Abstract
The Semipalatinsk Test Site houses various contaminated water resources including lakes and rivers that support fish populations, which are caught for personal consumption and for commercial sale in nearby communities while farmers water their livestock from it. There is limited data available on the contamination of freshwater biota for multiple radionuclides. The presence of 137 Cs, 90 Sr, 241 Am, 239+240 Pu, and 3 H at various levels in the different water bodies offers a unique opportunity to study the uptake of radionuclides in fish and to assure public safety. Additionally, information on the migration processes of cesium and strontium can be applied to other pollutants that exhibit similar behaviour in the environment. The observed radionuclides showed mostly a similar pattern to various other marine and freshwater species, with 137 Cs concentrated in the muscle, 90 Sr in the bones, however Crater No. 101 showed the gastrointestinal tract high pattern for Pu isotopes. The relatively highly contaminated Crater No.101 could serve as an outstanding site for future experimental investigations into radionuclide transfer and dynamics for fish and other freshwater biota, while other, less contaminated sites show a potential for commercial utilization as hosts for fisheries based on internationally accepted levels of radionuclides in food.