Nuclear Plants Defended

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32396, 8 September 1970, Page 13

Nuclear Plants Defended

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CLEVELAND. Sept 7. Two Atomic Energy Commission officials say that fears that radioactive discharge from nuclear generating plants would cause increased threats of cancer and other diseases are unfounded. Mr Paul Tompkins, executive director of the Federal Radiation Council which sets

radiation standards, said: “Hazards from nuclear power plants are being badly overpainted. “The real dangers are much less than the few critics would have us believe,” Mr Tompkins said yesterday. His statement was echoed by Mr Saul Levine, assistant director in the office of environmental affairs for the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

Both men were in Cleveland to appear on a local television programme studying the issue of nuclear power plants. The nuclear plant issue has been a controversy in Ohio because of plans by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison Company to build a s27om nuclear station on Lake Erie, near Port Clinton. Conservationists fear the plant will harm the lake, and area residents fear radioactive contamination.

Mr Levine said: “Some of the critics are going beyond the point of rationality.”

He said radiation standards were set deliberately conservatively, to allow a wide margin of safety, and the risk of an accident would be equal to the chances of a Boeing 747 jet smashing into the Cleveland Stadium when it was filled to capacity.