Chernobyl

As the horror of the Chernobyl accident reached the front pages of American newspapers, the U.S. nuclear industry began a furious campaign to convince the American people that Chernobyl could never happen here. U.S. industry executives and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) bureaucrats frantically searched for reasons to ease public concern, citing everything from differences in plant design between the Soviet and U.S. reactors, to differences in safety protection requirements, to differences in the value placed on human life between the Soviet and U.S. governments.

Coming from the U.S nuclear industry and its most effective proponent, the Reagan administration, such assurances are presumptuous at best. The truth is that massive radioactive contamination and human casualties, such as those which occurred at Chernobyl, could easily have happened here.

One of the U.S. industry's most often repeated criticisms of the Soviet nuclear plant design has been Chernobyl's lack of a containment structure. Containment structures can, under certain circumstances, halt the immediate release of large quantities of radiation in the event of an accident. What the industry propaganda fails to mention, however, is that almost half of this country's reactors, those designed by General Electric and Westinghouse, have containment designs strikingly similar to the containment vessel at Chernobyl. Forty-nine U.S. reactors have this design, known as "pressure suppression containments."

Daniel Ford, former Executive Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Robert C. Pollard, UCS Nuclear Safety Engineer, released documents in mid-May that showed the U.S. government had known since 1972 about the fundamental problems with the GE containment design but kept the information secret.

In one 1972 document, Joseph Hendrie, who later became NRC Chairman, wrote to John O'Leary, now Chairman of the Board of the company which operates TMI, "the acceptance of pressure suppression containment concepts by all elements of the nuclear field... is firmly imbedded in the conventional wisdom. Reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power. It would throw into question the continued operation of licensed plants, would make unlicensable the GE and [some Westinghouse] plants now in review, and would generally create more turmoil than I can stand thinking about."

In addition to GE and Westinghouse containment ,ieficiencies, there is considerable evidence that even ,;'urdily designed structures are plagued with shoddy _~onstruction and operational problems, including large voids and cracks in the concrete walls of some containment structures. Between 1965 and 1983, NRC records show 2,000-3,000 instances where valves and worker access doors in containment structure were accidentally left open, according to Ford. During an accident, this condition would have made containing radiation impossible.

Even assuming these structures are built and maintained properly, none are designed to contain melted fuel. And none could have contained the brute force of the Chernobyl explosion. Even at TMI, which had a particularly close proximity to Harrisburg's airport, it is likely a meltdown would have breached the reactors' containment vessel and spewed radioactive fallout over the surrounding population.

Although the TMI containment structure worked as designed during the 1979 accident, significant amounts of radiation were still released, particularly during the accident's first few hours. A year after the accident, the NRC illegally allowed the TMI reactor building to open its vents, releasing even more accident-generated radioactive gases directly into the environment.

The health effects from releases during and subsequent to the TMI accident are just beginning to be manifested. More than 2,000 area residents have now filed suit against TMrs owners for cancers and other radiation related health injuries. A number of cases have already been settled.

Like the Chernobyl disaster, the TMI accident was never supposed to have happened. The industry is quick to say that TMI had a sobering effect; that the accident forced the industry to rise to a standard of excellence to avoid even the possibility of such an accident ever happening again at a U.S. nuclear plant.

But the post-TMI experience of the U.S. nuclear industry tells another story. It is a story of an industry grudgingly acquiescing to safety standards, failing to make necessary safety improvements for the sake of expediency, and refusing to acknowledge problems or take effective steps to prevent accidents.

It is also the story of a government whose first priority is not protecting the public's health and safety, but rather trying to put the problem-ridden nuclear industry back on its feet. The NRC itself admits that there is a 50-50 chance of another severe core melt accident, as bad as TMI or worse, within the next 20 years. Numerous grand juries around the country are looking into criminal misconduct by both nuclear plant operators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff. The company responsible for the TMI-2 accident has already been indicted and convicted of criminal misconduct.

In an attempt to lure utilities back to nuclear energy, the Reagan administration has offered the tempting prospect of deregulation, including relaxing safety requirements.

The results could be devastating. According to a report released recently by Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project, over twenty thousand mishaps at U.S. reactors have been documented by the NRC since TMI. The number of incidents has increased each year, and according to one House subcommittee, 1985 had the worst safety record since 1979.

Among these incidents are:

• A 1982 accident at the Ginna plant in Rochester, New York, where a steam generator tube burst leading to the release of 90 curies of radioactive gases into the environment,
• A 1982 "Anticipated Transient Without Scram," one of the most feared occurrences in nuclear power generation and another one which was never supposed to happen, at the Salem plant in New Jersey. Essentially, the plant failed to automatically shut down when signaled to do so,
• A 1985 incident at California's San Onofre plant when a water hammer, or a violent shaking in reactor piping, caused a steam leak of 50 to 100 gallons per minute and damaged pipe supports and insulation,
• A 1985 accident at Kerr-McGee's Sequoyah uranium processing plant resulting in the death of one worker and injuries to others, when an over-filled cylinder of uranium hexaflouride exploded after employees improperly heated it, and,
• A 1985 incident at Ohio's Davis-Besse plant, similar in design to TMI, when the plant lost both its main and auxiliary feedwater systems. Numerous incidents at this and other Babcock & Wilcox plants caused the NRC for the second time to begin an overall safety review of B&W plants.

In addition, in 1985 all reactors run by the Tennessee Valley Authority were shut down due to serious mismanagement and safety problems.

Even worse are the reactors exempt from NRC regulation-U.S. weapons facilities operated by the Department of Energy. These plants are licensed without the benefit of public scrutiny. Ironically, these are the plants with design features most similar to those of Chernobyl. The N-reactor at Hanford in Washington state uses a graphite moderator similar to the type that was used at the Chernobyl plant. The moderator surrounds the nuclear fuel to slow down the nuclear reaction. As Chernobyl demonstrated, graphite may burn uncontrollably at high temperatures.

The N-reactor, and the four Savannah River plants in South Carolina, which are more than 30 years old, also lack containment domes.

The U.S. industry is correct that reactors throughout the world have different designs and are operated and regulated by very different systems. But they all share certain critical features. They are all operated by human beings who can make mistakes. The are all dependent on a highly complex technology which is vulnerable to failure. And they all contain highly radioactive fuel which can melt.

And melted fuel kills people.

Joanne Doroshow is an attorney with Three Mile Island Alert, a Harrisburg-based citizen's group which fought the restart of Three Mile Island.