[cdn-nucl-l] Chornobyl closure

["Brown, Morgan" <brownmj@aecl.ca>]

Hurrah for the Globe and Mail!   There is no excuse for what happened at
Chornobyl-4, from the unforgiving reactor design, to the lack of safety
culture, to the inadequate management, to the inadequate staff training,
etc.

BUT

Chornobyl has been blamed for a great number of deaths, figures which are
not supported by the UN's investigations.  Undoubtedly there have been
deaths caused by the reactor accident, including 28 firemen and about 10
thyroid cancer victims (there have been in the order of 1800 thyroid
cancers, treatable by removing the thyroid but then the patient must have
drugs for the rest of his or her life).  And there will probably be some
more deaths due to latent cancers.  But we often see unsubstantiated and
unchallenged quotes, that tens of thousands have died due to Chornobyl,
reported in the media.

For the first time I can recall, the media reported that there are
differences in opinion as to the number of fatalities.  In the following
article, it says:
"Experts disagree, however, on the death toll from the accident. Estimates
range anywhere from a few dozen (the number of clean-up workers killed in
the immediate aftermath) to as many as 30,000 (an estimate sometimes cited
by Ukrainian officials)."

Amazing!



Little to celebrate for Chernobyl staff
The world may cheer the plant's closing,
GEOFFREY YORK writes, but for angry, fearful
workers it means hundreds of jobs lost 
GEOFFREY YORK

Saturday, December 16, 2000 
MOSCOW -- While the world celebrated the final shutdown of the notorious
Chernobyl nuclear plant yesterday, thousands of workers fear the gala
ceremony will prove to be a funeral for their dreams.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma gave the historic order to close Chernobyl
in a lavish televised event in a Kiev concert hall with 2,000 guests and
dignitaries from a dozen countries.
The order was relayed to the control room of Chernobyl's third reactor, the
only one of the four original reactors still operating, and a technician
flicked an emergency stop switch.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, a 1986
explosion that spewed radiation across Europe, triggering fear and panic
among millions of people. The accident has caused thousands of cancer cases
and an unknown number of deaths in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus.
The West lobbied fiercely for the shutdown of the Chernobyl plant, which is
still regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world. But until this
year, Mr. Kuchma had delayed any final decision while he negotiated for
better guarantees of compensation.
Messages of congratulations poured into Kiev yesterday from foreign leaders
and international agencies. Among the workers, however, there were tears and
anger. Many have been wearing black arm bands this week in protest against
the closing.
"This will be a painful process," deputy plant director Sergei Sharshoum
predicted in an interview earlier this year. "A lot of people are feeling
discouraged and dismayed. We're afraid that as soon as Chernobyl is
completely closed, the world's interest in us will be lost."
Even the technician who flicked the stop switch yesterday, Sergiy Bashdovy,
criticized the shutdown.
"I feel ashamed and will not be able to look Chernobyl workers in the eye
after I do what I have to do," he told Agence France-Presse shortly before
obeying the President's order.
Western governments have pledged the equivalent of $3.5-billion in aid to
Ukraine to compensate for the shutdown of Chernobyl, which has been
supplying 5 per cent of the country's energy needs.
As many as 2,700 workers, about half of the plant's labour force, are
expected to lose their jobs as a result of the shutdown of the last reactor.
Hundreds of workers are hoping to find jobs in the decommissioning process,
and others could secure work at other half-built nuclear plants, elsewhere
in Ukraine, that will be completed with Western aid money.
At yesterday's ceremony, Mr. Kuchma painted a grim picture of the toll of
the Chernobyl disaster. Almost 3.5 million people have been affected by the
accident, including 160,000 who were forced to abandon their homes, and
almost 10 per cent of Ukraine's territory has been contaminated, he said.
The Chernobyl accident has "entered the list of world catastrophes such as
Pompeii or Hiroshima."
In fact, the amount of radiation spewed into the atmosphere from Chernobyl
in 1986 was the equivalent of 500 times the amount released by the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the Second World War.
Experts disagree, however, on the death toll from the accident. Estimates
range anywhere from a few dozen (the number of clean-up workers killed in
the immediate aftermath) to as many as 30,000 (an estimate sometimes cited
by Ukrainian officials).
Ukraine's nuclear industry has been reluctant to close Chernobyl, insisting
it could operate safely for another seven years because of recent
modernization work.
But Mr. Kuchma said his country was "forsaking a part of our national
interests for the sake of global safety."