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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 1986)
Monday, October 20, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local its several land;;* ield in e U.S. Army Co- ears ago L ictivities the fe sent a formal'; y of State G«:i endana, secreir yuan Foreign)!; iave Ameriai s dirty war gua. Thisbrini Nicaragua fficial: aused By Charisse Crunk Reporter A mixture of human and tech- ical failures caused the April 26 eltdown of the Soviet Union’s hernobyl nuclear power plant, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said Friday. Harold R. Denton, director of e Nuclear Reactor Regulation, branch of the United States Nu- llear Regulatory Commission, ade the comments to an audi- |nce of Texas A&M nuclear engi- eering students and graduates at had gathered for the 25th inniversary of A&-M’s Depart ment of Nuclear Engineering. | Denton had just returned from a meeting in Vienna, Austria, of ; the International Atomic Energy Agency, a division of the United Nations. At the meeting, Soviet officials briefed representatives from 113 nations on the causes of the disaster. | “If I had to summarize the causes of the accident,” Denton laid, “I’d say it was multiple and deliberate violations of proce dure, coupled with design defi ciencies.” I He said a main factor in the Chernobyl meltdown by mixture of failures “Many of the things that were adopted in this country after Three Mile Island, the Soviets are suddenly quite interested in. ” — Harold R. Denton, Nuclear Regulatory Commission official meltdown was “a large dose of human error.” Soviets neglected to follow six safety procedures, he said, and compliance with any one of the six would have pre vented the disaster. He said the Soviets were aware of the shortcomings of the reac tor design, but thought they had everything under control. The design used by the Soviets is a positive coefficient reactor, which increases radioactivity when reactives are added to its core, Denton said. American en gineers tested this type of design about 25 years ago and found it unacceptable, he said. The United States uses a neg ative coefficient reactor, which shuts itself down if it becomes too radioactive, he explained. Denton said the Soviet design becomes more critical as reactives are added to its core because it lacks the self-limiting factor the; American design has. Denton said containment also was a contributing factor in the disaster. He said most Soviet reactors have no containment at all, but this particular plant did have at least some. < He said although some parts of the building housing the reactor were contained, the reactor core, the most important part, had no containment at all. American re actors, he explained, are con tained in a full building covering the reactor core. He told the audience that the preliminary opinion of the NRC is that the disaster might have been prevented had the reactor had Western-style containment. He pointed out that the disas ter gives scientists an opportunity to research the health effects of low doses of radiation over time. “I think you could support a thousand doctoral dissertations if you could get the Soviets’ cooper ation,” he said. He said the disaster has opened the door for Soviet and American scientific exchange, a door that Denton said has been closed for years. “Many of the things that were adopted in this country after Three Mile Island, the Soviets are suddenly quite interested in,” he said. Denton said the disaster will have limited impacts on U.S. re actors. He said he could not imag ine any power company in the United States bypassing safety procedures. He said the NRC will be taking an other look at the administration of controls and operations and re-ex amine the design. It also will look at the adequacy of containment and prepare a report to determine if anything needs to be changed in the United States, he said. Holmes: Changes at yell practice worked just fine By Jo Ann Able Staff Writer Head Yell Leader Marty Holmes said Sunday that Friday’s midnight yell practice went “extremely well” and was probably the best of the year. A fight broke out at yell practice Oct. 3 when a group of civilians tried to run across Kyle Field and cadets tried to stop it. In a letter to The Battalion on Oct. 16, Holmes said the Corps of Cadets would no longer prevent anyone from running on the field or attempt to remove anyone who did. He also asked students to cooperate with the yell leaders by staying off the field during yell practice. Holmes said these changes worked at yell practice, although, there were a few problems. He was probably referring to a skirmish that occurred when some civilian students stopped an attempt by others to go onto the field. “Everything vvent fine,” Holmes said. “That’s what we plan to keep on doing.” Holmes said he invited Head Coach Jackie Sherrill to speak at yell practice and address the problem. Sherrill attended and urged the crowd to follow tradition and stay off the field. Bass players also began marching with the Aggie Band Friday night. In the past, bass players lined up on the sidelines to remove those who ran onto the field. Holmes said this is a permanent change, butjuniors in the Corps will continue to escort the band into the stadium and will remain on the track. Correction In the Oct. 13 edition of The Bat talion, Hugh H. Hughes was incor rectly identified in a headline as a professor. He is actually a teaching assistant from the Department of Interdisci plinary Education. The Battalion re grets the error. Brazos Beautiful tries to make residents litter-conscious ii Ins usual s: -|. nion was like;;!;! idventurers acj (an would wakl fantasy, he m un-type nighE no. gone as fario ntry where pud nany freedoms' “$ working cost ink, nudge, nut By Paula Janda Reporter I A vacant lot in the Brazos Valley has al most no trash — only an empty Coke can and a small crumpled piece of newspaper. I Several vacant lots in the Brazos Valley have been cleaned up, straightened up and deared out. And many parking lots, com mercial dumpsters, loading docks and Streets have received facelifts. ■ Diane Mills, executive coordinator of Brazos Beautiful, says her organization is the primary reason for these transfor- adons. Brazos Beautiful, a non-profit organiza tion, is part of the Clean Community Sys tem, which is sponsored by Keep America Beautiful, a national organization. The or ganization strives to make people conscious of litter and reduce the amount of littering. “We just have tried to teach people not to litter,” Mills says. “When people are aware it makes a difference.” Mills says the Brazos Valley is 75 percent cleaner since the program’s inception in 1983. Every six months Bryan-College Station officials spend several days taking pictures of streets, parking lots, vacant lots, com mercial dumpsters, and loading docks, Mills says. Each city takes 70 pictures that “We want picking up trash and not littering to become a way of life.” — Diane Mills, executive coordinator of Brazos Beautiful. are used to measure the amount of litter in a particular area, she says. Jane Lee, a College Station zoning offi cial, says the areas to be surveyed are kept secret and are chosen from a random set of numbers. “The photos are taken before trash pick up days to assure no area has an advantage because its trash was just picked up,” Lee says. Mills says the pictures are projected on a grid, and the litter is actually counted so a percentage can be determined. “All areas were greatly improved and the percentages help us see where we need to improve,” she says. Vacant lots showed the largest im provement with a 96 percent reduction in litter, Mills says. Commercial trash dump sters need the most improvement, she adds. up t ing to become a way of life,” Mills says. “If a lace looks better, it is economically better or businesses. And people work better if 1 they are in a clean and beautiful environ ment.” Brazos Beautiful is trying to change peo ple’s attitudes about littering, Mills says. “We are trying to teach behavioral mod ification,” Mills says. “We are educating young children in schools. “We teach the kids that waste has a place, and we teach them the difference between a paper cup and a leaf on the ground,” she says. “ ‘Go wild in Brazos County is our new est program,” she says. “We want people to plant more wildflowers along highways and at the entrances to the cities,” she says. senior jouroti rist for The Be 34 9 J 24 9 ? Raeb<5k * ical error dial 'Texas AH! • metimes h an .ion. 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