November 7, 1997

Nuclear power in Ukraine spells disaster

When Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered a power surge in April 1986, strong winds carried radioactive fallout across Europe. The area most affected by the disaster was Belarus, a former Soviet republic to the north of Ukraine.

Contamination destroyed the country's export market, thousands of people had to be evacuated, and many suffered incurable skin diseases, respiratory illnesses, heart attacks, psychosomatic illnesses, and aggressive forms of cancer that were once almost unheard of in the region.

Yet in both Belarus and Ukraine, governments are committed to expanding nuclear power, says Dr. David Marples of the Department of History and Classics.

In his lecture, "The Environmental and Health Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster in the Former Soviet Union," delivered as part of the Environmental Seminar Series, Marples called nuclear power in Ukraine "a recipe for disaster."

Presumably Belarus would also fit that description, except the country doesn't have a nuclear power plant.

Yet.

Almost bankrupt and experiencing the sort of inflation that drives up the price of bread 300 per cent over two years, the country can't afford one. But that hasn't stopped officials there from consulting with engineers in Russia, France, and even Canada in efforts to build a plant-even though it has yet to contact the International Atomic Energy Commission about the proposed project.

"I still don't understand where the money is going to come from," said Marples, who began researching the subject of nuclear power in the former Soviet Union as a graduate student in the early 1980s, while based in Munich.

Since the Chernobyl fire, he has visited the region numerous times, chronicling the aftermath of what is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Both Ukraine and Belarus are heavy energy users, but neither actually needs nuclear power, says Marples. Belarus doesn't have a high level of industry, and Ukraine could conceivably shut down its plants if it cut its energy levels to that of the rest of western Europe.

The Chernobyl plant was to be closed by the year 2000, but the Ukrainian government appears not to be holding to that promise. Reactor No. 2, which was closed after a fire in 1991, is scheduled to be brought back into operation within the next three years, and while Reactor No. 1 was taken out of action in November 1996, there's no indication that the shut-down was permanent.

There's concern among the international community that Ukrainian power plants aren't living up to safety standards. One problem: the country's safety inspectors are said to be demoralized, in part because they are paid so erratically. According to Marples, the United States nuclear power industry offered to pick up their salaries-an estimated $50 a month-just to ensure they could and would do their jobs.

Belarus' problems stem less from economics than from a president Marples describes as a dictator. In addition to craving a nuclear power plant, President Lukashenka consistently thwarts attempts by international charitable groups offering aid to his country. He's also determined to recultivate the region heavily affected by Chernobyl, an area that already contains 15 times the amount of cesium in the soil considered safe by international standards.

Last spring, Lukashenka forced the military to plow the territory. "He's ignoring Chernobyl, shutting down charitable organizations, and plowing contaminated land and starting all over," Marples says. And even starting "all over again" is a bit of a misnomer. "The land contaminated was not in the grain belt of the former Soviet Union," Marples says. "It was covered with marshes and woods. People grew potatoes there, but it's not the place that supplied the produce sold in grocery stores. If a place had to get contaminated by Chernobyl, that was probably as good as any, if you can say that."

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