Since Fukushima, details of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s laissez-faire relationship with the nuclear industry have underwhelmed us with confidence; so it comes as less of a  surprise to learn that safety requirements have slackened rather than tightening in the wake of that catastrophic display of regulatory failure.

Without fanfare, the nation’s nuclear power regulators have overhauled community emergency planning for the first time in more than three decades, requiring fewer exercises for major accidents and recommending that fewer people be evacuated right away.

You well might ask the reason for this counterintuitive move.

For several years before the Fukushima accident, the NRC was in the process of reconfiguring some emergency response protocols to reflect what it believed would be an increased threat from terrorism.  

Apparently, they didn’t want to burden  the industry with more requirements without relieving them of some existing ones.   One of the ways in which this was made possible was by assuming in emergency scenarios that no radiation would be released!  No kidding.

At least four years in the works, the changes appear to clash with more recent lessons of last year’s reactor crisis in Japan. A mandate that local responders always run practice exercises for a radiation release has been eliminated – a move viewed as downright bizarre by some emergency planners.

The new U.S. program has kept the 10- and 50-mile planning zones in place, as well as the requirement for one full exercise for a 10-mile evacuation every two years. However, required 50-mile planning exercises will now be held less often: every eight years, instead of every six years.

Incredibly,  following the Japanese disaster, rather than reassessing the new protocols in light of lessons from Fukushima, the NRC decided to go right ahead with instituting their new protocols as planned.  

The new rules went into effect in December of 2011, but it was so stealthy a release that nuclear watchdog groups only became aware of the changes over the past week.

The U.S. government recommended that Americans stay at least 50 miles from the Japanese plant. Government officials said the same kind of action could be taken domestically in a similar accident, but advance planning for U.S. evacuations is, in fact, restricted to 10 miles.

The logistical reasoning behind this policy is pretty alarming:  it is simply unworkable to evacuate the huge populations that are now located within fifty miles of most U.S. nuclear plants.

the AP reported that populations within 10 miles of U.S. nuclear sites have ballooned by as much as 4 1/2 times since 1980. Nuclear sites were originally picked in less populated areas to minimize the impact of accidents. Now, about 120 million Americans – almost 40 percent – live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, according to the AP’s analysis of 2010 Census data. The Indian Point plant in Buchanan, N.Y., is at the center of the largest such zone, with 17.3 million people, including almost all of New York City.

“They’re saying, `If there’s no way to evacuate, then we won’t,'” Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with the environmental group Riverkeeper, said of the stronger emphasis on taking shelter at home. The group is challenging relicensing of Indian Point.

So, in order to make it convenient for the industry to continue operating a fleet of reactors that have passed their designed life-expectancy, the NRC has effectively reduced the number of safeguards for affected populations and turned a blind eye to any likelihood of a radiation release similar to what occurred at Fukushima.  

The fall-back position of the NRC on safety now appears to rely on a very different lesson from Japan: see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.