Techa River

Course of the Techa River ( Теча ) in the western basin of the Tobol

Position of Tura in the catchment area of the Tobol

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Techa River (Russian Теча ) is a 243 km long right tributary of the Iset east of the Urals, in the southwest of the West Siberian Plain in Russia.

The river became known especially through its strong radioactive contamination from regular operations and accidents in the Nuclear Mayak plant.

Course

The Techa entfließt just east of the city Osjorsk the 227 m high altitude lake Irtjasch at the eastern foot of the southern Urals, in the Chelyabinsk region north of Oblasthauptstadt.

The river first flows in an easterly direction, then turns almost to the north, reaches the Kurgan Oblast and finally ends at the city Dalmatowo in the Iset.

Except Osjorsk (formerly the secret city of Chelyabinsk -40, Chelyabinsk -65 later ) and Dalmatowo (but is not directly on the Techa River, but near its mouth on the other bank of the Iset ), there are no towns along the river.

Hydrography

The catchment area of ​​the Techa comprises approximately 7,500 km ². The average monthly water flow is at about 25 km above the mouth situated village Perschinskoje 6.7 m³ / s ( minimum in January 1.8 m³ / s, maximum during snowmelt in April 28 m³ / s).

In estuaries near the river at normal water level is about 30 feet wide, less than a meter deep and has a flow rate of 0.3 m / s

The Techa River has no major tributaries; therefore are width, depth and water flow virtually constant over its entire length.

Infrastructure

About 40 miles downstream ( east ) of the origin of the Techa it is crossed by the highway-like developed M36 highway connecting the cities of Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk million. A little further east crosses the railway line (Ekaterinburg ) Kamensk- Uralski - Chelyabinsk the Techa River. Further downstream runs on wide sections of a local road through the villages along the river and crosses it here several times.

Ecology

From 1949 to 1951 came from the south of the Techa River - headwaters located at Osjorsk Nuclear plant ( " chemical plant " ) Majak huge amounts of radioactive effluents into the river, whose radioactivity 12 Petabecquerel ( PBq ) for 90Strontium, 13 PBq for 137Cäsium and 106 PBq for short-lived radionuclides was. In the years up to 1956, the introduction has been greatly reduced, but stopped. Overall, during this period with 76 million cubic meters of radioactive waste into the river.

On September 29, 1957, was annexed to the so-called Kyschtym accident, came through again the large amounts of radioactive material into the river.

After the disaster emerged on the radioactive effluents 1958-1964 partly from natural lakes, including the largest the Kysyltasch directly at Osjorsk, on the upper reaches of the Techa four catch basins (W- 3, W - 4, W -10 and W-11, together the Techa cascade ), which were compared to the Techa completed by earth and concrete dams. The Irtjaschsee entfließende the water has since been largely directed to the catch basin around. The basins have a total area of 67.4 km ² and a total volume of 357.9 million m³. The south of the Techa River located in their catchment area, heavily contaminated Lake Karachay was sealed with concrete.

Direct access to the Techa is not possible to wide sections of the upper and middle reaches to this day; several villages in the upper reaches were cleared.

In exceptional water supply through rainfall or snowmelt, however, threatens to overflow the sump, also seepage through leaks. Latter reason should be discharged into the river in the years 2001-2004 again up to 60 million cubic meters of radioactive waste. In this context, investigations were launched against the Mayak CEO Vitali Sadownikow, but set 2006.

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