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Workers at a Ukrainian nuclear power plant are in a race to secure water for the plant’s safe operation.
Following the destruction of a critical dam in Ukraine, water levels at a large reservoir used by the power plant are dropping fast. Workers have slurped up as much of it as they can. They’ve filled up ponds, canals and a small artificial lake next to the plant.
The situation is not an immediate crisis, says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. Still, Lyman believes the loss of an important water supply is putting more strain on the already beleaguered nuclear plant – which has been under Russian occupation for over a year.
The plant has already endured power failures, fires, shelling and abuse of workers by Russian occupiers, all of which are eroding its defenses, Lyman says. And now this.
„It’s a kind of a slow-motion train wreck,“ he says.
Nuclear power plants generate a lot of heat. Keeping them cool takes lots of water, which is why the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station sat on one of Ukraine’s largest reservoirs. The Kakhovka Reservoir is roughly the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake and was the plant’s source of cooling water for decades.
Then on June 6, something destroyed the dam holding back the reservoir. Seismic signals indicate there was an explosion, and a U.S. official tells NPR that a spy satellite also detected a blast.
