As international pressure for the closure of Chernobyl grows the 50operatorsat the plant and their families are becoming fearful of the future. They know that nowhere else in the former USSR would they receive such high or regularly paid salaries and high standard of living. To attract the staff in the wake of the 1986 accident facilities at the new operators' town of Slavutich had to be better than average and wages had to be higher. The town built 50 kin from the plant with its population of 280issomething of a showpiece and boasts some of the best educational, medical recreational and community facilities in Ukraine. Finance for this comes largely from the plant itself which was given special permission to sell 50 per cent of its electricity directly to selected customers for foreign currency. After the1986accident most of the original operators were dismissed following a dispute over accommodation. Workers were evacuated and given temporary accommodation including flats in Kiev, until Slavutich was ready. Slavutich was ready within two years but this initially caused problems as the operators did not want to give up their flats in Kiev -accommodation in the capital is valued. Against the advice of the plant management the government decided to dismiss those who would not move and the plant lost 90 per cent of its work force, posing a serious problem for plant director Sergei Parashin. "This caused a difficult period of conflict between the staff and the administration and some vestiges still remain", he says.
The plant finances all the town's sports and leisure facilities including five gyms12swimming pools two stadiums a yachting dub and horse-riding stables. The facilities employ 230 people on a full time basis and the plant sends$100a day to maintain this service. The plant management understand that they need physically healthy people
and staff who can be confident about
their children, says Vasily, Korobov, the head coach. "We faced a difficult time after the collapse of the USSR in 1991explains hospital director, Viktor
Shilenko. But the plant has been giving us help for the past two years. The management understands our economic problems and gives us what we need. This year in addition to budget support we have received everything we asked for and more to buy equipment." The new hospital - the centre of a sophisticated medical complex- has just been opened. The mayor of Slavutich Vladimir Udovichenko, is angry at the suggestion that the nuclear plant should be closed. "The West doe snot understand that it is impossible to take away from Ukraine $200 million a year (the plant's income) and 5 per cent of its electricity. We should not even discuss it. It can't happen he says. He is proud of the town's achievements.
Eight years ago no-one from Kiev wanted to come here at all but for the past two years we have been getting requests from people in Kiev seeking to swap accommodation." But if the worst happens and the plant is shut down, he adds, "will not sit idle - we will do everything to attract investors including establishing a free economic zone. No one here expects the town to die. Some budget tightening may be necessary very soon as the plant's quota for free sale of electricity has been cut to nine per cent for the duration of the winter. "With Ukraine suffering an energy crisis and people without heating in Kiev Chernobyl's power must be channelled to where it is needed most, "explains one plant official. "We understand this but we don't know what will happen after the winter."
An international conference in the operators' town of Slavutich last December revealed that radiation above the -entombed reactor four measures up to 46 roentgen per hour- the same levels recorded during construction of the sarcophagus immediately after the April1986accident. At the end of last year the plant was made directly responsible for all work relating to maintaining and strengthening the sarcophagus. Previously this was organised by the special ministry for Chernobyl but pressure has been mounting for this ministry and the transfer of its functions to other body. "The Chernobyl sarcophagus is a global problem. It cannot be solved piecemeal. We need to bring together the best experts the world has to offer, "says Xavier Gorge, senior vice
president of the French company SGN Reseau Eurisys.
New regulations have been adopted
restricting access to the 30-kni exclusion
zone around the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant. They deny access to
anyone under -18 in an attempt to
end visits by children to parents and
grandparents who have refused to
leave. After the accident some 116,000
people were hastily resettled but some
have since returned preferring the risk
of ill health to the problems of making a
new life-away from their homes.
There is no longer any doubt that
the massive, increase in thyroid cancers
in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are radiation induced, as a result of the
Chernobyl accident, but the mechanism
still requires more research. This was
one of the conclusions of the World
Health Organisation's international
conference, held in Geneva at the end of
last year, on the health consequences of
the Chernobyl and other radiological
accidents. It looked mainly at the
results Of WHO'S international programme on the health effects of the
Chernobyl accident (IPHECA), the first
phase of which ended
last year. Wilfried
Kreisel, executive director in charge of
WHO'S environment
and health issues says:
Who wants to see the volume and quality of medical assistance and scientific research increased. We will be doing a disservice if we fail to extract any benefit for mankind from this monumental human tragedy. If history is not to repeat itself we should learn the lessons of Chernobyl well."