Monday, October 20, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3
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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
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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.
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