[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 1, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10265-S10267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           RADIATION EFFECTS

  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, earlier today the Labor Subcommittee of the 
Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on a report prepared by 
the National Cancer Institute regarding the health effects of fallout 
from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950's and 1960's.
  Today, 35 years after the last atmospheric test, we are just 
beginning to get a clear picture of the effects of the radioactive 
fallout from these tests.
  While we should obviously continue to do everything we can to help 
the victims of these tests, I hope we can also learn something from our 
mistakes in the past.
  This August, the National Cancer Institute released the results of 
its nationwide study of radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear 
tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950's and 1960's.
  In 1982, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human 
Services to develop methods to estimate radioactive iodine-131 
exposure, to assess thyroid I-131 doses, and to assess risks for 
thyroid cancer from the exposures.
  Ninety atmospheric tests were conducted at the test site mainly in 
the years 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1957.
  All 48 contiguous States received some degree of exposure to 
radioactive iodine-131 fallout from these atmospheric nuclear bomb 
tests.
  Everyone in those States was exposed.
  Let me repeat that--everyone was exposed.
  People living hundreds of miles to the north and east of the Nevada 
Test Site in Montana, Idaho, Utah, South Dakota, and Colorado were 
exposed.
  Within these 5 States, 25 counties had particularly high fall-out 
exposure ranging from 12.0 to 9.0 rads.
  A ``rad'' is a radiation absorbed dose, which is the amount of 
radiation absorbed by the tissues in the body.
  The tragic conclusion of this study is that children, who lived in 
these high exposure areas, and who were aged between 3 months and 5 
years at the time of the tests were at the greatest risk for iodine-131 
exposure.
  Since children's thyroids are so small, their exposure was 
disproportionately higher than adults.
  Children who drank contaminated milk--particularly from cows 
maintained for family use--and which ate pasture vegetation, have an 
even greater exposure.
  The children in this age group exceeded the average per capita 
thyroid dose by a factor of about 3.7 following the tests because of 
their greater milk consumption and their smaller thyroids.
  After each of the 90 tests, people living in these States were 
exposed to varying levels of iodine-131--for about 2 months following 
each test.
  This means the air, milk, and other dairy products, eggs and leafy 
vegetables were all contaminated, and that contamination lingered for a 
significant period of time after each test.
  The National Cancer Institute has concluded from the limited data 
available on people who were exposed, as children, to iodine-131 from 
the nuclear tests' fallout that this exposure is linked to thyroid 
cancer.
  NCI estimates between 10,000 to 75,000 people who were exposed as 
children may develop fallout-associated thyroid cancer during their 
lifetime.
  Nearly all were under 15 years of age at the time of exposure, and 75 
percent were under 5 years of age.
  NCI is currently working with scientists in Belarus and Ukraine to 
study thyroid cancer following the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.
  Thousands of children exposed to the accident's fallout received 
radiation doses to their thyroids.
  These doses ranged from comparatively small to 10 times higher than 
U.S. residents received from the Nevada tests in the 1950's and 1960's.
  There was a clear increase in thyroid cancer from the Chernobyl 
accident in this population.
  The wide range of radioactive fallout exposures to such a large 
number of people that resulted in an increase in thyroid cancer will be 
most helpful in assessing the impact of the Nevada tests on those 
exposed.
  Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
researchers are studying the health effects of radioactive iodine 
released from the Hanford, WA nuclear weapons plant in the 1940's and 
1950's.
  The Hanford study results are to be available in 1998.
  The Institute of Medicine [IOM] is currently also working with the 
Department of Health and Human Services to review the data from the 
National Cancer Institute's study to assess the risk to the exposed 
individuals.
  The IOM will also develop recommendations for physicians regarding 
how to treat people who might be at risk of disease because of their I-
131 exposure.
  These recommendations should be available within 6 to 9 months.
  What child growing up in the 1950's and early 1960's was not 
encouraged to drink as much milk as possible to build strong and 
healthy bodies? In the 1950's and 1960's, health experts advocated each 
youngster should consume four glasses of milk each day. No one in those 
years expected young children living hundreds of miles to the north and 
east of the Nevada Test Site drinking their milk were going to face a 
possible increase in thyroid cancer incidence.
  But that is the consequence being faced by those exposed.
  In addition, it is becoming increasingly clear that some of the 
scientists and engineers associated with atmospheric testing knew, or 
at least suspected, that there were health and safety consequences to 
the fallout.
  Some of the Government personnel working on the testing program 
actually sent their families away from the area during and immediately 
after tests to protect them from the fallout.
  A story reported yesterday in the New York Times is even worse, the 
Atomic Energy Commission apparently warned the Eastman Kodak Co. and 
other film companies of planned tests, so that the film companies could 
take steps to protect their film stocks from being damaged.
  Somehow, the AEC decided it was more important to protect 
photographic film, than the health and safety of tens of thousands of 
citizens who were exposed and who, today, we know will suffer thyroid 
and other genetic

[[Page S10266]]

problems as a consequence of that exposure.
  The last atmospheric test took place 35 years ago, but signs of 
atmospheric testing are still present in many areas, including southern 
Nevada.
  Recently, in fact, scientists discovered the presence of radioactive 
contamination in dust in some attics in Las Vegas.
  Nevadans have had plenty of experience with the Department of Energy.
  During the cold war, we were proud to do our patriotic duty, and host 
the Nevada Test Site, the United States' major continental nuclear 
weapons testing facility.
  We were all very proud of our participation in what we expected to be 
an exciting new age, we thought we were at the center of a new 
technology that would dominate the 21st century.
  Of course, as these recent studies have shown pretty clearly, we were 
all completely ignorant of the tremendous dangers and costs of the 
nuclear age, and most of the captivating ideas of the 1950's never 
developed. In point of fact, nuclear power is on the decline.
  Nuclear plants close regularly, due either to serious safety related 
problems, or dismal economic performance.
  The legacy of the nuclear age, however, is still with us, the tens of 
thousands metric tons of commercial high-level nuclear waste, and an 
incomprehensible volume of defense related waste generated by the 
production of nuclear weapons.
  Over Nevada's vigorous objections, our State has been targeted as the 
final resting place for these dangerous, poisonous wastes.
  The Department of Energy, and the nuclear power industry, have spent 
millions of dollars attempting to convince Nevadans that they have 
nothing to fear, that this waste is perfectly safe, and poses no threat 
to our health and safety.
  Unfortunately, Nevadans have had enough experience with the 
Department of Energy and its scientists to hold a certain amount of 
skepticism regarding these claims.
  The report being reviewed by the committee today is yet another 
confirmation that the Department has historically cultivated a culture 
where concerns for public health and safety are subsumed to the 
pressure to reach the agencies ultimate goals, whether it is the 
development of nuclear weapons, or the disposal of commercial high-
level nuclear waste.
  The Yucca Mountain project is no exception.
  In the 15 years Nevada has fought being designated as the repository 
for commercial high-level nuclear waste, we have seen repeated 
instances of the Department ignoring or explaining away scientific 
findings that do not conform to its repository program.
  Signs of water percolating through the repository site were 
repeatedly ignored.
  Seismic activity in the area, including an earthquake that did 
serious damage to the buildings housing project offices, were 
dismissed.
  For every objection that has been raised, the Department has been 
quick to assure us that they are meaningless, and that even if there 
were problems, the engineers can design around them.
  Recently, several new discoveries have added to the uncertainty about 
the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a repository site, and called into 
question the models and assumptions Yucca Mountain scientists have 
relied upon for more than a decade.
  For example, analysis of material removed from the exploratory tunnel 
at Yucca Mountain have shown pockets of unusually high concentrations 
of chlorine 136, a radioactive isotope generated by nuclear 
detonations.
  The presence of high levels of chlorine 136 at the proposed 
repository level is assumed to result from penetration of water from 
the surface, where it picked up chlorine 136 fallout from atmospheric 
testing at the NTS 50 years ago.
  This rapid penetration of water through the welded tuff of Yucca 
Mountain contradicts the Department of Energy's assumptions about the 
nature of the geology at the site, and calls into question the validity 
and accuracy of much of the characterization effort.
  Despite repeated assurances by the Department of Energy and the 
nuclear power industry that the nature and behavior of radioactivity 
and radionuclides are well understood and predictable, and thus nothing 
for Nevadans to worry about, evidence continues to mount that the 
scientific community actually knows little about this field.
  Just 1 month ago, scientists studying the Nevada Test Site, an area 
adjacent to Yucca Mountain, discovered that plutonium resulting from 
underground nuclear testing have migrated underground far faster and 
further than previously expected--nearly a mile in less than 30 years.
  The empirical data collected at the site contradicts the models that 
are being relied on by the Department to evaluate the environmental 
impacts of underground testing at the Nevada Test Site.
  The cumulative effect of these, and other, scientific assurances that 
later prove to be inaccurate, misleading, or even outright dishonest 
has been to seriously damage the credibility of the Department of 
Energy and the nuclear industry in Nevada, and elsewhere across the 
Nation.
  Nevadans, and many others, will continue to suffer the consequences 
of our failure to properly understand the nature and effects of 
radioactivity in the past.
  Despite these historical lessons, however, the proponents of nuclear 
energy continue to press forward with their misguided efforts to 
bolster the industry at the expense of the health and safety of the 
public.
  The most recent incarnation of the industry's avarice is the nuclear 
waste legislation currently working its way through this Congress. In a 
misguided attempt to remove waste from reactor sites, where it can be, 
according to the industry itself, safely stored for the next 100 years, 
the industry has proposed shipping 80,000 metric tons of its waste on 
16,000 shipments through 43 States to Nevada where it will be stored in 
exactly the same type of storage currently available and, in some 
instances, currently in use at existing reactor sites. This 
unprecedented shipping campaign will bring shipments of high-level 
nuclear waste within 1 mile of the homes of more than 50 million 
Americans, creating potential public health and environmental 
consequences of staggering proportions.
  The nuclear power industry's attempt to ship its waste to above-
ground storage in Nevada is corporate welfare at its worst. In a 
desperate attempt to rejuvenate a dying industry, the nuclear power 
industry is willing to sacrifice the health and safety of millions of 
Americans to improve its bottom line.
  Mr. President, there is simply no need to move this dangerous, 
poisonous waste at this time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the 
industry itself concedes the storage of the waste at reactor sites is 
safe. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent 
oversight board created by Congress, has said that centralized interim 
storage is presently not needed.
  The nuclear power industry's waste legislation has passed the Senate 
and I fear will likely pass the House in the near future. Fortunately, 
President Clinton has committed to veto this ill-advised piece of 
legislation, and we are fortunate to have the votes in the Senate to 
sustain the veto.
  It is time for the nuclear utilities to give up their efforts to 
establish interim storage in Nevada and enter into serious negotiations 
with the Department of Energy regarding support for the continued 
storage of high-level nuclear waste at reactor sites until an 
objective, defensible characterization of Yucca Mountain can be 
completed.
  In the 1950's and 1960's, most public policymakers could not 
understand the terrible consequences that would result from atmospheric 
testing. Today, more than 40 years later, every taxpayer is 
contributing to compensate those downwind victims for the cancer, 
genetic, and other health effects from the fallout of those tests. It 
would be inexcusable for us, with what we know today, to create yet 
another situation where future legislators, our successors, 50, 100, or 
even 150 years from now will need to make similar arrangements for new 
generations of victims of the legislation the nuclear power industry is 
asking us to approve in this Congress.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and if there is any time remaining, 
I yield back the remainder of the time.

[[Page S10267]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time? The Senator from North 
Carolina.

                          ____________________