a055  0528  14 May 86
PM-US-Chernobyl Rdp,0781
Long-term Effects Feared From Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
By DAVE SKIDMORE
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200
sick from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more
people could face cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the
radioactive fallout, says a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and
physicians.
    ''We're looking at many years of suffering - people who will worry
about having children, people who when they are sick won't know
whether it's due to the accident or would have happened anyway,''
said Rosalie Bertell, a mathematician of the Canadian-based Institute
of Concern for Public Health.
    At a news conference Tuesday sponsored by the Washington-based
Health & Energy Institute, she warned that the death toll could
increase over the next two months as victims succumb from radiation
damage to bone marrow and the intestinal system.
    ''We're talking here about a very slow and painful death,'' she
said.
    It is difficult to estimate the number of deaths without knowing the
strength of the radiation dose to people near the Chernobyl plant,
which the Soviets have not revealed, she said. The Soviets have said
92,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius of the plant
following the April 26 accident.
    Long-term, the accident may have left a legacy of cancer, said Bill
Caldicott, an Australian doctor who works with Physicians for Social
Responsibility.
    An epidemic of leukemia could begin in three to five years, and
solid cancers could begin to appear in eight to 10 years, he said.
    Half a world away in the United States, government assurances that
fallout from the accident is too slight to cause harm are misleading,
panel members said.
    ''When the government is saying there is no risk from fallout - it's
basically lying,'' said Robert J. Alvarez, director of the
Washington-based Nuclear Weapons and Power Project of the
Environmental Policy Institute. ''There is no safe dose of
radiation.''
    The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday reported that
radioactivity in rainfall in two Western cities was far greater in
some new samples than has been reported before, but still not enough
to trigger protective action.
    The agency, in its daily report on the effects of the Chernobyl
accident, said the samples in question were taken Saturday at Boise,
Idaho, and May 4 at Salt Lake City, Utah.
    Rainwater in Boise yielded iodine-131 at 900 picocuries per liter or
9,000 picocuries per square meter of ground coverage. That was still
less than 10 percent of the level at which farmers would be advised
to take actions such as keeping cows out of pastures to minimize the
danger of contaminated milk.
    A picocurie is a measure of the amount of radioactivity present.
    Meanwhile in Baltimore, state officials said radioactivity has shown
up in air samples, but the concentrations are so low they pose no
health risk to Maryland residents.
    The levels found were less than 1 percent of the maximum permissible
concentration for particulates in the air. Analyses were to be
conducted late Tuesday and today on milk samples from Maryland dairy
farms, health officials said.
    Briefing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on what is known about
the Chernobyl accident, NRC staff members said Tuesday they believe
about half the radioactive material in the core of the Soviet reactor
was released to the atmosphere.
    They said there probably was an initial puff of radiation followed
by a sustained release for several days. Whole body doses of
radiation probably totaled about 2 millirem over two days in
Stockholm, 5 millirem over the same period in Helsinki and 100 rem
over one day in Chernobyl, the staff said.
    A rem - a thousand millirems - is a measure of radiation to the
body. A chest X-ray is equal to about 25 millirem.
    Victor Stello, NRC executive director for operations, said the
accident taught the world once again that ''an accident anywhere is
an accident everywhere'' and that an international early warning
system is needed.
    As far as lessons for U.S. plants, he said, ''There's nothing that
we see coming out of this accident that suggests that we ought to
change what we're doing.''
    Members of the anti-nuclear panel, however, were among those signing
a letter to President Reagan calling for the immediate shutdown of
U.S. nuclear weapons reactors at Hanford, Wash., and Savannah River,
S.C.
    The Hanford reactor - like the Chernobyl reactor - uses graphite to
moderate the nuclear reaction and has no containment structure.
Federal officials have said it has a safe design and good safety
record over 23 years.
    
AP-NY-05-14-86 0827EDT
 - - - - - -

a077  0810  14 May 86
US-Chernobyl Rdp, 2nd Ld, a055,0293
Eds: Top 8 grafs new with officials saying accident hasn't changed
need for nuclear power
By DAVE SKIDMORE
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials of the U.S. nuclear industry said today
that the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has not changed the world's
need for nuclear power, and that reactors are becoming safer.
    ''We should not allow the Soviet experience to have a greater impact
on the future of nuclear power here than it really warrants,'' said
Keith Turley, general chairman of the Nuclear Power Assembly meeting
this week in Washington.
    Turley and others said nuclear power is essential to the United
States and that reactors are becoming safer each year.
    Sherwood Smith Jr., chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, said
the industry is forming a committee to review the Chernobyl accident
and learn what lessons it can.
    But he added: ''We have not and will not ever be confronted in this
country with an event like what happened at Chernobyl.''
    Turley said that the industry's goals are to renew the
Price-Anderson Act that provides nuclear accident insurance;
standardize plant design and streamline the licensing process; and
transform the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission into a single
administrator. All of these changes would have to be approved by
Congress.
    E. Linn Draper, president of the American Nuclear Society, said the
changes are necessary for the survival of the nuclear industry and
new orders for nuclear plants.
    On Tuesday, a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and physicians said
that even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200 sick from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more people could face
cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the radioactive fallout.
    ''We're looking: 2nd graf
    
AP-NY-05-14-86 1111EDT
***************

a055  0528  14 May 86
PM-US-Chernobyl Rdp,0781
Long-term Effects Feared From Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
By DAVE SKIDMORE
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200
sick from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more
people could face cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the
radioactive fallout, says a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and
physicians.
    ''We're looking at many years of suffering - people who will worry
about having children, people who when they are sick won't know
whether it's due to the accident or would have happened anyway,''
said Rosalie Bertell, a mathematician of the Canadian-based Institute
of Concern for Public Health.
    At a news conference Tuesday sponsored by the Washington-based
Health & Energy Institute, she warned that the death toll could
increase over the next two months as victims succumb from radiation
damage to bone marrow and the intestinal system.
    ''We're talking here about a very slow and painful death,'' she
said.
    It is difficult to estimate the number of deaths without knowing the
strength of the radiation dose to people near the Chernobyl plant,
which the Soviets have not revealed, she said. The Soviets have said
92,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius of the plant
following the April 26 accident.
    Long-term, the accident may have left a legacy of cancer, said Bill
Caldicott, an Australian doctor who works with Physicians for Social
Responsibility.
    An epidemic of leukemia could begin in three to five years, and
solid cancers could begin to appear in eight to 10 years, he said.
    Half a world away in the United States, government assurances that
fallout from the accident is too slight to cause harm are misleading,
panel members said.
    ''When the government is saying there is no risk from fallout - it's
basically lying,'' said Robert J. Alvarez, director of the
Washington-based Nuclear Weapons and Power Project of the
Environmental Policy Institute. ''There is no safe dose of
radiation.''
    The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday reported that
radioactivity in rainfall in two Western cities was far greater in
some new samples than has been reported before, but still not enough
to trigger protective action.
    The agency, in its daily report on the effects of the Chernobyl
accident, said the samples in question were taken Saturday at Boise,
Idaho, and May 4 at Salt Lake City, Utah.
    Rainwater in Boise yielded iodine-131 at 900 picocuries per liter or
9,000 picocuries per square meter of ground coverage. That was still
less than 10 percent of the level at which farmers would be advised
to take actions such as keeping cows out of pastures to minimize the
danger of contaminated milk.
    A picocurie is a measure of the amount of radioactivity present.
    Meanwhile in Baltimore, state officials said radioactivity has shown
up in air samples, but the concentrations are so low they pose no
health risk to Maryland residents.
    The levels found were less than 1 percent of the maximum permissible
concentration for particulates in the air. Analyses were to be
conducted late Tuesday and today on milk samples from Maryland dairy
farms, health officials said.
    Briefing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on what is known about
the Chernobyl accident, NRC staff members said Tuesday they believe
about half the radioactive material in the core of the Soviet reactor
was released to the atmosphere.
    They said there probably was an initial puff of radiation followed
by a sustained release for several days. Whole body doses of
radiation probably totaled about 2 millirem over two days in
Stockholm, 5 millirem over the same period in Helsinki and 100 rem
over one day in Chernobyl, the staff said.
    A rem - a thousand millirems - is a measure of radiation to the
body. A chest X-ray is equal to about 25 millirem.
    Victor Stello, NRC executive director for operations, said the
accident taught the world once again that ''an accident anywhere is
an accident everywhere'' and that an international early warning
system is needed.
    As far as lessons for U.S. plants, he said, ''There's nothing that
we see coming out of this accident that suggests that we ought to
change what we're doing.''
    Members of the anti-nuclear panel, however, were among those signing
a letter to President Reagan calling for the immediate shutdown of
U.S. nuclear weapons reactors at Hanford, Wash., and Savannah River,
S.C.
    The Hanford reactor - like the Chernobyl reactor - uses graphite to
moderate the nuclear reaction and has no containment structure.
Federal officials have said it has a safe design and good safety
record over 23 years.
    
AP-NY-05-14-86 0827EDT
 - - - - - -

a077  0810  14 May 86
US-Chernobyl Rdp, 2nd Ld, a055,0293
Eds: Top 8 grafs new with officials saying accident hasn't changed
need for nuclear power
By DAVE SKIDMORE
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials of the U.S. nuclear industry said today
that the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has not changed the world's
need for nuclear power, and that reactors are becoming safer.
    ''We should not allow the Soviet experience to have a greater impact
on the future of nuclear power here than it really warrants,'' said
Keith Turley, general chairman of the Nuclear Power Assembly meeting
this week in Washington.
    Turley and others said nuclear power is essential to the United
States and that reactors are becoming safer each year.
    Sherwood Smith Jr., chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, said
the industry is forming a committee to review the Chernobyl accident
and learn what lessons it can.
    But he added: ''We have not and will not ever be confronted in this
country with an event like what happened at Chernobyl.''
    Turley said that the industry's goals are to renew the
Price-Anderson Act that provides nuclear accident insurance;
standardize plant design and streamline the licensing process; and
transform the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission into a single
administrator. All of these changes would have to be approved by
Congress.
    E. Linn Draper, president of the American Nuclear Society, said the
changes are necessary for the survival of the nuclear industry and
new orders for nuclear plants.
    On Tuesday, a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and physicians said
that even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200 sick from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more people could face
cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the radioactive fallout.
    ''We're looking: 2nd graf
    
AP-NY-05-14-86 1111EDT
***************