This week, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewwinds Associates discusses emergency planning around nuclear plants.

Experience gained from the Fukushima disaster should now inform our own emergency plans in the U.S.  At Fukushima, the U.S. and the NRC took the position that the population should be evacuated from anywhere within a 50-mile radius.  

Why is this not the plan in case of a U.S. nuclear emergency, where 10-miles remains the established perimeter?

Arnie discusses the origin in law of evacuation guidelines, which specify no perimeter but establish 25 R.E.M. as the maximum permissible dosage to which the civilian population may be exposed before they must be evacuated.  He explains how the current 10-mile evacuation radius was an assumption based entirely on untested speculation; speculation that has since been proven wholly inadequate by the volume and duration of releases at Fukushima.  

Furthermore, existing emergency evacuation plans assume no disruption in power or communication to the population, as could logically be assumed to occur with the kind of events that might trigger a nuclear accident, and with the generation failure that would accompany any nuclear accident.  They also assume that escape routes would remain uncompromised by infrastructure failures and panic, throughout the evacuation.

If, despite the overwhelming public hazard potential that has been demonstrated at Fukushima,  the Obama White House remains committed to a nuclear energy future, shouldn’t they at least demand that workable evacuation plans and safe perimeters be a part of that future?

White House & NRC Recommend 50 Mile Fukushima Evacuation, Yet Insist US Safe With Only 10 from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.