Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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Following completion of the Reactor 4 site construction, long-term monitoring of
the facility and site will be required. This sub-project will provide a detailed surveillance
plan that identifies measurements to be made, location and frequency of
measurement, scheduled analysis and interpretation of results, and independent
review and documentation.
Operations Project Area 3.3—Contamination Migration
There are two principal modes of contamination transport or migration: air and
water. The transport of contamination by air, immediately after the accident and in
the intervening years has spread contamination to the west and to the northeast.
The water flow for both groundwater and surface water tends to be in the opposite
direction of the air transport. Water tends to move contaminated material to the
south.
For this situation to be controlled and eventually eliminated, two things must be
accomplished. First, the release of new contamination to the environment must
cease, Second, the mechanics and chemistry of the contamination transport modes
must be understood and then corrected. This involves the identification, characterization
and elimination of existing eirid potential sources of new contamination release,
the computer modeling of the air and water transport phenomena, and the
modeling of the chemistry interaction of contamination particles in the environment.
A third mode of contamination migration is through the biological food chain.
This mode is addressed in Project Area 3.4—Agriculture and Food.
Sub-projects
3.3.1 Air
The air contamination transport mechanism will be characterized through the
review of existing data, acquisition of new meteorological data, performance of resuspension
studies, and air transport modeling. Remediation technologies will be
identified, and appropriate technologies will be selected for implementation. The selected
technologies will then be implemented.
3.3.1.1 Re-suspension Studies
In these studies, the team will review and assess the adequacy of existing information
(to include meteorological data) related to the evaluation of the airborne
transport mechanism for contaminant dispersal. Additional data and information
needs will be identified and methods will be defined to acquire the data and information.
In addition, a program will be developed and implemented to acquire meteorological
data throughout the Chernobyl accident contamination remediation program.
Re-suspension mechanisms (to include high winds, fires, and dust created
during agricultural activities) will be defined, and analytical and field studies will
be conducted to characterize these postulated events in terms of the potential for resuspension,
mass loading, particle size, dispersion characteristics, and radionuclide
content, among others.
3.3.1.2 Air Transport Modeling
A model wUl be established for analyzing the transport of contamination through
the atmosphere. Existing models will be identified and assessed for their applicability
to the Chernobyl conditions. Based on predetermined criteria for model performance,
specific models will be selected and/or developed that will appropriately represent
the air transport characteristics of the region. Models wQl use existing meteorology
data and new data as they become available, as well as contamination data
and results of the re-suspension studies, to determine and predict the nature and
extent of contamination transport.
3.3.1.3 Air Remediation Technology Evaluation
The results of the re-suspension studies and the air transport modeling will be
used to characterize the contamination resulting from airborne transport of the
region affected by the Chernobyl accident. Remediation technologies will be identified
that could have a mitigating effect on the dose resulting from re-suspension and
air transport. For the purpose of evaluation, remediation technology performance
criteria will be identified using standards developed for cleanup. Viable technologies
for remediation will be identified and described. Remediation alternatives will be
developed using the identified technologies, and each alternative will be characterized
and evaluated in terms of the performance criteria. Alternatives will be ranked
based on the results of the evaluation, and remediation measures will be recommended.
Among these measures may be:
• washing,