Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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Mr. Smith. Dr. Feshbach, can you provide us with an overview
of the environmental damage resulting from Chornobyl?
Dr. Feshbach. Well, one is the actual damage, and there's also
some potential environmental damage. This is quite a concern, because
of the possible contamination of the Dnipro River, which
would get into the reservoir for Kyiv, thereby affecting the quality
of the water supply.
This is, in part, a question of the sarcophagus. It's a question of,
if you build another sarcophagus on top of it, whether the sub-soil
and sub-strata are strong enough to support it and not shift. But
the roof itself might even fall down, because the metal rods, which
are being exposed to radioactivity, may disintegrate on their own.
In addition, there was a lot of radioactive dust which got onto the
nearby forest. In the recent fire, a lot of it was spread. People ate
mushrooms, a major part of their diet, from the area. In fact, many
of them got sick, and some even died.
So, the issue here is the current situation, as well as the potential
future. The land is very badly damaged, and will take a long
time to recover. Still, it may be possible to clean up some of it. But
a lot of people are moving back because they don't care, and they're
going to die anyway, is what they say. They die a little earlier;
drink a little more, you know, and it just eases your way to death.
But it really is a very major social problem.
But the environmental issue is—^how shall I put it? It's hard to
comprehend. It's so big that the question becomes one of setting
priorities. You really can't deal with all of the problems at once,
and you have to understand that their choice has to be made within
a constrained budget. It's a question not only of what AID does,
or the declining proportion of money going to them and others
that's happening, but how, within the constraints that we have,
can we get other international agencies to get involved, maybe to
pick up some of the slack, and what priorities do we set for ourselves.
Thus I think what the two Ambassadors have said is very reasonable.
But, again, one issue is the environment and the other is
environmental health impact; and I find it hard to separate them.
I can give you plenty more data. But the issues and key events,
as directly related to the Chornobyl event, I think are basically
what I've described.
Mr. Smith. Is there ongoing water testing occurring?
Dr. Feshbach. Is there ongoing water?
Mr. Smith. Water testing, to determine whether or not it has become
contaminated?
Dr. Feshbach. Yes, of course, there is. But, again, it's a question
of what kind of decimeters they're using, what kind of testing
they're doing. The tests needs to be, shall we say, made comparable;
we need to have a standardized way of measuring, so that
we know exactly that it's this definition, as opposed to that definition,
and not some local definitions.
This is always a problem. Then the question is who do you bring
in to do it. I think the OECD would be a very good candidate organization.
It has a good reputation and does a lot of this water testing.
So we should try to encourage this kind of organization to do
it. It doesn't necessarily have to be an American organization. But