[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.
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