Chernobyl's Legacy Messy As Ever

By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Thirteen years after reactor No. 4 exploded at the Chernobyl atomic power plant in then-Soviet Ukraine, the legacy of the world's worst nuclear accident remains as messy as ever.

The downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided hope for people still coping with the consequences of the April 26, 1986 explosion, offering promise that Chernobyl radiation victims would receive better treatment, that the leaky concrete-and-steel shelter covering the ruined reactor would be repaired, that an independent Ukraine would close the ill-fated plant for good.

They're still hoping.

Urged by the West, Ukraine pledged to shut down the plant by 2000. Now it seems unlikely that the pledge will be fulfilled.

Last week, President Leonid Kuchma said it flat out: Chernobyl will continue to operate until the West provides Ukraine with the estimated $1.2 billion necessary to complete two new nuclear reactors needed to compensate for the loss of the electricity Chernobyl provides.

The Group of Seven richest nations promised aid in 1995 to help Ukraine close Chernobyl, but the nation, strapped for energy and cash, has complained that the money has been slow in coming.

Kuchma says the G-7 also should help Ukraine build nuclear waste depositories and compensate the 6,200 Chernobyl employees who will lose their jobs.

Ukraine's arguments seem to be linked more to its desperate financial position than energy problems.

The nation is heavily dependent on its five nuclear plants - but of its 14 working reactors, only one is at Chernobyl.

The plant once had four reactors and plans for more. But then Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 exploded and caught fire, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminating large areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

Another of the plant's Soviet-made reactors has been inactive since a 1991 fire and a third was stopped in 1996.

The working reactor, No. 3, has its own troubles. It underwent repairs for nearly three months and was restarted in March, only to suffer a daylong shutdown over a turbine generator malfunction later that month.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has called on the Ukrainian government to shut down the troubled reactor, saying its operation is fraught with dangerous consequences. Ukrainian nuclear safety authorities dismissed the fears as baseless.

Work on making the shelter covering the exploded reactor environmentally safe is proceeding slowly, although international donors have pledged $400 million of the $750 million needed. Safety concerns also have delayed construction.

That work ``might take 50 and even 100 years,'' Yuriy Shcherbak, Ukraine's coordinator at Chernobyl talks with the G-7, wrote recently in the Stolichnye Novosti newspaper.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government says it is increasingly unable to bear the long-term costs of the disaster after spending $5.7 billion to deal with its consequences during Soviet times and more than $4 billion from 1992-97.

And even the government admits that's not enough. With Ukraine's economy declining since the Soviet collapse, state funding covered only an average 51.6 percent of Chernobyl relief needs from 1996-98, while this year's budget allocation of $443 million is only a third of what is needed, according to Emergency Situations Minister Vasyl Durdynets.

Ukraine has a fearful health legacy to confront with that money: Nearly 400,000 adults and 1.1 million children are entitled to government aid for Chernobyl-related health problems.

Shcherbak, a medic who wrote a respected book on Chernobyl and later served as Ukraine's ambassador in the United States, said the disaster's 13th anniversary brought him a sad feeling of continuity.

``As an undefeatable evil ... Chernobyl will continue to exist for an indefinite period of time, posing ever new problems for mankind,'' he said.

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