Whistleblower: Nuclear Disaster in America Is More Likely Than the Public Is Aware of

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/whistleblower-nuclear-disaster-america-more-likely-public-aware



The likelihood was very low that an earthquake followed by a tsunami would destroy all four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, but in March 2011, that’s what happened, and the accident has yet to be contained.

Similarly, the likelihood may be low that an upstream dam will fail, unleashing a flood that will turn any of 34 vulnerable nuclear plants into an American Fukushima . But knowing that unlikely events sometimes happen nevertheless, the nuclear industry continues to answer the question of how much safety is enough by seeking to suppress or minimize what the public knows about the danger.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has known at least since 1996 that flooding danger from upstream dam failure was a more serious threat than the agency would publicly admit. The NRC failed from 1996 until 2011 to assess the threat even internally. In July 2011, the NRC staff completed a report finding “that external flooding due to upstream dam failure poses a larger than expected risk to plants and public safety ” [emphasis added] but the NRC did not make the 41-page report public.

Instead, the agency made much of another report, issued July 12, 2011 – “Recommendations for Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21 st Century,” sub-titled “The Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Accident.” Hardly four months since the continuing accident began in Japan, the premature report had little to say about reactor flooding as a result of upstream dam failure, although an NRC news release in March 2012 would try to suggest otherwise.

[enough]

1. List of Reactors Potentially at High Risk of Flooding due to Dam Failure

From the article>

Alabama: Browns Ferry, Units 1, 2, 3

Arkansas: Arkansas Nuclear, Units 1, 2

Louisiana: Waterford, Unit 3

Minnesota: Prairie Island, Units 1, 2

Nebraska: Cooper; Fort Calhoun

New Jersey: Hope Creek, Unit 1; Salem, Units 1, 2

New York: Indian Point, Units 2, 3

North Carolina: McGuire, Units 1, 2

Pennsylvania: Beaver Valley, Units 1, 2; Peach Bottom, Units 2, 3; Three Mile Island, Unit 1

Tennessee: Sequoyah, Unit 1; Watts Bar, Unit 1

Texas: South Texas, Units 1, 2

South Carolina: H.B. Robinson, Unit 2; Oconee, Units 1, 2, 3

Vermont: Vermont Yankee

Virginia: Surrey, Units 1, 2

Washington: Columbia

(Source: Perkins, et al., “Screening Analysis,” July 2011)

[Moliere]

2. Thanks for the list

It's exactly what I was thinking about when reading the post

[caraher]

3. This should have been a no-brainer

The "national security" concerns are, if anything, a reason to do pretty much exactly the opposite of what the NRC apparently did. Order the operators to take whatever measures are necessary to mitigate the risks associated with dam failure and you pretty much disarm the "start a nuclear crisis by blowing a dam" terrorist attack trying to hide the information calls attention to.

On the other hand, redacting the gory details and taking no action pretty much tips off any interested terrorists and ensures the risk is high.