[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 55 (Thursday, April 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4115-S4116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT
Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, tomorrow, April 26, is the 10th anniversary
of the most dramatic ecological disaster of the 20th century--the
explosion of reactor No. 4 at the V.I. Lenin Atomic Power Plant in
Chernobyl, Ukraine.
On that day, 10 years ago tomorrow, a combination of poor design,
human error--or, more accurately, human negligence and incompetence--
led to a massive explosion within the core of reactor No. 4--an
explosion that blew off the 2,000-ton reactor chamber roof, spewing
massive amounts of radiation into the surrounding area and the Earth's
atmosphere in a radioactive cloud that eventually reached as far away
as California.
It was not until several years after the disaster occurred that the
truth about Chernobyl, the crown jewel of the Soviet nuclear power
industry, began to emerge--that following the explosion, reactor No. 4
experienced what has long been considered the worst-case scenario in
nuclear power--a full reactor meltdown. The core material burned,
exposed to the atmosphere, for nearly 10 days, and resulting in a total
meltdown.
Our colleague, Senator Kennedy, summed it up shortly after the
disaster, when he said ``The ultimate lesson of Chernobyl is that human
and technological error can cause disaster anytime, anywhere.'' That
has particular residence for us in Nevada.
The ecological and economic consequences of Chernobyl were massive,
immediate, and will last for tens of thousands of years.
Thirty-one people died as an immediate result of the explosion, 200
were hospitalized, and 135,000 were evacuated from 71 nearby towns and
villages. High doses of radiation spread over at least 10,000 square
miles, affecting 5 million people in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The
explosion spread more than 200 times the radiation released by the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts combined. Anywhere from 32,000 to 150,000
people could eventually die as a result of the blast. Millions of
people have had their lives permanently disrupted by the accident.
Belarus and Ukraine now report a broad rise in respiratory illness,
heart disease, and birth defects. Scientists are still waiting to see
what the role may be of the radiation exposure in leading to the many
cancers that take longer than 10 years to develop, but expect it to be
significant.
The children of Belarus have been particularly hard hit. Seventy
percent of the Chernobyl fallout landed in Belarus--a nation that
itself has no nuclear reactors. Huge tracts of land in Belarus were
contaminated with radioactive cesium, strontium, and plutonium. Prior
to 1986, Belarus's thyroid cancer rate for children under 14 was
typical--2 cases in a nation of about 10 million. By 1992, the rate was
up to 66, and by 1994, the rate had increased to 82--an increase that
can only be explained by the Chernobyl fallout.
One quarter of the land of Belarus, home to one-fifth of the nation's
population, has been severely contaminated by the Chernobyl explosion.
The power plant complex is surrounded by an 18-mile radius exclusion
zone--an area of very high contamination that is off-limits to for
residence and entry without a special permit.
Lying outside of the exclusion zone is a much larger area with
lesser, but still very high, contamination. Despite official government
pronouncements that this area is unsafe, it is still home to 237,000
residents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, who simply cannot afford to
live anywhere else.
The remains of reactor No. 4, still highly radioactive, are contained
in a hastily erected sarcophagus--a highly unstable structure,
considered by many the most dangerous building on earth. As concerns
regarding the possibility of collapse of the sarcophagus or the reactor
entombed inside increase, it is unclear if the technological or
financial challenges of stabilizing and cleaning up reactor No. 4 can
ever be met.
Mr. President, If Chernobyl has taught us anything, it is that when
dealing with such high-risk matters as nuclear power, or nuclear waste,
small mistakes can have enormous consequences.
Next week, the Senate may turn to a bill aptly dubbed the ``Mobile
Chernobyl Bill''--S. 1271, the Craig nuclear waste bill.
As many of my colleagues are aware, this establishes, on an
accelerated schedule, a so-called interim high-level nuclear waste dump
in Nevada.
I want to be clear on what this interim storage program means. Tens
of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste will be removed from
reactors, loaded on over 16,000 trains and trucks, and shipped cross
country to Nevada, a State with no nuclear power. The
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waste will travel through 43 States on transportation routes that bring
the waste within one mile of over 50 million people.
Mr. President, I know the nuclear power industry is lobbying hard for
this bill. I know there is a lot of pressure on Senators to support
this legislation. I also know that the nuclear power industry has
spread a massive amount of disinformation about the bill.
By any objective evaluation, this legislation is completely
unnecessary. In fact, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a
Federal agency created by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and comprised
of the Nation's most respected scientists, said just 1 month ago that
there is simply no need for an interim storage facility at this time.
This is not the first time the industry has cried wolf. In 1980, a
supporter of the industry asserted:
We are running out of reactor space at reactors for the
storage of the fuel, and if we do not build what we call
away-from-reactor storage, another type of interim storage,
and begin soon, we could begin shutting down civilian nuclear
reactors in this country as soon as 1983.
Of course, Mr. President, no U.S. reactors have closed due to lack of
storage. Thirteen years have passed since the prediction that in 1983
there would result the closure of reactors.
Despite the crisis mentality created by the nuclear power industry,
there is no nuclear reactor in America that will be forced to close
down due to lack of storage. Every nuclear utility, if it so chooses,
can take advantage of existing, NRC licensed, off the shelf dry cast
storage systems to meet its spent fuel storage needs. Should the mobile
Chernobyl bill come to the floor next week, I will have a lot more to
say about the lack of any compelling need for this legislation.
There are, however, plenty of other reasons to oppose this bill. The
bill preempts nearly every local, State, or Federal environmental
protection. It creates a taxpayer liability of billions of dollars to
solve the private industry's waste problem. It eliminates EPA authority
to protect the health and public safety.
Mr. President, I do not know when the Senate may consider this bill.
It is my hope that it never comes up. Nevertheless, I urge my
colleagues to fully consider the many legitimate public health safety
consequences raised by this legislation, particularly as they relate to
their own constituents, and to oppose the mobile Chernobyl bill. I
yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Alaska is recognized to speak in morning business for up to 10 minutes.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair and wish the Chair a good morning.
(The remarks of Mr. Murkowski pertaining to the introduction of S.
1703 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair and wish the Chair a good day. I
thank the floor managers for allowing additional time in morning
business.
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I believe we are at the order of business
under the previous order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. SIMPSON. Which is to go to the illegal immigration bill, is that
correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
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