N-plant area ‘now safe’
NZPA Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Governor Dick Thornburgh of Pennsylvania has told pregnant women and preschool children that they can return to the immediate area around the disabled Three Mile Island nuclear plant. “This means that it is now considered safe,” he said. Eleven days ago, Mr Thornburgh had advised that pregnant women and young children who live within Bkm of the plant should leave. The Governor said the 23 schools in the Bkm radius could reopen and that state offices could return to business as usual. In addition, he ordered the Civil Defence from full alert to an on-call status. “This does not mean that we will relax our vigil. We will continue to monitor the entire situation on a 24-hour basis,” he said. He added that there was no threat to public health in the region’s milk or drinking water. Meanwhile, technicians were working to remove the last obstacle blocking the cool-down of the simmering reactor, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said.'An N.R.C. status report said small traces of radiation were still being measured near the reactor, but they were near normal background levels. In Washington, Senator George McGovern has introduced a bill which would ban operating licences for future nuclear power plants until a three-year Independent investigation of nuclear safety problems was completed. The South Dakota Democrat said there had been 10 serious nuclear reactor accidents over the last four years, including the latest one at Three Mile Island. In Brussels, the Belgian Government has overruled a local Mayor’s decision to close down a nuclear power station in eastern Belgium after the Harrisburg radiation leak. The Interior Minister (Mr Georges Gramme) announced the Government move in a statement saying that while Ministers appreciated local concern, there was no com-'
parison between the Belgian station, Tihange One, and the Three Mile Island plant. This had been concluded from reports by Belgian technicians who have studied the incident at the Three Mile Island power station, Mr Gramme said. Swiss local authorities have called for a ban on construction of a nuclear power station at Kaiseraugst, near Basle. The demand, by Basle’s Rural Cantonal (Provincial) Council, was made because of the accident at Three Mile Island. A national referendum will be held on May 20 on giving more democratic control over siting and authorisation of nuclear power stations. The French Prime Minister (Mr Raymond Barre) yesterday formally opened a multi-billion dollar uraniumenrichment plant at Tricastin, in southern France as opponents of France’s nu-clear-energy programme stepped up their protests after the Three Mile Island incident. Mr Barre said that soaring oil prices left no alternative to nuclear power if France wished to remain an independent atomic Power and an industrial exporting nation. “France has no choice,” he said while touring the plant. “It’s either nuclear energy or economic recession and mass unemployment.” The French Government has ordered new and farreaching safety checks on the 11 nuclear power plants, in service and the 14 under construction or authorised for construction. In Luxemburg, West Germany has called for a conference of non-Communist industrial nations on the safety of nuclear reactors. Guenter Hartkopf, state secretary at the Interior Ministry, made the proposal at a one-day meeting of Common Market Environment Ministers. They had agreed' that the Nine should discuss the implications of the nuclearpower station accident at Harrisburg, when their experts returned from an on-the-spot assessment, diplomatic sources said.
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Press, 11 April 1979, Page 8
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567N-plant area ‘now safe’ Press, 11 April 1979, Page 8
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