Glenn Claim of Radioactive Exposure Disputed

Federal and independent radiation health specialists Tuesday disputed a claim by Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) that 30,000 children in eastern Washington state may have been exposed to more radioactive iodine from the government’s Hanford nuclear weapons plant in the 1940s and ‘50s than Soviets living near the Chernobyl accident.

Terming Glenn’s assertions “misleading” and “irresponsible,” the analysts said such claims reflected the high level of emotion attached to a running controversy over the state of the nation’s aging nuclear weapons production plants.

The officials, while agreeing that the weapons plants have accumulated serious safety and environmental problems, said they worried that such alarming statements from prominent political figures would cause unwarranted fear or panic.

Writing in an op-ed article published by the New York Times on Tuesday, Glenn said a study by the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta suggests the children may have received more radioactive iodine exposure than people near Chernobyl.

In response to questions, a spokesman for Glenn on Tuesday said that although there was reason for concern, there was no clear evidence that pollution from weapons plants had affected public health.

The Centers for Disease Control began its study of the Hanford iodine releases only last fall and has issued no results. The project’s chief scientist, Dr. A. James Ruttenber, said it will be another two years before it is known whether a full-scale study is feasible.

Glenn also asserted in the article that “vast quantities of radioactive and toxic wastes are contaminating offsite drinking water supplies” at the government’s nuclear fuel production plant at Fernald, near Cincinnati.

Federal officials, who expressed puzzlement at Glenn’s claim, said low-level radioactive contamination of drinking water supplies at Fernald was limited to three wells serving individual houses near the plant, and that the families now have other sources of drinking water.

As chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, Glenn is to open hearings today on a lengthy catalogue of safety and environmental ills at 17 major nuclear weapons facilities run by the Department of Energy. Many of the plants are more than 30 years old, and the Energy Department has estimated that modernizing and cleaning them up will cost about $80 billion over the next 21 years.

Reaction was particularly sharp to the senator’s suggestion that Hanford exposed people to more radioactive iodine than the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

Documents made public by the Energy Department in 1986 showed that the Hanford plant released 530,000 curies of radioactive iodine, most of it in 1945. By comparison, the burning Chernobyl reactor released 10 million curies of iodine.