Shelter plan for Chornobyl running into financial problems (07/26/98)

Shelter plan for Chornobyl running into financial problems

Eastern Economist

KYIV - The Shelter Implementation Plan for turning the ukryttia, the covering over the damaged reactor at Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station, into an ecologically safe system is running into problems. Ukraine will not be able to meet its financial obligations under the plan, Yevhen Belousov deputy director of the ukryttia project, warned on July 8.

Noting that Ukraine should contribute $7 million (U.S.) in 1988 to the international project run by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), he said that there were not yet any documents confirming Ukraine's financial contributions. According to its agreement with the EBRD, Ukraine has to carry out work connected to the plan. So far, work worth about 3 million hrv has been completed since it began earlier this year, but it has not yet been paid for.

According to EBRD procedures, Ukraine's contribution will begin only when the work is paid for. The work should be financed from the state Chornobyl Fund, and its subcontractor is the Emergencies Ministry. According to Mr. Belousov, the problem of Ukraine's contribution will be considered at a meeting of EBRD donors in September.

Ukraine has pledged to contribute $6 million (U.S.) to the project in 1999. The Western contribution for 1998 was about $140 million (U.S.). The total cost of the project is estimated at over $750 million, of which Ukraine should contribute $50 million.

Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador's wife, Dr. Marilyn Pifer, officially announced the kick-off on July 8 of a three-year program targeting child victims of the 1986 Chornobyl catastrophe. The $4 million project, called the Chornobyl Childhood Illness Program (CCIP), is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. It aims to assist the Ukrainian government in its efforts to detect and treat thyroid cancer and the psychological problems that young victims suffer as a result of the disaster.

Volodymyr Potikha of the Emergencies Ministry noted that more than 1 million children were affected by Chornobyl and that 500,000 children now live on 50,000 square kilometers of contaminated land in Ukraine. Ukraine spends $75 million (U.S.) a year for treating children who suffered from Chornobyl, according to the Emergencies Ministry.

According to CCIP Director and Medical Service International President Dr. George Cortis, the first part of the program will support training for Ukrainian physicians in the latest methods for detecting and treating thyroid cancer in children.

The second part of the project will deal with "serious psychological aftereffects" in children as a result of Chornobyl. The program will operate for three years in the Volyn, Zhytomyr, Rivne and Chernihiv oblasts, as well as in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. Remote villages will be reached with two mobile diagnostic laboratories.

The CCIP is supported by a consortium of U.S. organizations and a number of Ukrainian ministries and scientific institutes.