
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 12, 1990                   TAG: 9007120575
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/10   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

HIGH RADIATION LEAKS ACKNOWLEDGED

More than 40 years after the fact, the Department of Energy is acknowledging that a nuclear weapons plant in Washington state leaked radiation at levels that endangered the health of nearby residents.

The department was releasing a study of emissions in the mid-1940s at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation today in Richland, Wash., and Energy Secretary James Watkins said, "The implications of the report are serious."

It was the government's first admission that the leaks were at levels sufficient to cause cancer and other illnesses in people living near the facility.

Watkins told reporters Wednesday that the report would "contain estimates of potentially large doses" of radiation from the Hanford plant from 1944 to 1947.

"When I say high I mean significantly high - 3,000 rads, thousands of rads," he said.

A rad is a measure of radiation exposure to human tissue. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires that facilities it licenses limit yearly radiation exposure from airborne emissions to 15 thousandths of a rad.

Watkins said between 350,000 and 400,000 curies of radioactive material was released in one incident in 1945. A curie is the amount of radiation emitted in one second by 1,400 pounds of enriched uranium.

by CNB