NUCLEAR WASTELANDS?

Most of the antinuclear debate revolves around minuscule radiation levels that are barely detectable above background and for which harm to human health has never been observed. Moreover, the growing science of hormesis indicates that such low levels are, in fact, beneficial with a crossover to harmful levels somewhere around 50 milliSv/year. (See Access to Energy 23, No. 11, p 3 and earlier articles.) Even the Chernobyl accident has only managed three identifiable deaths from residual radiation - those among the approximately 700 excess children with thyroid cancer which could have been avoided if the Soviets had immediately distributed potassium iodide and instituted other simple prophylactic measures. There are also a claimed seven extra cases of infant leukaemia among children exposed before birth. (See "Infant leukaemia after in utero exposure to radiation from Chernobyl,'' E. Petridou, et al, Nature 382 , pp 352-353 (1996)).

"Residual Radioactivity in the Soil of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in the Former USSR'' by M. Yamamoto, T. Tsukatani, and Y. Katayama in Health Physics 71, No. 2, pp 142-148, is instructive. This location in Kazakhstan was the site of the first Soviet nuclear explosion on 29 August 1949. Altogether 459 nuclear explosions were conducted at the three technical areas of this site between 1949 and 1989. Of these, 346 were underground explosions. All 113 of the other explosions - 26 ground explosions and 87 atmospheric explosions occurred at one of the areas, Technical Area III. Surely here we can find the nuclear hell on earth of unsurvivable residual radiation.

Measurements of radiation at Technical Area III in 1994 one meter (3 feet) above the ground showed a residual radiation intensity of 30 microsieverts per hour ( microSv/h ). Is this a dangerous level? Probably. Even hormesis fans estimate the crossover to negative health effects at about 6 microSv/h, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publications (see Access to Energy 23 , No 11) give the global average background level as 0.3 microSv/ h.

However, IAEA gives the level for passengers in an SST at 10 mi-croSv/h and in an ordinary airliner as 5 microSv/h. So, an hour spent at the site of 113 nuclear explosions over a 40-year period ending in 1989 has about the same negative health effects from radiation as a trip from San Francisco to New York in an ordinary jet airliner.

But what about On the Beach? Well, we cannot get there with all the nuclear weapons on earth, but what can we do? "Minimizing Excess Radiogenic Cancer Deaths After a Nuclear Attack'' by K. S. Gant and C. V. Chester in Health Physics 41, No. 3, pp 455-463 (1981), gives estimates for the health effects of residual radiation from an all ground-explosion attack with 5,000 megatons of nuclear weapons on the United States. After the initial few days, when the population is assumed to be evacuated and in fallout shelters and with prudent near-term use of shelters in the worst locations, much of the American population would be forced to live thereafter in a radiation environment comparable to that at the Semipalatinsk test site. Residual radiation levels in American counties with the worst fallout were estimated to be about 3 times greater than the 30 microSv/h at Semipalatinsk.