radioactive contamination has left the landscape scarred and many thousands of citizens exposed to potentially lethal poisons. Since Love Canal, Americans have addressed chemical contamination through the Superfund process and radioactive contamination through FUSRAP. Components of this process have addressed the study of health effects and future risks, as well as the prospects for site cleanup.

However, the American process falls short in addressing victim compensation and assistance, site restoration, and linking future sustainability efforts to prevention and industrial ecology. NGOs at the local and national level have played key roles in the U.S. context, albeit rarely making the leap from reactive to proactive organizations. And the policy process, frozen for twenty-plus years, has begun to generate new alternative forms of redress, such as right to know, brownsfields redevelopment beneficial uses, community monitoring, and stakeholder mediation.

In Russia, the fall of the Soviet Union provided a better picture of just how dire the legacy of radioactive and chemical contamination had become. Numerous hypercontaminated environments came to light at a time when neither the governmental structures nor the resources were available to provide remedies. Colored heavily by the legacy of Chernobyl and secret weapons and production sites, the Russian experience has had to confront limits on full information and disclosure, participation and legal redress, and a limited appreciation of what toxic victimization means. In the U.S. discussion and debate have focused on what constitutes “clean up” of a contaminated site.

Neither Russia nor the U.S., however, has really addressed the basic issues of contamination, namely, how to restore to the fullest extent possible the lives most affected by the events, and how to move to a new, more sustainable future.

Thus, while there are many differences, both nations suffer from a fundamental policy gap. Such policy can be remedied at the national and central levels, but not after local programs have been successfully implemented. These models and success stories often serve as a foundation for serious policy commitments. It is here that the efforts of NGOs are vital in expanding alternatives, forcing action, and innovating. A learning process connecting government and this public sphere is required if citizen action is to constructively enrich the public response rather than result in defensive conflict.