William Bryan: “Tomorrow, April 26, is the 10th anniversary of the most dramatic ecological disaster of the 20th century--the explosion…”

“Tomorrow, April 26, is the 10th anniversary of the most dramatic ecological disaster of the 20th century--the explosion of reactor No. 4 at the V.I. Lenin Atomic Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. On that day, 10 years ago tomorrow, a combination of poor design, human error--or, more accurately, human negligence and incompetence--led to a massive explosion within the core of reactor No. 4--an explosion that blew off the 2,000-ton reactor chamber roof, spewing massive amounts of radiation into the surrounding area and the Earth's atmosphere in a radioactive cloud that eventually reached as far away as California. It was not until several years after the disaster occurred that the truth about Chernobyl, the crown jewel of the Soviet nuclear power industry, began to emerge--that following the explosion, reactor No. 4 experienced what has long been considered the worst-case scenario in nuclear power--a full reactor meltdown. The core material burned, exposed to the atmosphere, for nearly 10 days, and resulting in a total meltdown. Our colleague, Senator Kennedy, summed it up shortly after the disaster, when he said 'The ultimate lesson of Chernobyl is that human and technological error can cause disaster anytime, anywhere.' That has particular residence for us in Nevada. The ecological and economic consequences of Chernobyl were massive, immediate, and will last for tens of thousands of years.”