Soviets to Give Safety Data on Cuban Reactors to U.S.

Soviet authorities have agreed to supply the United States with technical data on the safety of two nuclear reactors that Cuba is building with Soviet help, U.S. Secretary of Energy John S. Herrington said Thursday.

Herrington said he met for an hour Thursday morning with Soviet Deputy Premier Boris Y. Shcherbina to discuss a wide range of nuclear safety issues, including American concern about the adequacy of safety systems on the two Soviet-supplied reactors Cuba is building on its southern coast near Cienfuegos.

“They agreed to be forthcoming on this,” Herrington said in an interview. He added that while he was pleased with the Soviet response, “our attitude is wait and see.”

Herrington and Shcherbina are the respective heads of the U.S. and Soviet delegations to a special session of the 113-member International Atomic Energy Agency, which is scheduled today to adopt two new international agreements on nuclear safety, growing out of last April’s Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union.

One agreement requires a country that has a serious nuclear accident to notify the IAEA and its neighbors “forthwith” if radioactivity is likely to have “safety significance” beyond its borders. The second is meant to speed emergency assistance to any country that has a nuclear accident.

In a news conference Wednesday, Herrington said the Chernobyl accident has increased U.S. government concerns about the safety of the two 440-megawatt pressurized-water reactors that Cuba is receiving from the Soviet Union, even though their design bears little resemblance to the graphite reactor that exploded and burned April 26 at Chernobyl.

He said the Reagan Administration is concerned about the possibility of substandard reactors being built near U.S. shores, and he noted that “no Soviet reactor could be licensed in the United States” without substantial improvements.

Asked whether the Administration expects the Cuban reactors to be built to U.S. safety standards, Herrington said, “I don’t think we can tolerate anything less.”

The two reactors are a standard Soviet export model, but other U.S. officials noted that little is known about safety features of this model’s current version. Also, these officials said, most of these reactors that the Soviets have built at home and in Eastern Europe have no concrete containment structure to trap radioactive fission wastes in the event of a major accident.

Herrington said the two Cuban reactors will have containment, but U.S. authorities want to ensure that the quality of design and construction is adequate. The government is also concerned about the Cuban plant’s ability to resist hurricanes, a problem Soviet designers have not previously faced.

Finland operates two similar Soviet reactors, but it has made a number of improvements including the addition of American-designed containment. Herrington noted that Finland’s experience indicates that the Soviet reactors can be upgraded to meet Western safety standards.