ML19274D201
| ML19274D201 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Zion File:ZionSolutions icon.png |
| Issue date: | 12/04/1978 |
| From: | Bayh B SENATE |
| To: | Henderson NRC OFFICE OF CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS (OCA) |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19259B033 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7901150260 | |
| Download: ML19274D201 (3) | |
Text
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%niteb htate% benatt MEMORANDUM Please note the attached letter from a constituent forwarded to you for any consideration the correspondence may warrant.
I would greatly appreciate your checkir4 into this matter.
Upon co=pletion of your investi-Eation, please advise me of the status of this case in duplicate and return the original letter in an envelope marked to the attention of the Legislative Mail Section.
Your assistance in this matter is appreciated.
Sincerely, L
Birch Bayh United States ator Mw ATTN: MISS h O
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4cg Mk. Od%a 46s04 November 20, 1978 s,
S enator Birch Bayh Senate Office Building Washington, D. C. 20$10
Dear Senator Bayh:
I If you have not seen it, the attached article should be of nuch interest to you.
In addition, arri, I feel, very importantly to our conmunity ard the nation, the Chicago newspapers (Sun Times arsi Tribune) have recently reportai that the Cen.onwealth Eiison Company is askirg the Nuclear Regulator /' Commission for permission to store its " spent" fuel rois at the Zion, Illinois poant more compactly than N.R.C. reg-ulations now permit. Vnile we in this country have not yet had a nuclear disaster, if such permission is given it seems to me we starsi a good chance of one. It seems to me highly dangerous to further con-solidate " spent" fuel rods in a highly populatsi area of the country -
particularly since tests seem to irriicate that the prevailing wirris fron that area run south-south east.
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So far it has been extremely difficult for me to ascertain which nenber or members of the N.R.C. (if any) are domiciled in this area. I hope therefore that you will persue this matter for me.
k I trust you arxi your fanily have had a pleasant thanksgiving holiday together.
Sincerely,
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Et.hal S. Ryan 790115OSh]
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a i' ? 4 ness had become apparent. The whole d,,
i f area remains dangerous today and a,s
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- 'e.c osed to the public.
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- If the accountis accurate, Medvedev d
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. skept,cs, why did Soviet scientists miss I
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has already happened.". -
t radiobioiegicai and genetic proeiem, that would have been evide.it in such 4
i an enormous region of radioactive
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i contamination? The answ er, he says, is
,SamuelH. Day Jr.
. that they did not miss the chance. The
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..,._, geneticist then unveils the results of his wo years ago, a Rus'sian
" Science Getion," snorted Sir John' analysis of more than a hundred works Tgeneticist caused a worldwide stir Hill, chairman of the United Kingdom on the efTect of radioactive contami-4 with his' offhand report, tucked Atomic Energy Authority. Others in nants on plants'and animals that have icto an anicle in a British scientific ! Britain and the United States called the - appeared io,56siet scientiSc publica-D magazine, that a nuclear accident two Medvedev-Tummerman account tions since 1948. -
decides earlier had killed hundreds of
" rubbish" ahd "a figment of.the
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people and contaminated a vast area in. imagination." The experts all knew C
the Soviet Uruon.
' that, no matter what the nuclear power ussian sdedriSc journals bf the No one was more surprised by the 7 critics say, the chances of an accident of last twenty l years have turned reaction than the author, Zhores A.
this kind were close to nil. The U.S, out to be a soki mine of infor '
',-,-]v Medvedev, a refugee living in London.
Atomic Energy Commission had just mation -.~much of it breathtakingly l He had supposed that the incident was s;ent 53 million for an elaborate scien-new -* about 'what happerus to large
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. already well known in the West, at least
~ ific study designed to prove just that takes, to deer,Trsh, and various sods
=. s in scientific and govemment eircles. He Medvedev, no nuclear opponent, and plants when they receive heavy l
/ ' had alluded tg it not for the purpose of was stung by the slur on his scientinc doses of strontium, cesium, and other
, shocking the: readers of New Scientist reputation. 80w bc has published a fission products. The researchers were but mainly to show why an inDuential gw,booi TanctScience LW.W. Nor-careful never to' mention the t
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, group of Soviet nuclear physicists had ton, 262_pagesd10.951, which fully ' geographicit area under study or how it
' become sensitive at an early date to the vindicates his credibility.
came to be contaminated, but Med-,
N-biological dangers of radiation.
Medvedev does not pretend to know vedev found the data sufficiently ample As a matter of fact, the U.S. Na-all the detai to enable him or any reasonably com.
tiorst Secunty Agency and the Central. new and mols of the accident. But his re fully ampli6cd account pctent investigator.to fill in the gaps. -
Intelligence Agency, which morutor. leaves litt.c doubt about how and why The nature of the research data,,
' radiation leds around the globe, were it happeneds
. ~ ' ~ Medvedev concludes, c!carly estabd well aware that something unusual had in the eyly years of their n' clear lishes the size, extent, location, and u
happened in the South Urals in the fall > weapons production program, the : timing of the contamination. He adds y.
" of 1957, but'they weren't telling any-P Soviets stored highly radioactive liqurd - :that not even m the Soviet Union, wah + '
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- one. Nor were the Russians.
wastes in shallow trenches. In. time, the allits ruthic4sacss, can one reasonably,,
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.---. 6. -. -6 e a--.--C-g n, witn tus story except tot tne company-.have done et the U.S. liquid waste dis. ' have been createdjust for the purposa -
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of a fellow Russian emigrant sciestist, S posal site dt Hanford, Washington),
of collecting research data. British and Of.. -
. Lev Tummerman in israet, who soon Heavy co ' ntrations of plutonium American nuclear isothorities couk!,
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suprSed a few corroborasve details '. residue in t Soviet wastes evidently have found this out for themselves, 1
The two were subjected to wrath and ' driggered a pudear chain reaction. The'. Medvedev notes.
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ridicule by Ihe. Anglo American... result was a " mud volcano" cruption it is a charitable judgment. Mad-M ~
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one dits own skeletons lud been un-soil over mbre than a thousand square justified in concluding from des ex ~,
, nudear industry, which reacted as if ' which spewed heavily contaminated vedev would have been agually (M F u covered N
, miles in the lake district between the perience that the scienufs estabhaft ' I f
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'two big industrial cities of Cheliabinsk '. ment he has encountered in the West, SamueI#. Day /r, / san associare " > : and Sverdlovsk.
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far from being the hawn of free inqurry 9
' y 'J'.,y rdisorofThrProrresmcandaformer -
Strong winds blew the radioactive ' which attracted him as a refusee, itmot 4 g
- - ed.ror of The Builera ofthe A tomic
. clouds for dozens of miles. Probably. without some reacmblance to the-3
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many hundreds of people died quickly, system from which he fled.
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