Re: Ukraine Leader: World Must Pay for Chernobyl

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 09:16 AM 4/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> "It is a tragedy on a planetary scale and the whole world must pay for
>> the damage," President Kuchma, cited by Interfax Ukraine news agency,
>> told reporters in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
>
>Is President Kuchma making a threat?

Actually, it appears to me an admission of their inability to deal with the
damaged reactor. If the long term storage and cleanup isn't done right, it
well could have consequences beyond their national borders. So I think he's
trying to tell the world that they can't handle it, so if the world wants
it done right, the world needs to fund it.

It seems to me that, if the world pays for the cleanup, the world should
get to CONDUCT the cleanup. Ukraine's announcement that they don't have the
financial resources to do the job makes me wonder if they have the
technical resources, in either the level of expertise or the quantity of
knowledgeable people needed for such a unique project. If the Ukraine
believes that the world needs to take action to protect itself from further
consequences from Chernobyl, I would guess they are right!

---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu