Nuclear powerCritics: Fukushima-influenced U.S. nuclear accident response procedures are flawed

The U.S. government is  using the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan two years ago as a model for rewriting its plans on how to respond to radiation contamination — emphasizing long-term cleanup instead of emergency response. Critics say this is a mistake.

The New York Times reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a draft document in the Federal Register on Monday, changing its advice to local and state governments on how to limit long-term exposure to radiation following a reactor accident or “dirty bomb” incident.

The  proposal reduces the projections of how much radiation exposure is likely in the years after an incident, and, as a result,  reduces the size of contaminated areas that would need to be abandoned.

Nuclear experts say that the most significant lesson learned from the Fukushima disaster is that in a similar accident, the debate will not be over evacuating the affected areas, but over how fast people will be able to return to the area, if at all.

A federally chartered research group closed its comment period yesterday on a separate draft report written for DHS.

The authors of the EPA draft proposal say they are not trying to change existing standards when it comes to what radiation levels are considered safe, but the EPA document does change the assumption of how much radiation a person in a contaminated area will receive. 

“We are not in any way relaxing advice about cleanup standards or allowable doses,” Jonathan Edwards, the director of the Radiation Protection Division of the EPA told theTimes. On the question of how clean is clean enough, yardsticks used for programs like the Superfund will continue to be used, and “are not being changed in any way,” Edwards added.

One element in the EPA document, known as the Protective Action Guidelines, which has not been updated since 1991, is the assumption about how much radiation people would be exposed to over time in an affected area. According to Edwards, it became obvious that the initial radiation level can be reduced significantly by cleanup efforts.

Groups which oppose nuclear power in the United States. say that the EPA document and the report for DHS will allow a significant increase in the amount of radioactive contamination which will be allowed in food and water, as well as the allowable doses from irradiation by radioactive particles that would be deposited in an accident.

According to David Hirsh, the president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a California group, some of the changes are not in the documents but are in other reports which are mentioned in footnotes. Hirsh told the Times the EPA is “trying to bury the bad stuff in footnote references to a whole series of other documents.”

Diane D’Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an antinuclear group, is also not happy with what the report is saying.

“The document is admitting that nuclear power is a dangerous industry” D’Arrigo told the Times. “Should industries be allowed to operate that could put us into that condition?”

Rod Adams, a former engineering officer on a nuclear submarine, recently cited several studies saying that the areas around Fukushima should be reoccupied. Adams also wrote on his blog that the new proposed limits are relatively the same but, “the limits could be relaxed by a factor of 50 and still keep the public safe.”