The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 30, 1986, Image 12

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ELECT
WHITT LIGHTSEY
Democratic
County Commissioner Pet 4
•Life long resident of
Brazos County
•Agri-Business man
•Property Owner.
•TAMU Class of 86
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I would appreciate your support on Maj r 3
Political Ad paid for by Whitt Lightsey campaign,
Ron Lightsey, Treasurer, Bryan.
Page 12/The Battalion/Wednesday, April 30, 1986
Northwest prepared
to monitor arrival
of radioactive cloud
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Alaska
and Washington state stepped up ra
diation monitoring Tuesday as offi
cials prepared for the expected arri
val of a radioactive cloud from an
accident at a nuclear power plant in
the Soviet Union.
Experts said the fallout, expected
to appear over the northwestern
United States as early as Saturday,
probably would pose no health
threat.
Federal officials have said if the
radioactive cloud from the accident
at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine, as
cends to 15,000 feet or higher, it
probably would pass over the polar
ice cap, move across Canada and
into the northwestern United States.
According to Charlie Porter, di
rector of federal Eastern Environ
mental Radiation Facility in Mont
gomery, Ala., Alaska is likely to be
the first state to detect the cloud as it
travels around the globe. It may be
days or weeks before any signs are
detected in North America, he said.
“There’s a lot of things that can
happen with the winds up there, and
it could just get dispersed,” Porter
said. “But the way the polar winds
usually travel, if it comes our way,
Alaska’s the first one it comes to.”
The cloud is in the jet stream, at
least 30,()()() feet high, and could
pass over Alaska and the rest of the
United States unnoticed, he said.
Porter said the radiation levels de
tected in the Scandinavian countries
were still below what would be im
mediately harmful.
The jet stream, moving at speeds
of up to 150 mph, carries the upper
atmosphere over Greenland and the
polar regions to Alaska, then south
across the Pacific Northwest and
over the Midwest, Porter said.
Because meteorologists and other
scientists can’t predict accurately
where the prevailing winds will take
the cloud, the Environmental Pro
tection Agency’s monitoring net
work in all 50 states will he watching
for unusually high radiation read
ings, he said.
“As soon as someone finds any
thing unusual, they’ll send it to our
laboratory for testing,” Porter said.
According to A1 Ewing, regional
administrator for the Environmental
Protection Agency, more than a
dozen stations across Alaska are be
ing checked daily rather than once
every two weeks, and two special ra
dioactivity monitors in Juneau and
Alaska have been activated.
The Soviet Union said the acci
dent had damaged an atomic reactor
at the Chernobyl power plant in the
Ukraine. Radiation as much as 10
times above normal was recorded
north of Stockholm, Sweden, and
this included iodine and cesium
compounds — both products of nu
clear fission which would be pro
duced in uranium reactor fuel.
Meltdown
Thumbs Up
A&M announces winners
of mathematics contest
The annual freshman and
sophomore mathematics contests
were held April 16 for Texas
A&M students. First place win
ners were awarded $100, second
place winners won $60 and third
place winners received $40. The
prizes were provided by the Hillel
Halperin Mathematics Award
Fund anti the Robert F. Smith
Memorial Fund.
In the sophomore contest first
place honors went to Andrew
Spears, a chemical engineerini.
major; second place went to ~'
vid McC iov, a physics major;
Khalid S. YVarraich, a compui ei
science major, won third place.
In the freshman contest fitj
place went to Glenn Mullikin.an
applied mathematics major;
out! place went to Clifford Krum.
vieda, a mathematics major; and
third place went to Tomnit
Guess, an electrical engineerini;
major.
Booster joint found;
debris search ends
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
— Searchers have recovered a long-
sought section of Challenger’s right
booster rocket containing the lower
half of the joint that caused the shut
tle to explode, NASA announced
Tuesday.
With the recovery til this piece,
which the agency called a "signifi
cant component,” NASA said it had
terminated the hunt for additional
rocket debris — three months and a
clay after the Jan. 28 disaster killed
seven astronauts.
Officials said a few ships would
continue recovering parts of the
shuttle itself from die floor ol the
Atlantic Ocean.
Another piece of rocket detn
with the upper section of the su®
joint was recovered several w(d
ago. It contained a 2-square(ii
jagged hole burned out bvanesaj
ing plume of flame, Initthespj
agency said it has provided nodi
to what caused the joint to fail.
( )f ficials said a similar jagged Id
was burned through the piecek
ti ieved Monday by the salvagesd
Siena Workhorse.
The search lleet had been seek;
this section ever since its mate>;
found. Experts believe that by n
ting them together, they maybeaU
to trace burn patterns thatcouldt
them \shat went wrong.
(continued from page 1)
and large portions of the walls (of
the reactor building) had caved in,”
the administration official said.
“And it seemed at the time that (an
other) nuclear unit just above it
might still be in some danger.”
The source said the U.S. govern
ment was convinced there had been
a huge release of radiation, but that
the most serious radioactive fallout
on the ground occurred within an
area stretching out about 10 miles
out from the plant.
This official also said the intelli
gence analysts were now convinced
the accident occurred Saturday.
Reports reaching the State De
partment said Soviet authorities
were hampered in their efforts to
put out the fire because of the in
tense heat. They were also con
cerned that dousing the fire could
create more radioactivity than sim
ply letting the reactor burn, accord
ing to a source who insisted on ano
nymity.
Adelman said those in the greatest
risk are apparently the inhabitants
of a village of 2,000 persons built to
house workers at the nuclear facility
and their families.
When told by a senator that the
Soviet Union has claimed that only
two people were killed by the acci
dent, he said that was “frankly pre
posterous in terms of an accident of
this magnitude.”
“There is concern over water con
tamination,” Adelman told a Senate
committee Tuesday afternoon. “It is
on a river. We’ve got to assume the
water level is relatively high. The
burning core at 4,000 degrees is at
such an intense temperature, if it
goes into the water you could have
serious, serious problems with con
tamination.'’
The Soviet reactor was not pro
tected bv the type of steel and con
crete containment building required
at American commercial reactors,
authorities said.
The American government of
fered technical and humanitarian as
sistance to the Soviet Union at a
meeting of assistant secretary of
state Rozanne L. Ridgway and Oleg
M. Sokolov, charge at the Soviet em
bassy. There was no apparent imme
diate response to the offer.
A source who had assessed intelli
gence reports said of the Soviet reac
tor site: “These are definitely power
slants and not production centers
or nuclear warheads. But these are
huge plants that provide a mayi
link in their electrical grid. TU
ai e lour <>| them in a lincatthiscon
plex, and none of them are open
ing now.”
At the Pentagon, meantim
spokesman Robert Sims said lit
United States had not learnedofiit
accident in advance of Mondays)!
nouncement by the Soviet prs
agency l ass.
In other developments:
—The State Department urfd
American travelers to stay aw
f rom Kiev, 60 miles south of tbet
cident site.
—More than 100 Housementa
sponsored a resolution condemnEt
tne Soviet Union’s “failure to pit
vide the world with notificationaa
information about the nudearata
dent.”
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