Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant CIA Files - Paperless Archives

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The new consciousness about environmental issues spurred by Chernobyl'
has contributed to a climate of public activism that could contest Moscow's
plans for nuclear power expansion in the next decade. Some 60 members of
the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences signed a petition opposing the
completion of units 5 and 6 at Chernobyl' because the project leaders had
failed to adjust their plans to the new postaccident conditions. Reportedly,
the petition was about to be made public when Moscow decided to shelve
the expansion plans for the nuclear plant, conceivably in response to the
arguments advanced by the Ukrainian group and possibly other public
opposition.
Local Soviet press accounts indicate that concern about the safety of the
nuclear industry is particularly high in areas with Chernobyl'-type reactors,
like Kursk, Leningrad, Smolensk, Ignalina, and Chernobyl' itself.
Demonstrations against the Ignalina and Leningrad nuclear plants were·
held in June 1986 as well as this year, and there is evidence that two nuclear
projects have been recently shelved because of public reaction. Even
though there have been greater efforts to reassure the public and perhaos
some rethinkin2 of the strategy Cor siting nuclear power plants, .C
C _ ::Jlhe public's apprehension about the regime's
commitment to make the necesSary safety modifications remains well J
founded. I ....
Despite the fact that ministries responsible for nuclear industry have been
given a formal mandate to achieve more stringent safety standards, there is
no indication that public resentment will compel changes in the direction of
Soviet nuclear power policy. The major bureaucracies resent public
pressure and there are some signs of backtracking on glasnost:
• Despite Moscow's avowed openness policy, the July 1987 legal Collowup
of the accident was conducted in secret, probablY in an effort to avoid revealing
technical testimony that addressed. reactor design flaws.
• In the spring of 1987, Soviet reporters complained that the authorities
were still tightly controlling inCormation on Chernobyl" leaving the
public largely in the dark.
• The official Soviet report presented to the International Atomic Energy
I Agency at the August 1986 meeting in Vienna, and made widely
av~il"hlc to the West, was never released to the Soviet general public.
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Soviet leaders probably hope that the consequences of Chernobyl' will fade
from public view. Continued publicity poses difficulties because long-term
environmental and health consequences will require further allocations of
resources, which Moscow appears unwilling to make. A debate about the
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