Cuba's nuclear threat
BY RICHARD MINITER
While the world is transfixed by the underground tests in India and
Pakistan, another nuclear risk lies unnoticed.
Less than 180 miles south of Florida's Key West, Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro has resumed construction of two large Soviet-designed VVER 440
model V213 nuclear reactors at Juragua in Cienfuegos province.
The reactors pose a genuine threat to Americans as far north as
Washington and as far west as Texas, according to an array of federal
government reports from the General Accounting Office, the State
Department, the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As many as 80 million Americans could be exposed to a potentially
deadly radioactive cloud if the Cuban reactors were to malfunction.
The threat is real. Congress recently approved more than $3 million to
build and maintain a Caribbean Radiation Early Warning System, a battery
of sensors on the Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas coasts.
They will "provide timely data for emergency preparedness in the event
of a catastrophic radioactive release," said Gene Aloise, assistant
director of energy resources at the GAO, in congressional testimony.
While most of the world's nuclear reactors are extremely safe and meet
stringent government standards, the twin Juragua reactors are different.
They are a Greenpeace nightmare.
From the drawing board to the final construction, the Juragua
reactors are a case study in how not to build a power plant.
The Russians, for their part, have sworn never to build another VVER
440 reactor in their own country. The German government, which inherited
four VVER 440 reactors in the former East Germany, considered them so
unsafe that it immediately shut them down.
Among the design defects is the containment dome. The protective dome
of the almost complete reactor (the second reactor is only one-third
complete) is designed to withstand only seven pounds per square inch of
pressure. U.S. standards require an ability to withstand at least 50
pounds per square inch.
Other defects: The reactor design has a weak emergency core-cooling
mechanism, which would be used to prevent a meltdown, and the emergency
cooling system has no backup.
The construction is even worse than the design. Perhaps as many as 60
percent of the Soviet-made parts in the Juragua reactors are defective,
according to GAO estimates.
In an interview with The Miami Herald, Pelayo Calante, responsible
for quality control in Juragua before he defected, revealed the reactor
would probably fail if activated.
Vladimir Gervera, a senior engineer at Juragua, also defected. He had
led the team that X-rayed the more than 5,000 welds on the twin reactors'
vast gaggle of fuel cooling and plumbing systems.
Mr. Gervera told U.S. officials at least 15 percent of the welds are
dangerously flawed.
U.S. standards do not permit a single defective weld. Once a system
is pressurized, the pipes could burst and release toxic radioactive
clouds.
However poorly designed and built, the machinery of the twin reactors
has only gotten worse.
When construction halted in 1992, the internal guts of the nuclear
reactors -- including the reactor vessel, six steam generators, five main
coolant pumps, 12 isolation valves and other essential equipment -- were
left exposed to the wind and the rain for more than five years. Now they
are being put into service.
Even the site is cursed. The Juragua reactors rest on an active
earthquake fault line, federal officials believe. A relatively small
tremor could have large consequences.
"Should the Juragua reactor be completed and become operational,
these issues would increase the threat to public health and safety of
Cuba and the Americas," said Paul
Gurtey, director of a reactor watchdog project for the Nuclear Information
and Resource Services.
The Cubans, who have already spent an estimated $1 billion on the
reactors, need another $750 million to complete the project. They are
about to get the money they need, partly from U.S. taxpayers.
Sergev Shoygu, an official of the Ministry of the Russian Federation
for Atomic Energy, told the GAO in 1996 the Russians plan to extend a $350
million line of credit "to finance the supply of Russian materials to
Cuba." Canadian and European
governments are expected to fund the balance.
Part of the funds will come indirectly from U.S. taxpayers. The
International Atomic Energy Agency, which receives almost 30 percent of
its $53 million annual budget from the United States, plans to provide
almost $2 million worth of equipment and technical support to the Cubans
over the next two years.
Florida's senators, Democrat Bob Graham and Republican Connie Mack,
are offering legislation to prevent U.S. funds from being used. But that's
not enough.
The Clinton administration has the tools to halt construction of the
reactors. Stepped-up enforcement of the Helms-Burton Act, which punishes
foreign companies using confiscated U.S. property in Cuba, could choke off the parts and funds needed
to activate the one reactor that is now 97 percent complete.
While the detonations in India and Pakistan consume the president, he
ought to consider the nuclear threat from Cuba. He needs to act now.