Eminent scientists accuse Govt of N-plant cover-up

Press, 9 April 1979, Page 8

Eminent scientists accuse Govt of N-plant cover-up

NZPA Washington A panel of American scientists, long concerned about nuclear radiation hazards, have said that the United States Government is withholding information about the dangers of the Harrisburg nuclear reactor accident and understating the extent of damage to the environment.

They called for a Congressional investigation of the accident and warned that contaminated fields and water constituted a continuing danger to residents in the Harrisburg area and others downstream along the Susquehanna River. The scientists, who held a news conference in Washington, include Professor Karl Morgan of the School of Nuclear Engineering at Georgia, Professor Ernest Stemglass of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, and Rosalie Bertell, of the Ministry of Concern for Public Health in Buffalo, a public-interest group. Professor Stemglass said he was suspicious of the official announcements about radiation emissions and added: “I don’t believe that even the President and his wife were told the actual dose levels. He may well have gotten more than the

one millirem he was promised.” He said his calculations showed that over the course of 10 days there was 4000 millirems of gamma radiation, equal to the accumulated fall-out on the east coast of 25 years of weapons testing. “We are not talking about negligible doses,” he said. The scientists charged that at every turn the Government gave the lowest estimates of the potential damage from gas emissions. And in contrast to testimony before a Senate committee on Wednesday by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, (Mr Joseph Califano) that not one person within 80km of the accident site would die of cancer, the scientists said there was serious potential for damage to bones and internal organs from inhalation of contaminated air. Miss Bertell said that those in charge during the crisis evidently overlooked the fact that radiation accelerated the aging process. Children and pregnant women were advised to leave the threatened area, but, she said, those in charge also should have given warnings to the elderly, mentally retarded, heart diseased, diabetic, and

arthritic because of special dangers to them. Meanwhile, state officials in Pennsylvania and New York say some radiation has shown up in miik since the radioactive leaks from the Three Mile Island reactor, but that the levels of radiation are so low as to be no danger to health. Governor Dick Thornburgh has told Pennsylvania residents that he has “deep and serious doubts” about ever reopening the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Mr Thornburgh said in the state-wide broadcast on television that he has asked the United States Government to inspect four other nuclear reactors in Pennsylvania “to assure me, if it can, that the accident on Three Mile Island cannot and shall not be repeated.” Mr Thornburgh said he would appoint a recovery committee to deal with the United States’ worst commercial nuclear power accident. “The remainder of my term as Governor will be dedicated from this moment to the proposition that it must not happen again. I now have doubts —deep and serious doubts —about opening the plant on Three Mile Island again, he added. Authorities have said it

could take several years to decontaminate the reactor and an auxiliary building filled with radioactive matter. A lawsuit has already been filed seeking to force the plant to close, and three Congressmen have announced a bill to require improved communications systems for nuclear power plants. The White House has said Federal officials have found “absolutely no danger” from food grown, harvested, or produced in the area of the crippled plant. Some 15,000 anti-nuclear demonstrators have paraded outside the Danish parliament to show their opposition to the possible introduction of nuclear power stations into Denmark. Denmark, which has no nuclear power stations yet, will decide in 1980 whether to build them, provided the problem of the storage of nuclear waste is solved satisfactorily. More than 20,000 antiuranium demonstrators have marched peacefully through the streets of Sydney in one of the largest public protests ever held in the city. The turnout far exceeded the original expectations of its organisers, the Movement Against Uranium Mining, who had expected between 10,000 and 15,000 for the march after the accident in Harrisburg. Harrisburg was a new rallying cry for the demonstrators’ chants and posters as they made their way through the city to a rally in Hyde Park South.