NRC

• The NRC’s policy of deception on Fukushima

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a primary party to the biggest cover-up in modern history – the extent of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster and the growing catastrophic impacts that endanger all life on Earth.

It issued a report – “Japan Lessons Learned: Fukushima Water Contamination – Impacts on the U.S. West Coast” – just updated in January 2015. The report is a blatant lie. It fails to mention major contamination issues. It cherry picks the science. It ignores U.S. government findings.

The authors are Jessica Kratchman, Chuck Norton, and Robert Bernardo.

Here is the report link http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1502/ML15021A530.pdf

You can also access this short report here.

Here are the opening paragraphs:

FUKUSHIMA WATER CONTAMINATION- IMPACTS ON THE U.S. WEST COAST

Jessica Kratchman and Chuck Norton
Updated January 2015 – Robert Bernardo
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The NRC continues to see public interest in low concentrations of radioactive material detected off the U.S. West Coast. The material comes from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s catastrophic and unprecedented accident following the Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011.

While the NRC has created this background discussion, more up to date information is available through the links (such as to Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Authority (JNRA)) at the end of this report. While the NRC continues to examine information on this situation, many other Federal and State agencies carry out the environmental monitoring needed to determine any health and safety effects from the Fukushima-based contamination.

THE FACTS: BOTTOM LINE

The available evidence continues to lead the NRC and other Federal, State and local governments to conclude the low levels of radiation leaking into the ocean from Fukushima Daiichi fall well short of posing any U.S. health or environmental risk…
———————————————————-

This is the official U.S. government stance. Please read it.

Then let others know.

This must not stand.

Break through this wall of silence. Debunk this damn report and the government that supports it.

For the Earth’s sake, for the children’s sake, and for all of our sake.

 

• House subcommittees hold NRC hearing, Wednesday, September 9

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NRC commissioners will testify Wednesday

Will this hearing be more than a friendly tea party?

Tell the chairmen what you think about the NRC and its blatant disregard for public safety, and that you want Congress to take seriously its oversight role. Faxing puts a letter in their office which they can’t delete, as they can an email. Calling is important, too.

Rep. Ed Whitfield
Washington, DC Office:
United States House of Representatives
2184 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-1701 DC
Phone: 202-225-3115 DC
Fax: 202-225-3547 
https://whitfield.house.gov/contact/email-me
Homepage: http://whitfield.house.gov/
Twitter: @RepEdWhitfield

Rep. John Shimkus
Washington, DC Office:
United States House of Representatives
2217 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5271
Fax: (202) 225-5880

Press Release:

The Subcommittee on Energy and Power, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), and the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, chaired by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), have scheduled a joint hearing for Wednesday, September 9, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing is entitled, “Oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

The hearing will examine NRC’s long-term budget development and resource planning. Additionally, members will examine the proposed rulemaking associated with the Near Term Task Force (NTTF), which was established in response to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident in Japan. The NTTF is tasked with evaluating the incident and developing recommendations for reactors throughout the United States. Ongoing activities related to storage, transportation, and disposal of high-level nuclear waste will be examined as well.

“The NRC plays a critical role in protecting public health, safety and the environment, and we at the committee take our oversight responsibility seriously. We look forward to hearing from the four NRC commissioners next week on issues including commission rulemaking, staffing projections and budgetary needs. At the top of the list are the ongoing issues regarding the management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel, especially as it relates to Yucca Mountain,” Chairman Whitfield and Chairman Shimkus said.

The only witnesses at the hearing:
  • Jeff Baran
    Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • Stephen Burns
    Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • William Ostendorff
    Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
  • Kristine Svinicki
    Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Why weren’t public advocacy organizations invited to testify on what the NRC is doing to harm the public ? Why are NRC commissioners the only invited participants? 

This is the NRC’s paper on Fukushima that is part of its present policy making proceeding .

Click to access ML15021A530.pdf

THE FACTS: BOTTOM LINE

The available evidence continues to lead the NRC and other Federal, State and local governments to conclude the low levels of radiation leaking into the ocean from Fukushima Daiichi fall well short of posing any U.S. health or environmental risk.

…

As of March 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found “no evidence that radionuclides from the Fukushima incident are present in the U.S. food supply at levels that would pose a public health concern” [6]. Further, FDA states this is true for both regulated food products imported from Japan and our own domestic food products, including seafood that is caught off the U.S. West Coast [6]. In fact, the FDA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) jointly issued a statement indicating that they “have high confidence in the safety of seafood products in the U.S. marketplace or exported U.S. seafood products” [7].

The EPA utilizes a nationwide system called RadNet to monitor the nation’s air, drinking water, precipitation and pasteurized milk to determine levels of environmental radiation the American public is exposed to. RadNet sample analyses and monitoring results are able to detect increased radiation in the environment. RadNet has “not found any radioactive elements associated with the damaged Japanese reactors since late 2011, and even then, the levels found were very low—always well below any level of public health concern” [8].

…

In November 2014, WHOI scientists found trace amounts of Fukushima contamination about 100 miles (150 km) due west of Eureka, California [11]. The amount of radioactivity reported in this offshore data is 1,000 times lower than EPA drinking water standards.

…

Available evidence leads the NRC to conclude the Pacific contamination will not affect U.S. public health.

…

Because of its long half-life, radioactive Cesium (Cs-137) is the primary isotope of concern from a health perspective for the U.S. West Coast.

Really? Not strontium,  the “bone seeker”, or plutonium,  or any of the other radioactive poisons spilling into the Pacific from Fukushima at the rate of hundreds of tons per day.

No, for the NRC and in the information they provide the public, which also drives their policy-making, these are only “leaks”, like drips from a faucet.

No mention is made of rainwater at UC Berkeley being 181 times higher than EPA drinking water standards at the beginning. No mention is made of US government scientists finding initial levels of xenon gas equivalent to a one megaton atomic blast in the US, or that high levels lasted for weeks. No mention of the continued iodine-131 detections from Fukushima. No mention of the worsening situation with diseased, starving, non-reproducing, or dead marine wildlife up and down the West Coast.

Read more from this scientifically laughable report here:

Click to access ML15021A530.pdf

This is the same Nuclear Regulatory Commission which told government scientists who wanted to help in the beginning to knock it off, to back off and certainly not to talk to the press.[1]

This is the commission the subcommittees want to have a chat with, but without any experts with critical responses to the NRC’s actions.

They put everyone’s lives at risk.

[1] http://enformable.com/2012/02/nrc-worried-about-us-national-labs-chomping-at-the-bit-to-help-with-fukushima-radiation-analysis-call-lab-directors-and-say-knock-it-off/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Enformable+%28Enformable%29

http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/subcommittees-continue-oversight-nuclear-regulatory-commission-0 Press release

http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF18/20150909/103923/HMTG-114-IF18-20150909-SD002.pdf  Background memo

http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearing/oversight-nuclear-regulatory-commission  Hearing information

• Comments to the NRC on Diablo Canyon relicensing

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Comments submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
On Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant re-licensing
Docket Nos. 50-275 and 50-323NRC-2009-0552

Given the earthquake faults, the ongoing radioactive emissions from the plant, and the hacking risk to the plant, as well as PG&E’s deplorable safety record and culture, Diablo Canyon must be immediately shut down and decommissioned. The danger to the ocean, to the West Coast, and the world from nuclear energy has been amply demonstrated with the ongoing disaster at Fukushima.

The NRC allows Diablo Canyon to continue operating despite holding other NPPs to much higher and stricter standards. The Union of Concerned Scientists reported last year that Diablo Canyon does not comply with federal safety standards.[i]

Despite the disclosure this year that PG&E used the wrong accident and earthquake data when building safety equipment, and has failed since 1984 to use updated data, the NRC allows Diablo Canyon to remain open.[ii]

Also disclosed was that PG&E and the NRC altered Diablo Canyon’s operating license so it would conform.

Diablo Canyon discharges huge amounts of tritium, strontium and cesium into the ocean continually. PG&E stated in 2014 that Diablo Canyon regularly discharges more tritium than Fukushima NPP in its melted down state is pouring into the ocean.

That water [in 2012] contained 3,670 curies of tritium, or 136 trillion becquerels, according to the company, almost three-and- a-half times the amount released from the Fukushima plant into the ocean in the period starting May 2011. The plant also discharged cesium-137 and strontium-90, though at lower levels than Fukushima.[iii]

Since it was estimated in June 2014 that 60 PBq of cesium-137 had been released into the ocean from Fukushima[iv], and TEPCO announced that 5 billion Bq of Strontium-90 are released daily into the ocean from Fukushima[v], the questions have to be asked:

  • How much less?
  • Does it really matter how much less when we are dealing with such virulent poisons, poisons that bioaccumulate up the food chain?

Strontium mimics calcium and is known as the bone seeker.

There are unknown normal airborne releases, as well as periodic high releases when the reactors are re-fueled. These releases are averaged over 365 days, rather than given as the figures per release[vi]. The rain-out amounts from Diablo Canyon emissions combined with Fukushima fallout can only be imagined.

This is very serious and ongoing radioactive contamination of the environment.

In addition, there is the hazard from the power plant’s reliance on grid power.

Arne Gundersen:

…the most likely type of a nuclear accident is caused by a loss of offsite power.  That is what happened at Fukushima:  the power system AROUND the plant broke down.  If that happens, not only will the plant not have power, but the street lights won’t work.  According to the NRC, the street lights DO work.  Not only that, but your home lighting won’t work and your radio and TV won’t work.  But according to the NRC, you will be able to contact the outside world by phones or by radio or by television.   But remember the most likely cause of a nuclear accident is loss of offsite power and that has NEVER been part of an emergency plan, assuming that all of that does not work.[vii]

There are increasing attacks to the power grid. PG&E has played a pivotal role in creating the so-called “Smart Grid”, which former CIA director James Woolsey calls a stupid grid because of its vulnerability[viii]. PG&E has also aggressively Installed wireless Smart Meters and encouraged network-connected Smart appliances, creating millions of vectors to the power grid and increasing exponentially the possibilities for hacking[ix].

These factors put the residents of the region in increased jeopardy. A hacked power grid disconnects essential power for keeping reactor cores and fuel pools cool. Without power, the power plant must rely on generators to turn on instantly at full power and sustain operation for as long as needed.

Fukushima’s troubles started before the tsunami. The earthquake cut off electrical power to the plant, and at least some of the generators failed when they were turned on. Journalist Greg Palast in Vulture’s Picnic has a long and detailed section on the vulnerability of generators as backup power.

A page from the notebook of an Emergency Diesel Generator expert, R.D. Jacobs, hired to monitor a test for a nuclear reactor’s back-up cooling system.

This is to record that on my last visit,….I pressed [a company executive] saying that we just did not know what the axial vibration of the crankshaft was doing to the [diesel] units. I was unable to impress him sufficiently.

The diesels were “tested” by turning them on for a few minutes at low power. They worked find. But R.D., a straight shooter, suspected problems. He wanted the motors opened and inspected. He was told by power company management to go to hell.

When we forced the plant builder [in Suffolk County, New York] to test the three Emergency Diesel Generators in emergency conditions, one failed almost immediately (the crankshaft snapped, as R.D.[Jacobs} predicted), then the second, then the third. We named the three diesels “Snap, Crackle, and Pop.”

…I knew that all these diesels were basically designed, or even taken from, cruise ship engine rooms or old locomotives. . I’m not an engineer, but I suspect a motor designed for a leisurely float n Bermuda is not fit for a life-and-death scramble. So, I asked [an industry insider], “They really can’t work at all, the diesels, can they?”

That’s when he introduced me to the phrase “crash start.”

On a ship, he explained, you would take half an hour to warm up the bearings, and then slowly build up to “critical” crankshaft speed, and only then add the “load.” the propeller…

That’s for sailing. But in a nuclear emergency, “the diesels have to go from stationary to taking a full load in less than ten seconds.”

Worse, to avoid having to buy additional diesels, the nuclear operators turbo-charge them, revving them to 4,000 horsepower in ten seconds when they are designed for half that output.

The result: snap, crackle, pop.

I learned that, at Fukushima, at least two of the diesels failed before the tsunami hit. What destroyed those diesels was turning them on. In other words, the diesels are junk, are crap, are not capable of getting up to full power in seconds, then run continuously for days….

”So, you saying emergency diesels can’t work in an emergency?”

“Actually, they’re just not designed for it.”

Vulture’s Picnic, p. 294-297

Scientific American had a very telling graphic with a computer keyboard, a time bomb, and a power plant[x].

I would not visit San Luis Obispo County nor would I live there because of this resident hazard.

The U.S. government is ultimately at fault for promoting these hazardous power plants in the first place. But even with safety regulations in place, the NRC clearly cannot police itself, and it certainly cannot provide even a bare minimum of safety for the nuclear power plants under its jurisdiction and the people who live in the vicinity.

It is lunacy to continue this extremely toxic method for generating electricity, when the current costs to society and the environment from its continuance are so high and go on permanently into the future. Solar is coming online in increasing levels, and Californians’ energy use has been dropping. The cost is too great to allow its continuance one more day.

Shut down Diablo Canyon now.

 

[i] http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/diablo-canyon-report-0381.html

[ii] http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-03-diablo-pge-secretly-used-wrong-data-for-safety-equipment#sthash.8DQl1ReI.dpuf

[iii] http://www.telegram.com/article/20140203/NEWS/302039780/1052

[iv] http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140304/srep04276/full/srep04276.html

[v] At press conference 8/25/14 http://www.tepco.co.jp/tepconews/library/archive-j.html

[vi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk7xzg1T0kk&feature=player_detailpage#t=1574

[vii] http://fairewinds.com/content/white-house-nrc-recommend-50-mile-fukushima-evacuation-yet-insist-us-safe-only-10

[viii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lF3eywqD-I

[ix] http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/End_Use_Smart_Homes/Are-smart-homes-a-security-threat-to-electric-power-utilities-5914.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/26/smart-homes-hack/

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Security-lags-in-protecting-Internet-connected-5153837.php#photo-5734988

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-01/turkish-blackout-shows-world-power-grids-under-threat

“More and more attacks are targeting the industrial control systems that run the production networks of critical infrastructure, stealing data and causing damage,” said David Emm, a principal researcher at Moscow-based security company Kaspersky Lab Inc., which advises governments and businesses.

All power use was previously measured by mechanical meters, which were inspected and read by a utility worker. Now, utilities are turning to smart meters, which communicate live data to customers and the utility company. This opens up the systems to hackers…

“Introducing smart meters means you install access points to the electricity grid in private homes,” said Reinhard Gruenwald, an energy expert at the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag, a scientific institution advising German lawmakers. “You can’t physically protect those. If criminals are smart enough, they may be able to manipulate them.”

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/tech-biz/07/16/14/smart-technology-could-make-utilities-more-vulnerable-hackers

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1206/Cyber-security-Power-grid-grows-more-vulnerable-to-attack-report-finds

Massachusetts Institute for Technology — “Millions of new communicating electronic devices … will introduce attack vectors — paths that attackers can use to gain access to computer systems or other communicating equipment. That increase[s] the risk of intentional and accidental communications disruptions,” including “loss of control over grid devices, loss of communications between grid entities or control centers, or blackouts.”

[x] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/power-hackers/

• ALERT: NRC may rule radiation exposure is healthful; new deadline Nov. 19

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may decide that exposure to ionizing radiation is beneficial – the radiation from nuclear bombs, nuclear power plants, depleted uranium, x-rays, and Fukushima. It has opened a proceeding to consider adopting this “radiation is good for you” model.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has received three petitions for rulemaking (PRM) requesting that the NRC amend its “Standards for Protection Against Radiation” regulations and change the basis of those regulations from the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model of radiation protection to the radiation hormesis model. The radiation hormesis model provides that exposure of the human body to low levels of ionizing radiation is beneficial and protects the human body against deleterious effects of high levels of radiation. Whereas, the LNT model provides that radiation is always considered harmful, there is no safety threshold, and biological damage caused by ionizing radiation (essentially the cancer risk) is directly proportional to the amount of radiation exposure to the human body (response linearity).

Is this a joke? No.This would be the most significant and alarming change to U.S. federal policy on nuclear radiation.

Here is the Federal Register notice —
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/23/2015-15441/linear-no-threshold-model-and-standards-for-protection-against-radiation

Comments are due by September 8, 2015  have been extended to November 19, 2015.

If adopted, this would permit all current radioactive releases, leaks, and ongoing emissions from nuclear power plants, and decrease evacuation zones, as well as allow Fukushima, Chernobyl, WIPP (New Mexico nuclear waste disposal site), Hanford, Oak Ridge, Nevada and Alaska test sites, Santa Susanna, Farallons nuclear waste dump, depleted uranium, nuclear weapons, and other international emissions, as long as the government deems them to be “low level”, to impact Americans under the fantasy of a hormesis effect.

No protective measures or public safety warnings would be considered necessary. Clean-up measures could be sharply reduced. Protection for medical and screening personnel working around radiation-emitting equipment could be reduced.

In a sense, this would legalize what the government is already doing – failing to protect the public and promoting nuclear radiation.

From commenters on ENE News:

If a pro-hormesis model is allowed to take hold, it will change things forever…

It could give the nuclear industry an excuse to release more radiation from nuclear power plants; an excuse for gov’t agencies to allow even more radiation in food and water; allow doctors to give you more radiation…

It allows you to be exposed to low-level radiation because “it’s good for you.”

As we all know, zero radiation is good for you.

And who will define what low-level radiation is? The same agencies that keep raising the amounts of allowable radiation?

This is a nightmare for human DNA and human health, imo.

Don’t be shy about commenting, everyone. Just do it.…

Tell the NRC. THIS MATTERS.

The NRC standard needs revised to be more protective. Just like non-ionizing wireless radiation exposure, impact is not necessarily linear. Chronic low dose can be much worse than a one-time high dose.

Public opposition is urgently needed now as well as exposing radiation hazards, including the devastating impact to DNA. Another example:
http://sgtreport.com/2015/06/breast-cancer-rates-skyrocket-near-nuclear-power-plants/

Here is the Federal Register notice —
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/23/2015-15441/linear-no-threshold-model-and-standards-for-protection-against-radiation

Comments are due by September 8, 2015 have been extended  until November 19, 2015 .

There is a 5000 character limit in the open comment box. You can put a summary comment in the open comment box, and attach a comment letter.

This proceeding was opened at the request of just three individuals, in stark contrast to the thousands of requests for hearings and action by healthcare professionals, scientists, and regular Americans to the FCC, EPA, FDA, NRC, and Congress which have not resulted in proceedings being opened on public health issues.

 

• Diablo Canyon Power Plant renewal — Reopening of scoping process, public comments and hearings — comment deadline August 31

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Excerpts from the Federal Register, July 1, 2015

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/07/01/2015-15921/diablo-canyon-power-plant-units-1-and-2

Summary

On January 27, 2010, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) notified the public of its opportunity to participate in the scoping process associated with the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) related to the review of the license renewal application submitted by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for the renewal of Facility Operating Licenses DPR-80 and DPR-82 for an additional 20 years of operation at Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP), Units 1 and 2. The current operating licenses for DCPP, Units 1 and 2 expire on November 2, 2024, and August 26, 2025, respectively. The scoping period closed on April 12, 2010. The NRC has decided to reopen the scoping process and allow members of the public an additional opportunity to participate.

DATES:

The comment period for the environmental scoping process published on January 27, 2010 (75 FR 4427) has been reopened. Comments should be filed no later than August 31, 2015.

II. Discussion

…

On December 22, 2014 (ADAMS Package No. ML14364A259), and February 25, 2015 (ADAMS Package No. ML15057A102), PG&E amended its ER to provide additional information identified by NRC staff as necessary to complete the review of the DCPP license renewal application. By letter dated April 28, 2015 (ADAMS Accession No. ML15104A509), the NRC staff issued a schedule for the remainder of the DCPP license renewal review. The purpose of this notice is to (1) inform the public that the NRC has decided to reopen the scoping process, as defined in 10 CFR 51.29, “Scoping-environmental impact statement and supplement to environmental impact statement,” and (2) allow members of the public an additional opportunity to participate. The comments already received by the NRC will be considered; reopening of the scoping process provides additional opportunity for the public to comment on issues that may have emerged since completion of the last scoping period.

…

The NRC will first conduct a scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS and, as soon as practicable thereafter, will prepare a draft supplement to the GEIS for public comment. Participation in the scoping process by members of the public and local, State, Tribal, and Federal government agencies is encouraged. The scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS will be used to accomplish the following:

a. Define the proposed action, which is to be the subject of the supplement to the GEIS;

b. Determine the scope of the supplement to the GEIS and identify the significant issues to be analyzed in depth;

c. Identify and eliminate from detailed study those issues that are peripheral or that are not significant;

d. Identify any environmental assessments and other ElSs that are being or will be prepared that are related to, but are not part of, the scope of the supplement to the GEIS being considered;

e. Identify other environmental review and consultation requirements related to the proposed action;

f. Indicate the relationship between the timing of the preparation of the environmental analyses and the Commission’s tentative planning and decision-making schedule;

g. Identify any cooperating agencies and, as appropriate, allocate assignments for preparation and schedules for completing the supplement to the GEIS to the NRC and any cooperating agencies; andShow citation box

h. Describe how the supplement to the GEIS will be prepared and include any contractor assistance to be used.

III. Public Scoping Meeting

…

The NRC has decided to hold public meetings for the DCPP license renewal supplement to the GEIS. The scoping meetings will be held on August 5, 2015, and there will be two sessions to accommodate interested persons. The first session will convene at 1:30 p.m. and will continue until 4:30 p.m., as necessary. The second session will convene at 7:00 p.m. with a repeat of the overview portions of the meeting and will continue until 10:00 p.m., as necessary. Both sessions will be held at the Courtyard by Marriott San Luis Obispo, 1605 Calle Joaquin Road, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405. Both meetings will be transcribed and will include: (1) An overview by the NRC staff of the NEPA environmental review process, the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS, and the proposed review schedule; and (2) the opportunity for interested government agencies, organizations, and individuals to submit comments or suggestions on the environmental issues or the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS. Additionally, the NRC staff will host informal discussions one hour prior to the start of each session at the same location. Written comments on the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS will be accepted during the informal discussions. To be considered, comments must be provided either at the transcribed public meetings or in writing, as discussed above.

Persons may register to attend or present oral comments at the meetings on the scope of the NEPA review by contacting the NRC Project Manager, Michael Wentzel, by telephone at 1-800-368-5642, extension 6459, or by email at Michael.Wentzel@nrc.gov, no later than July 31, 2015. Members of the public may also register to speak at the meeting within 15 minutes of the start of each session. Individual oral comments may be limited by the time available, depending on the number of persons who register. Members of the public who have not registered may also have an opportunity to speak if time permits. Public comments will be considered in the scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS. Michael Wentzel will need to be contacted no later than July 22, 2015, if special equipment or accommodations are needed to attend or present information at the public meeting so that the NRC staff can determine whether the request can be accommodated.

More information and links to documents at
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/07/01/2015-15921/diablo-canyon-power-plant-units-1-and-2

• Letter to Vermont: “We also have a nuclear waste dump at San Onofre”

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Regarding the problems with decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(http://www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=12446&page=1)
a reader from California wrote this letter:

The good folks in Vermont should be studying what we have been going through for several years after the decommissioning of San Onofre. Check out SanOnofreSafety.org.

We did a poll, and 92 percent favored naming it the Darrell Issa Nuclear Waste Dump.

We are supposed to be one of the six nuclear power plants in the country that the National Academy of Sciences wants to study for cancer streaks.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has held up the funding for the study.

Apparently, they are afraid of what it might reveal for residents who live within 31 miles.

What are you doing now that you have also become a nuclear waste dump?

Roger Johnson, San Clemente, Calif.

http://www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=12456&page=1#.VafAikJB-S1

Censored US gov’t emails reveal proposal to test West Coast residents for Fukushima fallout — “Many cases of cancer may end up being attributed to exposures”

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UPDATE: See below

From ENE News, June 1, 2015

FOIA Document — Excerpts from email by Per Peterson, Chair of Dept. of Nuclear Engineering at Univ.of California Berkeley & scientific adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu , Mar 23, 2011 at 1:35p (emphasis added) [FOIA document also here]:

  • [Sent to John Holdren, senior adviser to Pres. Obama on science & technology, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, DOE/NRC officials, and others who were redacted]
  • I would like to raise another issue which now merits expeditious, near term action. There is a short time window… during which it will remain possible to… measure any I-131 that members of the public may have ingested…
  • Collecting this data… would be very valuable…
  • UCB faculty [is in] general agreement that prompt action should be taken…
  • Many cases of thyroid cancer, and other health problems, may end up being attributed to exposures from the Fukushima accident… on the U.S. west coast…
  • It is possible that we will find that some people have received doses of I-131 and other radionuclides that could exceed the levels… Protective Action Guidelines are designed to prevent. This could provide a basis for immediate action to change PAG’s…
  • It could identify individuals who have had significant exposure… alert them and their medical care professionals to monitor for potential health effects…
  • There are very strong reasons to gather data, but it must be done in a way that is broadly viewed as being in the interest of the public and the individuals involved…
  • I would recommend that we look at making facilities at the national laboratories… available to the public… Thoughts?

Reply from Dick Garwin, IBM Fellow (who Enrico Fermi called the only true genius he’d met): Right on, Per! But it seems to me that one could promptly validate the use of a single counter…  since the thyroid is so efficient in concentrating iodine…

Per Peterson, Mar 23 @ 2:27p: Dick, Good idea… An important point for doing this in the U.S… is that the protocols must receive approval by a Human Subjects Committee. If one were to initiate an effort to perform whole body counting at LLNL and PNNL, the human subjects review can likely be done faster if it is initially for lab employees who would volunteer to be counted… Again, collecting statistically useful data on uptake of 1-131 and other radionuclides on the U.S. west coast and in Japan could be very valuable in the longer term, when many people may begin to believe that the Fukushima accident is the cause of a variety of health problems.

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s internal correspondence concerning the emails above:

  • Kathy Gibson (NRC), Mar 23 @ 3:03p: Please confirm that you are looking at this…
  • Gibson @ 5:46p: Are they talking about members of the public in US or Japan?
  • Stephanie Bush-Goddard (NRC) @ 5:54p: … the public in the US…
  • Gibson @ 6:07p: Do we think it is a bad idea
  • Bush-Goddard @ 6:12p: … Yes, setting up additional monitoring stations for the public (without detecting anything) could cause additional alarm… I think they are responding to the public RASCAL run that shows very high doses to the Thyroid.
  • Gibson @ 6:35p: [NRC’s Radiation Protection and Health Effects Branch] think it’s a bad idea for people in the US because there (so far) isn’t measurable iodine in the US… They think this may be a funding opportunity for the entities making these proposals.

Per Peterson, Mar 25 @ 2:13p: … we have detected small concentrations of… radioactive materials in rainwater in Berkeley… I am now working with faculty in our school of public health to see how we can… verify what exposures have occurred. I do believe that these measurements will be very important in the longer term in assessing the consequences of the Fukushima accident.

See also: Former DOE official rips UC Berkeley for comparing ingestion of fallout to air travel

http://enenews.com/govt-emails-reveal-proposed-plan-test-west-coast-residents-fukushima-radiation-many-cases-cancer-being-attributed-exposures-doses-could-exceed-epas-emergency-levels

UPDATE:

The Big Picture, Jun 24, 2015 — Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear (emphasis added): “A recent revelation of Nuclear Regulatory Commission internal emails… reveal that there was concern at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and rightly so, about the radioactive iodine-131 escaping from Fukushima Dai-ichi… and reaching the United States… Rainwater at 242 times safe drinking water act permissible levels — so you better believe we got radioactive iodine-131 in the United States. Likely people ingested it — either breathed it in, or drank it in milk, or various other ingestion pathways. It attacks the thyroid gland… it does a tremendous amount of damage. And these emails… show that US government officials were worried about that, were calling for studies to be done to try to track the health damage. And what do you know, those studies did not happen… The monitoring and testing and the epidemiology were woefully inadequate to non-existent… The nuclear industry will try to bury the truth, and that sure happened after Fukushima… I think there’s been a huge dereliction of duty at the federal and the state levels.”

Kamps appears to be referencing an ENENews report from earlier this month, Censored US gov’t emails reveal proposed plan to test West Coast residents for Fukushima fallout — “Many cases of cancer may end up being attributed to exposures” — Doses could exceed emergency levels

The report quoted internal emails from March 2011 by the head of UC Berkeley’s nuclear engineering department, who wrote: “UCB faculty [is in] general agreement that prompt action should be taken… Many cases of thyroid cancer, and other health problems, may end up being attributed to exposures from the Fukushima accident… on the U.S. west coast… It is possible that we will find that some people have received doses of I-131 and other radionuclides that could exceed the levels [which] Protective Action Guidelines are designed to prevent. It could identify individuals who have had significant exposure… alert them and their medical care professionals to monitor for potential health effects.”

On the Friday before UC Berkeley’s nuclear chair sent this proposal to a small group of government officials and experts, ABC’s San Francisco affiliate reported on public comments made by UC Berkeley’s nuclear department:

ABC (San Francisco KGO-TV), Mar 18, 2011: Nuclear engineers here at UC Berkeley say… don’t be alarmed. The tiny particles are just so small, they pose no threat at all… not harmful at all. One scientist here says you can get more radiation exposure on a flight… One model forecasts that the radiation plume… will reach California today… experts say this map is very misleading. First of all, there is no ‘plume’. Second of all, you cannot predict how the weather is going to carry radiation particles over here to the West Coast, if any at all.

The map above is a model developed by Japanese and European experts showing the strength and location of the Fukushima plume while over the West Coast on Mar. 18, 2011 — the same day as the broadcast of UC Berkeley’s claim that “there is no plume”. According to the map’s scale, dark red areas along the West Coast indicate the Fukushima fission product xenon-133 had a concentration in the air column of 1,000,000 becquerels per square meter.

Watch the interview with Kamps here

http://enenews.com/fukushima-plume-model-shows-1-million-bqm2-west-coast-after-explosions-tv-emails-reveal-highest-levels-govt-worried-about-health-impact-radiation-exposure-uc-berkeley-experts-claimed-publicly-pl

ENE: CDC/NIOSH used “incompetent” way to examine data; risk estimates are 100 X worse; CIA agent – Gov’t covering up effects of radiation

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Excellent video with interviews of two Hanford downwinders Tom Bailie and Jay Mullen. The video is set at the 2nd interview with Jay Mullen, former CIA agent. Go back to the first interview with Tom Bailie, a farmer. Lots of important information.

Posted on ENE News, June 13, 2015

The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (pdf), Direct Estimates of Low-Level Radiation Risks of Lung Cancer at Two NRC-Compliant Nuclear Installations: Why Are the New Risk Estimates 20 to 200 Times the Old Official Estimates?, Dr. Irwin Bross, Director of Biostatistics at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, 1981 (emphasis added):

  • Nuclear submarine workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNS), who were exposed to low-level ionizing radiation [face] serious hazards.
  • The new risk estimates have been found to be much higher than the official estimates.
  • CDC/NIOSH refused to retract or correct the conclusion [that] “we found no positive dosage response relationships between ionizing radiation dose and mortality for any cause reported.” [They used] an incompetent way to examine this data.
  • [Our analysis] gives 189 lung cancer deaths per year per million persons per rem. This is over 100 times the official estimates and completely changes the picture.
  • PNS workers received much less than the 5 rem per year currently permitted… about 0.5 rem per year. Yet this was enough to greatly increase their risk of lung cancer.
  • Why does… data for the [Hanford] workers… show no lung cancer relationship? [When experts] analyzed the Hanford data they did find excess lung cancer and a doubling dose… similar to the corresponding estimate for the shipyard workers.
  • Estimates of risk to nuclear workers are two logarithmic orders of magnitude greater than the official risks. When the actual risks are 100 times greater, the cost-benefit calculations or permissible levels or environmental impact statements based on the official estimates cannot protect the health and safety of workers or the public.
  • Indeed, there are now more than 30 studies where the data show positive relationships in human populations exposed to low-level ionizing radiation.
  • Scientific evaluation of radiation risks [should] replace the obsolete older estimates by the newer ones. That this did not happen in the latest BEIR report suggests that official estimates are no longer a scientific product but rather a political one.
  • Radiation [studies] become bogged down in real or manufactured “controversies”… There is now much more than a prima facie case that NRC permits doses of radiation that are dangerous – a dose that doubles the risk of a fatal disease is a serious public health hazard.

Jay Mullen, former CIA agent and professor at Southern Oregon Univ., Oct 2013 (15:30 in):

  • When I was 19 years old, I was… a University athlete. I woke up one night and couldn’t move, it paralyzed me… it just baffled doctors… the Univ. of California Medical Center… determined it was the thyroid disorder that was paralyzing me… I had a thyroidectomy and as a consequence I wear what we call the Hanford necklace.
  • There’s a good reason if you are an investor in the nuclear community to cover up the pernicious effects of radiation, because there’s profits in nuclear operations… There are strong ‘balance sheet’ reasons to continue the nuclear community, and therefore there’s a reason to discount the possible adverse effects of radiation.
  • I was in the government, but I was in the government clandestinely. I was an undercover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency in Africa in the 1970s… I understand very well that the government covers up things that might in fact be embarrassing to the government. What could be more embarrassing to the government than the fact that they hazarded their own people by their operations in the atomic community?
  • I would hope the American public becomes more aware of the effects that radiation can have on the public’s health.
  • The thing I find most distressing is the dissembling and… the contempt that the government and its contractors have had for the people who they’ve in fact affected.

Watch the interview here

[https://youtu.be/Sp_FVqKjZQQ — video from the beginning]

http://enenews.com/cia-agent-govt-covering-effects-radiation-hope-americans-become-aware-threat-public-health-study-actual-radiation-risks-orders-magnitude-greater-official-estimates-completely-picture-serious-public

Whistleblower: Nuclear disaster in America Is more likely than the public understands

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A 2012 article which is particularly timely given the deteriorating conditions at the Boone Dam in the Tennessee Valley Authority.
http://enenews.com/top-official-sinkhole-sunk-further-water-coming-dam-upstream-multiple-nuclear-plants-agencys-top-priority-section-caved-base-govt-refuses-disclose-inundation-maps-reporter-security-concerns/comment-page-1#comments

From AlterNet
By William Boardman / AlterNet
November 28, 2012

Key federal official warns that the public has been kept in the dark about safety risks.

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

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 21st 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.

Censored Report May Be Crime by NRC  

That 2012 news release accompanied a highly redacted version of the July 2011 report that had recommended a more formal investigation of the unexpectedly higher risks of upstream dam failure to nuclear plants and the public.  In its release, the NRC said it had “started a formal evaluation of potential generic safety implications for dam failures upstream” including “the effects of upstream dam failure on independent spent fuel storage installations.”

Six months later, in September 2012, The NRC’s effort at bland public relations went controversial, when the report’s lead author made a criminal complaint to the NRC’s Inspector General, alleging “Concealment of Significant Nuclear Safety Information by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”  In a letter dated September 14 and made public the same day, Richard Perkins, an engineer in the NRC’s Division of Risk Analysis, wrote Inspector General Hubert Bell, describing it as “a violation of law” that the Commission:

has intentionally mischaracterized relevant and noteworthy safety information as sensitive, security information in an effort to conceal the information from the public. This action occurred in anticipation of, in preparation for, and as part of the NRC’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request for information concerning the generic issue investigation on Flooding of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Following Upstream Dam Failure….   

Portions of the publically released version of this report are redacted citing security sensitivities, however, the redacted information is of a general descriptive nature or is strictly relevant to the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, plant personnel, and members of the public. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has engaged in an effort to mischaracterize the information as security sensitive in order to justify withholding it from public release using certain exemptions specified in the Freedom of Information Act. …

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff may be motivated to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency. The redacted information includes discussion of, and excerpts from, NRC official agency records that show the NRC has been in possession of relevant, notable, and derogatory safety information for an extended period but failed to properly act on it.

 Concurrently, the NRC concealed the information from the public.

The Inspector General has not yet acted on the complaint.

Most Media Ignore Nuclear Safety Risks

Huffington Post picked up the story immediately as did the Union of Concerned Scientists and a number of online news sites.  The mainstream media showed little or no interest in a story about yet another example of the NRC lying to the public about the safety of nuclear power plants.

An NRC spokesman suggested to HuffPo that the report’s redactions were at least partly at the behest of Homeland Security. A second NRC risk engineer, who requested anonymity, said that Homeland Security had signed off on the report with no redactions.  As HuffPo noted:

If this were truly such a security concern, however, it would be incumbent on the agency to act swiftly to eliminate that threat, the engineer stated. As it is, the engineer suggested, no increased security actions have been undertaken.

This same engineer expressed serious misgivings, shared by others in and out of the NRC, that a nuclear power plant in Greenville, South Carolina, has been at risk from upstream dam failure for years, that the NRC has been aware of the risk, and that the NRC has done nothing to mitigate the risk.   In the redacted report, the NRC blacked out passages about this plant.

Event Unlikely, Would Be Sure Disaster 

South Carolina’s Oconee plant on Lake Keowee has three reactors, located 11 miles downstream from the Jocassee Reservoir, an 8,000 acre lake.  As HuffPo put it:

…the Oconee facility, which is operated by Duke Energy, would suffer almost certain core damage if the Jocassee dam were to fail. And the odds of it failing sometime over the next 20 years, the engineer said, are far greater than the odds of a freak tsunami taking out the defenses of a nuclear plant in Japan….

“Although it is not a given that Jocassee Dam will fail in the next 20 years,” the engineer added, “it is a given that if it does fail, the three reactor plants will melt down and release their radionuclides into the environment.”

When the NRC granted an operating license to the Oconee plant in 1973, danger from upstream dam failure was not even considered, never mind considered a threat against which some protection was needed.   The NRC and the plant’s owner both say the Jocassee Dam is not an immediate safety issue.   Oconee’s initial license was for 40 years.  It is now the second plant in the U.S. that the NRC has granted an extended license for another 20 years.

Union of Concerned Scientists Are Concerned 

The Union of Concerned Scientists, which says it is neither pro-nuke nor anti-nuke, but committed to making nuclear power as safe as possible, has considered the risk factors for Oconee. The NRC wrote in 2009 that “a Jocassee Dam failure is a credible event and in 2011 wrote that “dam failures are common” – and that since 1975 there have been more than 700 dam failures, 148 of them large dams 40 feet or more high.  The Jocassee Dam is 385 feet high.

For a dam like Jocassee, the NRC calculates the chance of failure at 1 in 3,600 per year – or 1 in 180 each year for the extended license.  NRC policy, when enforced, requires nuclear plant owners to mitigate any risk that has a 1 in 250 per years chance of occurring.

Oconee has three nuclear reactors, each of which is larger than the reactors at Fukushima, and so has more lethal radioactive potential.   Duke Energy reported its own upstream dam failure calculations to the NRC no later than 1996 and the NRC has responded by requiring no safety enhancements to address the threat.

Noting that the upstream dam failure risk does not take into account possible earthquakes or terrorist attacks, the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote:

The 34 reactors of concern are downstream from a total of more than 50 dams, more than half of which are roughly the size of the Jocassee dam. Assuming the NRC’s failure rate applies to all of those dams, the probability that one will fail in the next 40 years is roughly 25 percent—a 1 in 4 chance.

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

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) 

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
http://www.alternet.org/environment/whistleblower-nuclear-disaster-america-more-likely-public-aware

Reposted under Fair Use rules.

Diablo Canyon: PG&E secretly used wrong design data for key safety equipment for 30 years

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Press release from Friends of the Earth

Utility misled California PUC, seeks to pocket $133.5 million in ratepayer revenues

SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific Gas & Electric Co. used incorrect earthquake and accident data when building crucial safety equipment for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, according to information released by Senator Barbara Boxer. Friends of the Earth said the revelation suggests that PG&E has acted with gross negligence and that the twin-reactor plant on California’s Central Coast should be immediately shut down pending a public investigation.

Correspondence from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission — released by Sen. Boxer in a recent hearing and reported Sunday on Page 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle (PDF) — shows that since Diablo Canyon’s first reactor came online in 1984, PG&E failed to use updated seismic and loss-of-coolant-accident data, known as LOCA loads, for replacement equipment. Failure of such equipment in an earthquake could lead to a catastrophic release of radiation. PG&E should have used new data after a previously unknown fault, the Hosgri, was discovered during initial construction, but violated its federal operating license by failing to use the updated data in conjunction with loss of cooling accident data in designing and constructing replacement steam generators and reactor vessel heads for the reactors.

In 2011, PG&E notified the NRC of its decades-long negligence, but incredibly, the NRC failed to cite PG&E for any infraction. Instead NRC and PG&E worked together to secretly and illegally alter the plant’s operating license in September 2013. Friends of the Earth has a case pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals asking that the illegal license revision be thrown out and that Diablo Canyon be shut pending public review to determine whether or not the reactors can withstand the forces of newly identified earthquake faults that surround the plant.

Instead of addressing its malfeasance, PG&E launched an internal effort to try to show that despite using the wrong design data, the equipment it had installed was OK. PG&E has asked the California Public Utilities Commission for $133.5 million from ratepayers for what it calls a “Licensing Basis Verification Program.” The utility did not explain that they were asking to bill their customers for a paper exercise to cover up its negligence in the faulty design of well over $1 billion worth of equipment, also paid by customers.

Since the Hosgri Fault was discovered, new research has revealed that at least four faults surrounding Diablo Canyon are capable of causing earthquakes more powerful than the reactors were designed to withstand The plant’s former NRC senior resident inspector, Dr. Michael Peck, warned last year that the increased risks from earthquakes meant that the plant was operating outside of its license and should be shut pending review — a warning that came before the revelations about PG&E’s use of outdated safety data.

“This shows gross negligence by PG&E and a shameful lack of oversight by federal regulators,” said Damon Moglen, senior strategic advisor to Friends of the Earth. “It’s terrifying to think that for 30 years PG&E used the wrong numbers for vital equipment at the U.S. reactors most at risk from earthquakes.”

“No one would dream of putting nuclear reactors in that location today,” Mogen said. “Diablo Canyon should never have been constructed in the first place, and now it is clear it should not be allowed to operate another day. Diablo Canyon must be shut down now, and there should be both state and federal investigations into PG&E’s negligence.”

Dave Freeman, former head of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, said PG&E’s negligence fits the utility’s pattern of cutting corners on safety, which led to the fatal gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno in 2010.

“There they go again,” said Freeman, now senior energy advisor to Friends of the Earth. “Just as with San Bruno, PG&E has again put profits before safety, has misused ratepayers’ money and misled state regulators at the PUC.”

Expert Contact: Damon Moglen, (202) 352-4223, dmoglen@foe.org

Communications Contacts: Bill Walker, (510) 759-9911, bw.deadline@gmail.com (West Coast)  Adam Russell, (202) 222-0722, arussell@foe.org (East Coast)

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http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-03-diablo-pge-secretly-used-wrong-data-for-safety-equipment#sthash.8DQl1ReI.dpuf

San Francisco Chronicle article:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/PG-E-overlooked-key-seismic-test-at-Diablo-Canyon-6
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