Editing Ural Mountains (section)

==Ecology==
The continuous and intensive economic development of the last centuries has affected the fauna, and wildlife is much diminished around all industrial centers. During World War II, hundreds of factories were evacuated from Western Russia before the German occupation, flooding the Urals with industry. The conservation measures include establishing national wildlife parks.<ref name=brit/> There are nine [[zapovednik|strict nature reserves]] in the Urals: the [[Ilmen Nature Reserve|Ilmen]], the oldest one, mineralogical reserve founded in 1920 in Chelyabinsk Oblast, [[Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve|Pechora-Ilych]] in the Komi Republic, [[Bashkir Nature Reserve|Bashkir]] and its former branch [[Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve|Shulgan-Tash]] in Bashkortostan, [[Visim Nature Reserve|Visim]] in [[Sverdlovsk Oblast]], [[Southern Ural]] in Bashkortostan, [[Basegi Nature Reserve|Basegi]] in Perm Krai, [[Vishera Nature Reserve|Vishera]] in Perm Krai and [[Denezhkin Kamen Nature Reserve|Denezhkin Kamen]] in Sverdlovsk Oblast.

The area has also been severely damaged by the [[plutonium]]-producing facility [[Mayak]], opened in Chelyabinsk-40 (later called Chelyabinsk-65, [[Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast|Ozyorsk]]), in the Southern Ural, after World War II.<ref name=brit/> Its plants went into operation in 1948 and, for the first ten years, dumped unfiltered radioactive waste into the river [[Techa]] and [[Lake Karachay]].<ref name=brit/><ref name="PodvigBukharin2004">{{cite book|last1=Podvig|first1=Pavel|author2=Bukharin, Oleg |author3=von Hippel, Frank |title=Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CPRVbYDc-7kC&pg=PA70|year=2004|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-66181-2|page=70}}</ref><ref name=military/> In 1990, efforts were underway to contain the radiation in one of the lakes, which was estimated at the time to expose visitors to 500 [[Röntgen equivalent man|millirem]] per day.<ref name=military/> As of 2006, 500&nbsp;mrem in the natural environment was the upper limit of exposure considered safe for a member of the general public in an entire year (though workplace exposure over a year could exceed that by a factor of 10).<ref name="Society2006">{{cite book|author=American Chemical Society|author-link=American Chemical Society|title=Chemistry in the Community: ChemCom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYtpGEbAB1cC&pg=PA499|year=2006|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-7167-8919-2|page=499}}</ref> Over {{convert|23000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}} of land were contaminated in 1957 from a storage tank explosion, only one of several serious accidents that further polluted the region.<ref name=brit/> The [[Kyshtym disaster|1957 accident]] expelled 20&nbsp;million [[Curie (unit)|curies]] of radioactive material, 90% of which settled into the land immediately around the facility.<ref name="Inc.1991">{{cite journal|title=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists|journal = Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Science and Public Affairs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tAwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25|date=May 1991|publisher=Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.|page=25|issn=0096-3402 }}</ref> Although some reactors of Mayak were shut down in 1987 and 1990,<ref name=military>{{cite journal | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TYqTls5lnGYC&q=Chelyabinsk-40+plutonium&pg=PA22 | journal = [[New Scientist]] | title = Military reactors go on show to American visitors | last = Paine | first = Christopher | date = 22 July 1989 | access-date = 8 July 2010 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> the facility keeps producing plutonium.<ref>[http://obzor.westsib.ru/news/320002 Производство плутония с ПО "Маяк" на Сибирский химкомбинат перенесено не будет] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823134025/http://obzor.westsib.ru/news/320002 |date=23 August 2011 }} [Plutonium production will not be transferred from Mayak], obzor.westsib.ru, 25 March 2010 (in Russian)</ref>