Re: Bhopal

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

The workers lived near the Bhopal plant because most of them needed to be within walking distance.  If  Union Carbide (or their Indian client) had to abide by restrictions similar to U. S. nuclear power plants, they would have had an exclusion zone and a LPZ around the facility, and if U. C. had exercised some foresight, they would have provided bus transportation for the Bhopal employees so they could live further from the plant. In the U.S., large chemical facilities are in industrial zones where usually there are no or very few residences.  In fact, why was U. C. in Bhopal at all?  Because labor was cheap and (at least then) zoning was nonexistent.



That having been said, all large industrial accidents with massive emissions can indeed be compared, because all have both similarities and differences.  If we can compare Chernobyl to what might have happened (but didn't) at the N-Reactor at Hanford (this comparison was made in a Washington State senate hearing) we can certainly compare Chernobyl to Bhopal.



Ruth

-- 

Ruth F. Weiner

ruthweiner@aol.com

505-856-5011

(o)505-284-8406



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/