By Anthony Boadle
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense plans to build a radiation detection facility in Florida to warn of any leak from two Russian nuclear reactors under construction in Cuba, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
Work on the Juragua nuclear power plant, located just 180 miles (290 kms) from the Florida Keys, was suspended in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cuba's cash-strapped Communist government hopes to complete the plant to reduce its dependence on imported oil in generating electricity and is looking for a Western partner.
The half-built nuclear plant is said to be rusting by the seaside in Cienfuegos province with little chance of starting up in the near future. But the specter of a Chernobyl disaster on the doorstep of the United States still worries the Pentagon.
The 1998 defense budget approved by Congress provides $3 million for a nuclear fallout system that could alert Florida residents and Caribbean nations to any mishap at Juragua.
"The Department of Defense does not have final plans for the Cuban reactor monitoring project yet,'' a Pentagon spokeswoman said.
"The general concept is to have a system that will provide an early warning of nuclear radiation approaching the United States should such radiation escape from the reactors in Cuba after they become operational,'' she said.
Cuban officials told an International Atomic Energy Agency conference in Vienna a month ago that they plan to finish the stalled nuclear plant when they find the money.
The first reactor and turbine had already been shipped to Cuba when work was stopped with 90 percent of the civil construction and 30 percent of the technical work done.
A 1992 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office said the plant was poorly constructed and cited former Juragua workers who raised concerns about the shoddy installation of cooling pipes, bad welding and improper storage of equipment in the corrosive sea air during the building hiatus.
"We had to stop building on the plant due to lack of funding and, with the delay, some things began to decay,'' a Cuban diplomat in Washington said.
In 1993 Russia came to Cuba's aid with a $30 million credit line to mothball the huge steel-and-concrete skeleton.
Moscow also unveiled plans to form a consortium to help Cuba finish the plant at an estimated cost of $750 million. The plan required a Western partner to supply the costly computer control and security systems.
Several firms from Germany, Britain, Italy and Brazil, including Siemens, showed interest in 1995 and worked on a feasibility study, but nothing came of it.
The United States remains firmly opposed to completion of the Juragua plant and has sought to discourage other countries from getting involved.
"To our knowledge, no Western companies have committed themselves to the Cuban nuclear project,'' a State Department official said.
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the VVER-440 reactor sent to Juragua is inherently safer than the older type that exploded in 1986 at Chernobyl in Ukraine, sending a plume of radioactive fallout across much of Europe.
But the General Accounting Office report said an accident at Juragua could spread radiation as far as Texas and Virginia, depending on the wind direction.
"If that reactor is finished it would pose a serious risk for the well-being of 100 million people from Florida to Venezuela,'' said Jack Sweeney, a Latin America analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington public policy study center.
"We cannot allow something that is so shoddily built and has been rotting by the seashore to be started up,'' he said.
"As an American citizen, I would consider the involvement of the Germans, Italians or British in finishing that reactor as a hostile act,'' Sweeney said.
18:59 11-04-97