U.S. Concerned Over Cuban A-Plants

The Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union last April has heightened U.S. government concern about the safety of Soviet-supplied nuclear power plants that Cuba is building on its southern coast, U.S. Energy Secretary John S. Herrington said at a news conference Wednesday.

Herrington heads the U.S. delegation to a special session of the International Atomic Energy Agency that is considering two new nuclear safety agreements resulting from the Chernobyl accident.

He noted that the two 440-megawatt reactors under construction in Cuba are conventional pressurized-water units, with little resemblance to the graphite reactor that exploded at Chernobyl. But he said the government is nevertheless concerned that reactors of inferior design or construction may be placed close to U.S. shores.

“No Soviet reactor could be licensed in the United States,” Herrington said. “We don’t know enough about these reactors. . . . We don’t have any (safety) specifications. We don’t know if they’re using a skilled labor force.”

Other U.S. officials said that construction of the two units, designated by the Soviets as VVER-440 reactors, began near Cienfuegos on the southern Cuban coast in 1983, and the first reactor is not expected to go into operation until 1990. It appears to be a standard Soviet export model, but officials said there are indications that the model has undergone design changes in recent years, and its safety characteristics are not well known.

Herrington said that photos taken by a civilian U.S. satellite show that the two Cuban reactors, unlike most of this type in the Soviet Union, will have concrete containment domes to prevent the escape of radioactivity in the event of an accident.