[sacw] South Asians Against Nukes Post | 17 July 00

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Mon, 17 Jul 2000 02:24:44 +0200


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South Asians Against Nukes Post
7 June 2000
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#1. Pakistan: Safety of Chashma Nuclear Plant pushed onto Environment
Ministry's agenda
#2. India: Chernobyl may have killed a million infants
--------------------------------------------

#1.

The News on Sunday, 16 July 2000
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2000-weekly/nos-16-07-2000/pol1.htm

Safety of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant pushed onto Environment Ministry's
agenda

A nuclear accident waiting to happen

Officials say CHASNUPP will generate 300 megawatt (MW) of electricity and
will use only about 12 tons of nuclear fuel annually as compared with the
consumption of about half a million tons of oil every year by a similar
size conventional power plant, thus helping to reduce the country's
dependence on imported oil. Critics believe it may produce significantly
less, judging from the record of the Chinese reactor

Nadeem Iqbal

The Ministry of Environment has taken up the issue of a safety review of
Chashma Nuclear Power Plant with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
(PAEC) amid a chorus of complaints from environmental organisations and
scientists. Federal Environment Minister Omar Asghar Khan told Political
Economy that his ministry has received a "bundle" of such demands.

On June 20, six non-governmental organisations-the Sustainable Development
Policy Institute, Sungi, Pattan, Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and
Research (PILER) Christian Study Centre and The Network-called upon Chief
Executive Gen Pervaiz Musharraf and the Environment Ministry for a thorough
review, with public participation, of the nuclear reactor's safety analysis
report and its environmental impact assessment (EIA).

These groups believe that their demands are legitimate and their members
cite a clause of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997, which
says "The [Pakistan Environmental Protection] Council may, either itself
or on the request of any person or organisation, direct the federal agency
[the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency] or any government agency to
prepare, submit, promote or implement projects for the protection,
conservation, rehabilitation and improvement of the environment, the
prevention and control of pollution, and the sustainable development of
resources, or to undertake research in any specified aspect of
environment."

Although strictly speaking the NGOs' requisition is not a legal
notice-under the Environment Act a complainant can give 30 days' notice to
the EPA to address the issue or take the issue to an environment
tribunal-but the issues raised need to be taken up at the highest level.

The mandatory Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) of the Chashma plant has
been duly submitted to the EPA by the Atomic Commission. While public
review of EIAs is required under law, an official of the Ministry of
Environment, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "as per rules the
ministry has not been allowed by the concerned authorities to make this
public." Choosing not to elaborate on the 'rules' or specify the
'concerned authorities', the official added that the approval of the
Chashma EIA was conditional and may be "reviewed if required".

The official disclosed that the Atomic Commission had brushed aside all
the complaints and termed them as unfounded. The official stance of PAEC
remains that the facility is absolutely safe, he said. "So actually, the
matter is at a standstill."

CHASNUPP is Pakistan's second nuclear power plant, the first being KANUPP
near Karachi. The plant was built under a turnkey contract signed in
December 1991 with the China National Nuclear Corporation. Nuclear fuel
was loaded into Chashma's reactor between November 22 and 28, 1999. On May
3, 2000, the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP) was made critical as
officials announced plans to link it to the national grid for the supply
of electricity. A nuclear reactor becomes critical when the fission chain
reaction is made self-sustaining in a highly-controlled and regulated
manner to produce energy. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC)
insists that the plant was made ready to go critical after rigorous
testing of various reactor safety systems.

Officials say CHASNUPP will generate 300 megawatt (MW) of electricity and
will use only about 12 tons of nuclear fuel annually as compared with the
consumption of about half a million tons of oil every year by a similar
size conventional power plant, thus helping to reduce the country's
dependence on imported oil.

Critics believe it may produce significantly less, judging from the record
of the Chinese reactor-a prototype for the Chashma plant. The Chinese
facility produces only about half of the power it is designed for. On
average it produces 144 MW, rather than 300 MW, from 1991 to the end of
1995. So Chashma may contribute only one per cent of the 13,000 MW of
electricity that Pakistani consumers need.

The Atomic Commission is reticent about the the final cost of building and
operating the facility at Chashma. Concerns about its estimated
productivity aside, the project has been controversial from the very
beginning due to its location in an area that some experts warn is
earthquake prone. Its location on the sandy banks of the River Indus-the
country's lifeline-as well as its proximity to the Chashma Barrage, a
vital irrigation link on the river some 30 kms south of Mianwali city in
central Punjab, means that in case of a nuclear accident, the whole
irrigation system would be crippled.

"We have reason to believe that the site is earthquake prone, and we found
out that some experts contracted by the PAEC to study the site advised
against building a reactor there," said Dr Nayyar, an associate professor
of physics in Quaid-i-Azam University, who is spearheading the movement
for a safety review using the latest scientific methods.

It is not just NGOs and independent scientists who are pushing for a
review. Muhammad Ali Mirza, a former director general of the Geological
Survey of Pakistan, has also approached the PAEC through the Ministry of
Environment. In a preliminary report on "Seismic risk associated with
Chashma Nuclear Power Plant" (April 2000, co-authored by M Z Babar, K S
Ali Khan and S N Khan), he states that the "seismic activity in and around
the plant area is.. expected to be moderate". Thus, although the risk is
"not as vivid and alarming as propounded by Dr Naiyar (sic) [it is also]
not as simplistic as described by Dr Siddique" (deputy plant general
manager of CHASHNUPP, quoted in the report as saying that the "seismic
risk is minimal and not of much concern").

Dr Mirza concludes that the "sensitive and strategic nature of the project
demands that the issue be resolved in a more serious and professional
manner. Whereas an unfounded scare would result in wastage of billions of
rupees on redesigning/fortification, the evasion of potential risk may
lead to colossal material loss and human suffering".

He suggests a detailed study, focusing on geological and tectonic setting
of the site to assess seismic danger. Talking to Political Economy with
reference to the PAEC's contention that the Commission will only consider
discussing the issue with 'informed persons', Dr Mirza said that he should
be consulted and his concerns taken seriously.

Other major concerns of the environmentalists and scientists are the
design of the reactor, the quality of its components, and the limited
capability of its Chinese supplier to provide technical support in case of
an accident. These concerns have emerged from an independent technical
study carried out by some concerned scientists, explain the environmental
groups in a letter to the ministry.

The response from official quarters is less than forthcoming. "We have
analysed those concerns," said an Environment Ministry officer, "but they
should be addressed to the Nuclear Regulatory Board." He added that his
ministry's primary concern was the dumping of nuclear waste in the open-an
action that the PAEC claims it has prevented so far.

Although this has not been made a major issue by the citizens' groups
lobbying for a review, Zia H Siddique, deputy plant general manager of
CHASHNUPP has admitted that the power plant had a problem regarding the
long-term disposal of nuclear waste, as had been the case in other
countries. The disclosure came at a public debate organised by the SDPI in
Islamabad last year.

Another issue involved is to make the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Board
(PNRB) more independent, autonomous and open to the public. The board
regulates CHASNUPP like all nuclear power facilities. It is completely
dependent on the PAEC for its budget, staff and even its offices; the
chairman of PAEC is also the chairman of PNRB.

Dr Nayyar appreciates the fact that PNRB provided him and two other
professors-Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy and Dr Q Isa Daudpota-access to its 'final
safety analysis report'. "But the objections we raised after going through
it have, so far, not been addressed by the Board," he says.

PAEC officials are understandably less than happy at the attention that
Chashma is getting, more than a decade after it began construction work on
the plant. A PAEC source said that the Commission has contributed
substantially to the Chashma plant, besides training "a team of very
competent experts for operation and maintenance". "The safety and quality
of the plant have been the most important factors in its design and
construction of the plant. Experts from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) have
reviewed the plant design and the construction work, and endorsed these to
be of international standard," reads an official handout issued when
Chashma was made critical.

These claims are viewed sceptically by independent scientists, since the
PAEC has not made public the reports by IAEA and WANO, both promoters of
nuclear power. Zia Mian, a physicist at Princeton University's Center For
Energy and Environmental Studies and a visiting fellow at SDPI, who has
been monitoring the Chashma case for over five years, notes that the PAEC
was not responsible for either the nuclear engineering or the power
generation [turbines, etc] at Chashma. The act of refusing to give details
of the tests it has conducted has done nothing for the Commission's
credibility. he adds.

Chashma critics point out that China's Qinshan reactor was tested, started
and then shut down for a year because of all the problems encountered.
Qinshan suffered an accident in 1998 and the plant was closed down for a
year. Dr Mian adds that its claims of concern about safety notwithstanding,
PAEC seemed unaware of the publicly available, official scientific reports
of the repairs at Qinshan which explained why the recent accident happened
and what repairs were undertaken, until they were given these reports by
Dr Mian and Dr Nayyar.

Dr. Nayyar explains: "On the design, our concern is based on the serious
design flaw that was discovered in Qinshan, the parent reactor in China.
Chashma, being Qinshan's prototype, is only the second power reactor made
by China. The difference is that while for Qinshan the major components
were supplied by the Japanese, Korean and the Western manufacturers, all
such crucial components for Chashma were made for the first time by the
Chinese. The problem in the Qinshan reactor in 1998 could not be sorted
out by the Chinese themselves and they had to call in international help.
Eventually the problem was removed by Westinghouse of the US, which
discovered that the problem had arisen as a result of a faulty design.
That makes complete reliance on the Chinese design and technology-as the
PAEC is doing-rather worrisome."

As for the CHASHMA simulator training, it provides confidence only if the
accidents programmed into the simulator are the only ones that will happen.
"All the major accidents at nuclear power plants [Three Mile Island, and
Chernobyl] were those nobody expected to happen," says Dr Mian. "They were
not programmed into the training simulators at these plants, and operators
had misplaced confidence. By definition, unforeseen things cannot be fed
into a simulator." He fears that given China's limited experience with
this kind of nuclear power plant, it is likely only the most basic things
have been programmed into the Chashma simulator.

About the larger safety culture of PAEC, he noted that PAEC has released
little public information, but recalled a former PAEC engineer who was
cited in the technical journal Nucleonics Week [2 November 1989] as saying
that PAEC operators at KANUPP were "ignorant of risk and think nothing of
danger."

The Ministry of Environment managed to arrange a meeting between the
concerned professors and PAEC officials but the two parties could not
amicably resolve the issue. Last December the Sustainable Development
Policy Institute also arranged a debate on the issue. The deputy plant
general manager of CHASNUPP addressed the citizens' fears, saying that the
PAEC had closely monitored the construction of the power project, ensuring
that it met international standards.

"There are multiple barriers and there is no chance of any nuclear
disaster. Risks have been assessed and the plant has been built
accordingly," he said. At least ten experts from the International Atomic
Energy Agency have reviewed the project for safety, he claimed. The PAEC's
installations are open for inspection to international and national
experts, provided they have complete knowledge of nuclear technology, Zia
H Siddique said. However, PAEC has not so far published any of its own
reports and studies on Chashma or those of the international bodies.

Dr Siddique's conviction of there being "no chance of a nuclear disaster"
at Chashma is not shared by those who are aware of the major disasters at
nuclear plants in America and in Russia. Their worries are heightened by
the fact that in Pakistan there is no planning for what to do if an
accident happens.

The final safety analysis report of the Chashma project clearly stipulates
that there would be extensive involvement of the local civil
administration in conducting drills to cope with a serious accident at
Chashma. "Neither the Ministry of Environment nor the Atomic Energy
Commission have been able to assure us that such drills have indeed been
conducted," says Dr Nayyar. "In fact, we fear that they have never been
held. Consequently, if a serious accident occurs, there will be chaos
everywhere."

Although there is still much to be concerned about, Pakistan's hush-hush
nuclear power generation programme has at last been prised open for public
discussion. While this is a heartening sign in itself, it will finally be
the response of those in power that will convince the people of Pakistan
that their safety matters.

____________________

#2.

http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/india.html

One Million Infant Deaths
In India From Chernobyl
BY DR. SUMIT GHOSHAL

APRIL 26, 2000: FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER, THE
BAD NEWS IS STILL COMING IN AS A NEW ESTIMATE SHOWS, IT MAY HAVE CLAIMED
THE LIVES OF A STAGGERING ONE MILLION INFANTS IN INDIA ALONE!

This shocking announcement came today at a meeting organised in Mumbai
to observe the 14th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Speaking on
the occasion, Mr. R Ashok Kumar, a well known activist of the Bombay
Sarvodaya Mandal, explained that the Chernobyl meltdown was of such
gargantuan proportions that it affected even far away countries like
India.

He noted that prior to 1986, the infant mortality rate in India was
coming down by a compounded rate of 3.0 per cent. However, it was
observed that the IMR fell by only about 1.1 per cent during the years
of 1986, 1987 and 1988, precisely when the Chernobyl catastrophe
occurred. This marks a relative increase in infant deaths. Even more
interesting was the fact that from 1989 onwards, the rate of reduction
in IMR again became 3.0 per cent, that is, it returned to the
pre-Chernobyl figures. These statistics are obtained from demography
department of the International Institute of Population Studies in
Mumbai and may thus be corroborated by anybody who wishes to do so.

Along with this, Mr Ashok Kumar said, were a number of independent
studies indicating that the maximum effect of sudden exposure of
radiation in human beings lasts for about three years. This is a likely
explanation of the relative increase in death of innocent babies less
than one year old. Besides, it is widely understood that even low levels
of radiation inflicts maximum damage during stages of rapid cell
division and tissue growth, which takes place in ante-natal life and the
first few months after birth of the infant.

More evidence to support this hypothesis comes from Salem County, New
Jersey, USA, where members of the Radiation Health Group studied the
impact of the Nuclear Power Plant in that area. Mr Joseph Mangano, a
research associate with the Group noted recently that there was a clear
statistical connection between the nuclear plants in Salem and the
infant mortality in that county. Ever since the atomic power plant in
Salem went on stream in 1977, infant mortality rates went up steadily in
13 of the subsequent 16 years. In the rest of New Jersey state, infant
death rates were going down. However, in the years 1994 to 1996, during
which the nuclear power plants were largely or completely shut down, the
infant death rates dropped below the 1977 levels! Anyone can see the
striking similarity to the Indian situation. More details can be
expected on this later this year, when their Tooth Fairy Project results
are published. Participants in the Project are going around Salem county
collecting the milk teeth of small babies when they fall off. The idea
is that radiation tends to accumulate in the teeth, which can
be thoroughly studied over a long