Object Lesson in Nuclear Threat Waits in a Forest

WASHINGTON —  As three woodcutters hiked in December through the back country of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, they were drawn to a pair of objects lying in a pool of melted snow. The men dragged the strangely warm items back to their camp to help ward off the frosty weather.

At least, that is the story pieced together by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which says the devices are the highly radioactive remains of a former Soviet communications system.

Now the agency is trying to send a team into the snowy woods to recover the items, which sickened the men and are thought to contain strontium-90. Bad weather foiled a recovery attempt last month. The agency expects to try again Sunday.

Experts say strontium-90 cannot set off a nuclear explosion, but terrorists could attach it to conventional explosives to spread radioactivity. Smugglers in recent years have attempted to buy radioactive material from former Soviet installations on the black market.

In fact, some experts say the Soviets placed hundreds of strontium-90 devices throughout their former republics, using them as batteries for radars or communications relay stations in remote areas. Clay Moltz, a Russia specialist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said the devices also were used to power coastal lighthouses.

Material Is ‘Very Dangerous Stuff’

“I’d say there are hundreds, but not hundreds of hundreds,” Moltz said. “It’s something of a concern, and it’s really irresponsible of the Russian and post-Soviet nuclear authorities not to have gathered them in. It’s a hazard to the population and could be used by terrorists to spread panic.”

John Holdren, a physicist who leads Harvard University’s Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy, said strontium-90 is “certainly very dangerous stuff.” But he noted that industrial and medical equipment often contains material that is even more radioactive and also poses disposal problems.

The woodcutters found the radioactive items on Dec. 2, said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the atomic energy agency. “They made the mistake of bringing them toward their campsite and using them as a type of heat source,” Fleming said, “lying close to them and exposing themselves to very large doses of radiation.”

She said the men became sick a few hours later and went to a hospital. Doctors there sent them to a hospital in Tbilisi, the nation’s capital. Soon afterward, Georgian officials asked for help from the international atomic agency, a United Nations organization devoted to safeguarding nuclear material.

Fleming said the canisters, about 15 centimeters tall and 10 centimeters wide, were left lying exposed in a patch of remote woods about 400 kilometers northwest of Tbilisi, near the breakaway region of Abkhazia.

Two agency workers, from Brazil and Britain, are training a local team to make another attempt to recover the canisters, possibly on Sunday, Fleming said. Among other things, the team has prepared a lead container to hold the dangerous material.

News of the agency’s work was first reported among Western media Thursday by the journal Science.

Russia May Not Have Adequate Records

The atomic agency believes the canisters contain strontium-90 because their description is similar to those of other radioactive canisters found in the region, Fleming said.

Scott Parrish, a researcher with the Monterey Institute, said Georgian officials had asked for more cooperation from Russia in locating radioactive materials from the Soviet era. “I’m not sure the Russians kept good enough records to tell them everything,” he said.

Parrish said he had seen Russian press reports claiming that the devices found by the woodcutters had been used to power communications equipment as part of a series of hydroelectric projects.

According to the reports, he said, the men had broken a concrete shell around the radioactive material, then melted a protective lead casing to make bullets for their hunting rifles.

“I wouldn’t want to downplay this too much,” Parrish said, “but there are many cases around the world each year of missing or improper disposal of radioactive sources like this. Unless there’s good evidence that some terrorist group is after these particular sources, I’m not sure I would attribute particular importance to any one incident.”

Improperly stored radioactive waste has proven to be a health hazard in many parts of the world.

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Times staff writer Greg Miller contributed to this report.