美国国家公共电台 NPR Melting Ice In Greenland Could Expose Serious Pollutants From Buried Army Base

Melting Ice In Greenland Could Expose Serious Pollutants¹ From Buried Army Base

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Buried below the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, there is an abandoned U.S. Army Base. Camp Century had trucks and tunnels - even a nuclear reactor². It was advertised as a research station and was also a test site for deploying³ nuclear missiles. The camp was abandoned almost 50 years ago, buried under snow and ice. But as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, serious pollutants were very likely left behind. And the ice is melting.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAMP CENTURY")

CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE⁴: When the U.S. Army Corps⁵ of Engineers built Camp Century in 1959, an Army film touted⁶ it as an engineering marvel⁷, a cavernous home for up to 200 people.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAMP CENTURY")

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: On the top of the world, below the surface of a giant ice cap, a city is buried. Today on the island of Greenland, as part of man's continuing efforts to master the secrets of survival in the Arctic, the United States Army has established an unprecedented⁸, nuclear-powered arctic research center.

JOYCE: Yes, there was research going on. But there were also railways running along huge tunnels. The secret plan, called Project Ice Worm, was to test the idea of putting nuclear missiles on tracks below the ice and aiming them at the Soviet⁹ Union. But the ice sheet began shifting. The tunnels wouldn't last. So the army abandoned it in 1967. Ice and snow continued to bury it even deeper. Five years ago, an Arctic researcher in Greenland heard stories about the camp.

WILLIAM COLGAN: When you go to this site nowadays, it's just flat white - looks like everywhere else on the ice sheet. And it's only when you start to understand what lies beneath the site that it takes on a special significance.

JOYCE: William Colgan is a physical geographer¹⁰ at York University in Canada. He found records that described what was left behind there, like radioactive cooling water from that reactor. The camp also stored lots of diesel¹¹ fuel. There were very likely PCBs, toxic¹² compounds found in electrical equipment. There's no record of how much was buried. Colgan says the Army figured the waste would be entombed forever.

COLGAN: They thought it would snow in perpetuity. And the phrase they used was that the waste would be preserved for eternity¹³ by perpetually accumulating snow.

JOYCE: And in 1967, that was a good bet - except, the climate has changed. It's getting warmer. The Greenland ice sheet is melting. Colgan and a team of researchers estimated how soon the abandoned camp and its wastes might be uncovered. Their findings are in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

COLGAN: So our study is saying, well, we might not be looking at preservation¹⁴ for eternity any longer. It might be more like preservation for the next century or so.

JOYCE: Climate models say the camp could be uncovered by the end of this century. Now, that's a worst-case scenario¹⁵. But other things are happening that could spread that waste sooner.

JENNIFER MERCER: As you continue to have longer warm periods, we will definitely start to see more cracks on the Greenland ice sheet.

JOYCE: Jennifer Mercer is an operations manager for scientific teams working on the ice sheet. Water from melting snow will find those cracks and crevasses¹⁶. Mercer says it could percolate¹⁷ down to the camp and then carry contamination to the ocean. It's unclear who owns this waste. The camp was set up under a treaty between the U.S. and Denmark, which had jurisdiction¹⁸ over Greenland. Jessica Green, an environmental policy expert at New York University, says it's a legal dilemma¹⁹.

JESSICA GREEN: Climate change is raising a lot of questions about who is responsible for what.

JOYCE: As the climate changes, litigation won't be far behind. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.

1 pollutants   

污染物质（尤指工业废物）( pollutant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere. 污染物质正在不断地被排放到大气中去。
• The 1987 Amendments limit 301(g) discharges to a few well-studied nonconventional pollutants. 1987年的修正案把第301条（g）的普通排放限制施加在一些认真研究过的几种非常规污染物上。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

2 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

3 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

6 touted   

v.兜售( tout的过去式和过去分词 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报

参考例句：

• She's being touted as the next leader of the party. 她被吹捧为该党的下一任领导人。
• People said that he touted for his mother and sister. 据说，他给母亲和姐姐拉生意。 来自辞典例句

7 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

8 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

9 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

10 geographer   

n.地理学者

参考例句：

• His grandfather is a geographer.他的祖父是一位地理学家。
• Li Siguang is a famous geographer.李四光是一位著名的地理学家。

11 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

12 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

13 eternity   

n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷

参考例句：

• The dull play seemed to last an eternity.这场乏味的剧似乎演个没完没了。
• Finally,Ying Tai and Shan Bo could be together for all of eternity.英台和山伯终能双宿双飞，永世相随。

14 preservation   

n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持

参考例句：

• The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。
• The picture is in an excellent state of preservation.这幅画保存得极为完好。

15 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

16 crevasses   

n.破口，崩溃处，裂缝( crevasse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Splays are commonly formed by currents from crevasses in levees. 嗽叭形堆积通常由堤防决口的洪流所形成。 来自辞典例句
• The upper surface of glacier is riven by crevasses. 冰川的上表面已裂成冰隙。 来自辞典例句

17 percolate   

v.过滤，渗透

参考例句：

• The rain will percolate through the soil.雨水渗入土中。
• New fashions took a long time to percolate down.新时尚要很长时间才能在大众中流行起来。

18 jurisdiction   

n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权

参考例句：

• It doesn't lie within my jurisdiction to set you free.我无权将你释放。
• Changzhou is under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province.常州隶属江苏省。

19 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。