Almost 20 years had passed since I had last traveled to Ukraine. The last time I was there was six months before the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Within a half year Chernobyl had become a household nightmare; especially for those who live near nuclear reactors.

In the fall of 1985, no one I met in Ukraine appeared concerned about four reactors 70 miles from their homes. No one in Kiev could have known that very soon their lives would be drastically altered. Governments needed massive infusions of aid to even begin to address problems that continue to this day.

The nuclear industry continues to downplay the devastation of the Chernobyl nuclear fire. Nuclear advocates shy away from discussing the ongoing economic costs. The sarcophagus that covers Chernobyl’s nuclear coffin is leaking. A new cover is set to be in place in 3 years. In the meantime, it leaks. And in the meantime, our administration is pushing for new nuclear plants.

The lasting impacts of the Chernobyl accident cannot be denied. The impacts include seventeen ghost villages, hundreds of thousands of displaced residents, continuing fear of radioactive related illnesses and contaminated agriculture. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency:

• Massive radioactive contamination forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from the affected region during 1986, and the relocation, after 1986, of another 200,000 from Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Some five million people continue to live in areas contaminated by the accident and have to deal with its environmental, health, social and economic consequences.[1]
• Agriculture and forestry are forbidden in wide areas. Poverty forces many people to eat contaminated berries, mushrooms, game and fish, to feed contaminated hay to their cattle and to burn radioactively contaminated firewood in their stoves. Many of those living in the affected areas are ignorant of the risks that they face, or have adopted an apathetic and fatalistic attitude.[2]
• A total of some seven million people are in receipt of Chernobyl-related welfare benefits of one kind or another...According to the Ukrainian national report 5 Years after the Chernobyl Catastrophe the Soviet Union spent $18 billion on Chernobyl rehabilitation between 1986 and 1991.

Far from the burnt shell of Chernobyl the consequences of massive radioactive smoke that traveled worldwide from Chernobyl are still being felt.

• After two decades, the legacy of the Chernobyl disaster is still casting its poisonous shadow over Britain's countryside. The Department of Health has admitted that more than 200,000 sheep are grazing on land contaminated by fallout from the explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear plant 1,500 miles away. Emergency orders still apply to 355 Welsh farms, 11 in Scotland and nine in England as a result of the catastrophe in April 1986.[3]

Last September, I joined five Americans and representatives from fifteen other countries in Kiev, Ukraine to assist in coordinating worldwide commemorative events for this life- altering travesty. Since my last visit in 1985, Ukrainians have gone from denial that an accident can happen to skepticism that the government will effectively stop the radiation from leaking in their lifetimes. So many Ukrainians were grateful that other countries still remember the accident and are willing to assure the world never forgets.

As a result of this international meeting, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility returned and along with Hopedance, Physicians for Social Responsibility LA, UCLA, students for Social Responsibility - UCLA and the Peace and Justice Committee of the Unitarian Fellowship in San Diego, will hold commemorative events. Events begin April 21st at the San Luis Obispo Library, , Avila Beach, UCLA and the Unitarian Fellowship in San Diego.

Phase it out, limit radioactive waste and secure the site that is the mission of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility . It took an accident to accomplish two of the three at Chernobyl. Support the Alliance, share your ideas, become a part of our effort to leave a less radioactive future as our legacy to this community, to our state. Don’t let this tragedy be forgotten. Please join us to remember Chernobyl – 20 years later.

Rochelle Becker, Executive Director Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
www.a4nr.org
(858) 337 2703

[1]WORKING MATERIAL (Limited Distribution) Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and Their Remediation: Twenty Years of Experience Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum Expert Group “Environment” (EGE) August 2005

[2]The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident A Strategy for Recovery A Report Commissioned by UNDP and UNICEF with the support of UN-OCHA and WHO 25 January 2002 Final: 25.01.02

[3]http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article351153.ece , Andy Mc Smith 3/14/06