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Page 2 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, August 7, 1984
Chicago nuclear plant
plans full-scale cleanup
CHICAGO (AP) - Officials have
started tests for the first full-scale
cleaning of radioactive sediment from
a commercial nuclear power reactor in
a $50 million project that could set a
precedent for the industry.
The project is being undertaken at
Commonwealth Edison's Dresden
plant, the nation's first commercial
nuclear power reactor, about 50 miles
southwest of Chicago near Morris.
"THIS IS the first full-scale reactor
decontamination in the world," Irene
Johnson, a utility spokeswoman, said
yesterday.
The process involves using a solvent
to cleanse Dresden's Reactor 1 of
radioactive sediments that have ac-
cumulated in cooling and steam
systems over the years and now
threaten maintenance workers with high
radiation exposure. The reactor has
been shut down since 1978.
"What this plant is suffering from is
arteriosclerosis," said Dan Kane, an
independent consultant who has worked
with the Nuclear Regulatory Com-
mission. "It's got buildup in the pipes."
JOHNSON said the process - which
will take about 100 hours - is being
watched closely by industry officials
looking for ways to clean older reac-
tors.
"It could give the nuclear industry
another way of approaching this
problem," she said.
Kane also said experts in the nuclear
industry who are interested in cleaning
reactors 15 years and older "will be
looking at this project to see whether
they need to institute such a program."
HE SAID NEW plants have more
sophisticated piping systems where the
same type of problems isn't as likely to
occur.
Johnson said the initial testing steps
have begun and chemical decon-
tamination could begin as early as
tomorrow.
She said the water and steam system
will be flushed with 95,000 gallons of a
special solvent to remove the deposits
and bring the radiation levels down
without corroding the pipes.
"WHAT THIS solvent does is to cause
the metal to loosen the stuff from the
pipes' surface," Kane said. "It's the
same thing that's done when a house is
old and you have a certain amount of
crud built up" in the pipes.
Johnson said the project, which has
been in the planning stages for 15 years,
is being jointly funded - Edison will
spend about $42 million and the U.S.
Energy Department has contributed
$8.75 million.
She said it took that long, in part,
because of tests of the solvent and
requirements for licensing and an en-
vironmental impact statement.
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Momma mule? Associated Pre
Nebraska farmer Hill Sylvester shows off his mule, Krause, and the mule
colt, Blue Moon, to which she apparently gave birth July 6. If tentative
results prove conclusive, scientists say Krause will be the first mule ever
verified to have given birth.
Sakharov's wife
MOSCOW (AP) - Dissident Andrei Sakharov has
ended his hunger strike but is being held in a hospital
in Gorky, sources in Moscow said yesterday. They
said his wife, Yelena Bonner, has been formally
charged with crimes punishable by up to three years
of hard labor.
The sources, friends of the Sakharovs who spoke on
condition they not be named, said Sakharov had
ended his fast, which he began May 2 in an effort to
win permission for his wife to go to the West for
medical treatment. They did not know when he called
off the hunger strike.
THE 1975 Nobel Peace Prize winner "is well," and
is being held in a hospital in Gorkv. a city 240 miles
east of Moscow that is closed to foreigners, the
sources said.
They said they based their information on a brief
communication Sunday with Bonner, who had not
been heard from since mid-May when she reported
by telegram that Sakharov was taken from their
home by authorities and put in a hospital.
The sources said they did not have any other
information about Sakharov's condition and could not
charged with'anti-Soviet slander'
4
confirm or deny reports that they had been force fed
and given psychotropic drugs.
SOVIET OFFICIAILS and Soviet news agencies
have said only that Sakharov is not on a hunger strike
and that he is well.
Bonner was placed under criminal investigaton
and ordered to stay in Gorky on May 2, the same day
that Sakharov began his fast.
The sources said she told them the investigation
was over and that she has been formally charged
with anti-Soviet slander - a charge often made
against dissidents.
BONNER SAID she had refused to take part in the
investigation, but has now invited a Moscow lawyer
to Gorky to defend her, the sources said. She did not
say when the trial is to begin, they added.
Bonner was informed of the investigation against
her on the same day that the official news agency
Tass issued a statement accusing her of plotting with
U.S. diplomats to take refuge in the American
Embassy in Moscow when Sakharov began the
hunger strike.
The U.S. Embassy denied the charges, but a
spokesman later said Bonner had written a letter
asking for asylum and had given it to American
diplomats during the last visit she made to Moscow in
in April. Before the investigation against her, Bonner
was allowed to travel between Gorky and Moscow
and had acted as her husband's link to Western
diplomats and journalists.
BUT SINCE May, most of the previous channels of
information about the couple have dried up.
Irina Kristi, a Moscow friend who traveled to
Gorky in early Mayandabrought back news of
Sakharov's hunger strike and the investigation of
Bonner, was placed under KGB house arrest and her
telephone was cut off.
Three plainclothesmen and a uniformed police
officer remained on guard outside her apartment last
night, barring entry to two American reporters. They
refused to explain their presence.
There is still a 24-hour guard at Bonner's empty
apartment in Moscow, where she once regularly
visited.
Sakharov was exiled without trial to Gorky in
January 191), after he criticized publicly the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan.
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a
Tuesday
Christian Fellowship - Bible st
E. Ann.
Go Club - meeting 7 p.m. 1433 M
Women's Golf - game, 8 a.m., G
HRD - "Creating Written In
a.m., 130 LSA.
Computer - Intro to Macintos
Processing 3014 SEB.
Wednesda,
Gay Rights - meeting 9 p.m., 80
Alcoholics Anonymous - me
Alano Club.
Farm Labor - meeting, 5:30 p.m
HAPPENINGS
Union.
Sci Fi - meeting, 8:15 p.m., League. 7:30 pm., conference r
udy, 7:30 p.m. 925 Voice - Hugh McGuinness, 8 p.m., 812 Monroe. Art harpsichordist
HRD - Punctuation clinic, 10 a,m. 4051 LSA; Kuenzel Rm., Union.
lason. "Platform Skills: Effective Public Speaking," 1 Music - Band, 8 p.m.
xolf Course. p.m., 130 Isa. Performance Netwo
structions," 8:30 CFT - Walkabout, 7:45 p.m.; Picnic at Hanging p.m., 408W. Washingom
Rock, 9:30 p.m., Michigan.
sh, 9 a.m.; Word Computer - Intro to Macintosh, 9 a.m., 3014 Sailing, meeting, 7:45
SEB. Labor - Summer Sc
Parents Without Partners - support group for p.m., call 764-0492.
single parents, call 971-5825. HRD - course, "Eff
y Frisbee - practice, 5:30 p.m., Fuller Park. p.m., 4501 LSA; "Crew
8:30 a.m., 130LSA.
2 Monroe. Thursday CFT - Walkabout, 7
eting, 1:30 p.m., Rock, 9:30 p.m., Michig
Dancers - 7 p.m., Forest Hills Community Cen- Computers - BASIC
m., 4318 Michigan ter. 3014 SEB.
Psychiatry - Anxiety Disorders Support Group,
Send announcem'nts to Happenings, The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
Dom, Childrens Psych. Hosp.
Barbara Weiss, 12:15 p.m.,
Hill.
rk - American Buffalo, 8
n.
5 p.m., 311 W. Engineering.
hool for Women Workers, 4
fective Business Writing," 1
ating Written Instructions,"
:45 p.m.; Picnic at Hanging
an.
10 a.m., Macintosh, 1 p.m.,
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