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WORD COUNT
688
MAY 25, 2005
CHERNOBYL CAN HAPPEN
HERE – by Paul Gunter and Linda Gunter
Last month, the 19th
anniversary of the Chernobyl atomic reactor disaster in Ukraine slipped
by with scarcely a murmur in the media. Instead, headlines were
trumpeting the new nuclear “renaissance,” as the Bush administration
flaunts its pork-laden energy bill and the industry crows about “clean,
green, nuclear power.”
In attempting to
muscle its way into the climate change argument, with a barrage of
misinformation and flawed statistics, the nuclear industry is
conveniently ducking the very real horrors that would ensue if one of
their reactors suffered an accident or attack resulting in a release to
the environment of its radioactive contents. And the weight of
scientific evidence suggests such an outcome is not only possible but
also probable.
Since 9/11, the
security landscape has changed forever. We know that an attack on a U.S.
reactor was in the original al Qaida plans and likely will be again. The
103 operating U.S. reactors are all now reaching the end of their life
spans, meaning they are more prone to technical problems that could lead
to accident. And despite their geriatric status, older reactors are
subject to fewer safety checks and are run hotter and longer, leading to
cracking and embrittled parts vulnerable to failure.
The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC), congressionally charged with safeguarding
the public, has instead capitulated to the industry’s profit-margin
priorities. Added to that, older reactors contain radiation inventories
far larger than the infant reactor at Chernobyl that had operated for
just two years before the catastrophe. And of course, both the Chernobyl
and Three Mile Island accidents were a result of human error, the one
wild card that can never be entirely eliminated.
Also forgotten amidst
the Washington pundits’ pro-nuclear pronouncements are the tragic
consequences so vividly seen today in the children of Chernobyl. These
are young lives forever altered by the birth defects they inherited from
their parents who had the misfortune to live close to the reactor or
downwind of its toxic fallout cloud. Many have been abandoned in
orphanages. More than seven million people in the former Soviet
Republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered
medical problems and genetic damage as the direct result of Chernobyl.
In Ukraine alone, more than 2.3 million people, including 452,000
children, have been treated for radiation-linked illnesses, including
thyroid and blood cancers and cancerous growths, according to the
Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
New
findings reported last November in the “Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health” published by the British Medical Association concluded
that more than 800 cancers in Sweden are being attributed to the
ever-widening impact of the “Chernobyl-effect.”
It is increasingly
disingenuous of the nuclear industry to distance itself from a potential
catastrophic accident in the United States. Considerable evidence exists
that currently operating U.S. reactor containments can also fail during
a severe accident. A 1990 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) study
of risks associated with severe reactor accidents concluded that none of
the five different U.S. designs it analyzed were capable of remaining
intact during all severe accident scenarios.
Furthermore, a
terrorist attack on just a single U.S. nuclear plant could deliver the
unimaginable. One study that examined such a catastrophe at the Indian
Point nuclear plant just 25 miles from Manhattan, concluded that the
number of near-term deaths within 50 miles, due to lethal radiation
exposures received within seven days after an attack by a large aircraft
would number approximately 44,000 under worst case scenario weather
conditions. Long-term cancer deaths could soar as high as 500,000.
Manhattan would become a near-permanent sacrifice zone.
The recently released
National Academy of Sciences report on the vulnerability of reactor fuel
pools supports these conclusions. According to the report, an attack on
a fuel pool and the resulting fire “would create thermal plumes that
could potentially transport radioactive aerosols hundreds of miles
downwind under appropriate atmospheric conditions.”
Fortunately,
Americans have a choice. We can reject the nuclear liability and tell
our elected representatives to advocate for energy efficiency and
renewable energy, measures that carry none of the dangers nor the toxic
legacy of nuclear power. It’s common sense. And our children’s children
will thank us.
--
Paul Gunter is the
director of the Reactor Watchdog Project at Nuclear Information and
Resource Service pgunter@nirs.org. Linda Gunter is the director of Media
Relations at NIRS
lindag@nirs.org. Nuclear Information and Resource Service is the
information and networking center for citizens and environmental
organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste,
radiation, and sustainable energy issues.
www.nirs.org -- A photo of Paul Gunter is available
CLICK HERE
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