Gabala Radar Station - Environmental Concerns

Environmental Concerns

There were reports about environmental damage from the activity of Gabala Radar Station which sparked some public debate in Azerbaijan. Similar health concerns were raised about American PAVE PAWS phased array radars, but as of 2005 available data did not support those concerns. Surveys undertaken by the Radiation Problems Institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources have not found anything abnormal.

Some sources say that the station occupies about 210 hectares (519 acres), however the Russian military say 190 acres (77 ha). Opponents of the station say that another 400 hectares of forest were cut down while laying transmission lines to service the station and that the underground water level has fallen sharply after 16 boreholes were drilled to supply water to the station's cooling system. Every hour of cooling station requires about 300-400 cubic meters of water, after which the water without any treatment is discharged into a river. Because of falling groundwater surrounding forests are dying. Many species of fish in the river disappeared. The local population continues to use water from the river

The newspaper Baku Zerkalo reports that in 1984, when the power was 300 MW of one hectare of land was completely burnt out. In other instances of sources of ignition for trees on the radiation meter range is not described, such fires do not occur when operating a similar radar in Pechora and comparable to the power of the Don-2N radar station in the Moscow suburbs.