Community Corner

Advocates Petition to Expand Evac Zones Around Reactors

Local group supporting petition that calls for a 50-mile emergency evacuation zone surrounding U.S. nuclear reactors, including Oyster Creek Generating Station

Jersey Shore advocates joined thirty-seven clean energy groups in submitting a formal petition for rule making to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking the adoption of new regulations to expand emergency evacuation zones and improve emergency response planning around U.S. nuclear reactors, including Oyster Creek Generating Station.

“Pretending that radiation from an accident at Oyster Creek would not go beyond the 10-mile evacuation zone is a fantasy placing millions of people at risk,” said Janet Tauro, a member of Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety (GRAMMES), a grassroots organization that fought the relicensing of Oyster Creek and signed the petition.

The petition calls for:

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  • The NRC to incorporate real-world lessons of the Fukushima nuclear disaster by expanding the existing emergency evacuation zones from 10 to 25 miles around nuclear reactors to 25 to 50 miles.
  • Utilities would be responsible for identifying and publicizing potential evacuation routes.
  • The NRC to require utilities and state and local governments to practice emergency drills in the case of a natural disaster that occurs concurrently to a nuclear meltdown.
  • The NRC to expand the “ingestion pathway zone,” which monitors food, milk and water, from 50 miles to 100 miles around reactors.

Currently utilities do not have to prove the capability to conduct an evacuation during natural disasters, a press release from GRAMMES said.

“We learned from Fukushima that there is no protection to the public in a nuclear disaster so the first thing the industry and NRC have to do is stop calling this technology safe,” said Paula Gotsch, a founding member of GRAMMES.

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During the Fukushima incident, while the evacuation zone extended more than 25 miles to the northwest of the site, the NRC recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant evacuate, said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), the initiator of the petition.

“Such evacuations could not be effectively conducted in the U.S. under current emergency planning regulations,” he said. “We need to be better prepared and we can’t rely on favorable wind patterns to protect the American people.”

The NRC’s emergency planning rules were primarily based off of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and subsequent computerized accident simulations, Dominque French of NIRS said.

“But first at Chernobyl in 1986, and now at Fukushima, the real world has trumped any possible simulation,” she said. “The fact is that far too many Americans live near nuclear reactors, but outside existing emergency planning zones. Based on real-life experience, these people need better protection.”

A third of the U.S. population, or approximately 120 million people, live within a 50-mile radius of a nuclear reactor, the press release said. The “ingestion pathway” consists of an area about 50 miles in radius but at Fukushima, food and liquid was contaminated more than 100 miles from the site.

“There are thousands of people in Japan who can never return home because their neighborhoods are contaminated,” Tauro said. “Radiation contamination has entered the food supply. It’s showing up in infant formula, rice, fish, livestock. And that could happen here because if there is an accident at Oyster Creek, say goodbye to the Jersey Shore.”

Japan is taking the necessary steps to improve its emergency response capability, the release aid. Prior to Fukushima the emergency evacuation zone was five to six miles. The zone is now being expanded to 18 miles. The actual zone during Fukushima was 12 miles, even though evacuations were activated more than 25 miles away where the heaviest radiation was measured.

“Our Japan Task Force found that the 10-mile emergency zone is still protective of the public,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. “Beyond the 10-mile radius, the biggest concern would be radioactive exposure to food and milk products.”

In the case where food and liquids are contaminated, precautionary steps such as preventing milk sales and putting cattle in the area on store grain can be taken, he said.

“The emergency planning zone continues to remain sufficient,” Sheehan said. “We’re going to continue to look at what happened at Fukushima for long-term lessons learned. We are far from done with those efforts.”

The NRC is responsible for onsite emergency response efforts while evacuation routes are dealt with at the state, county and local levels, Sheehan explained.

Despite the summer traffic on Route 9 near Oyster Creek, state police are confident in the evacuation route, he said.

“They’ve told us that you can’t look at it in terms of traffic at a crawl during a summer day,” Sheehan said. “They’ll also tell you that you can’t look at it in the context of an immediate release of radioactivity. Events unfold over many hours and many days before there is a release of radioactivity, leaving time for evacuations and other protective measures.”

The NRC will be considering the petitioners requests, Sheehan said.

“We have a formal process for considering these petitions and we’ll review it against existing standards,” he said. “If it’s deemed acceptable, including the changes they are advocating for, we’ll propose a rule for public consideration.”

The rule-making process can take a number of years because there is so much public involvement, he said.

The full text of the petition is available here:http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/emergency/petitionforrulemaking22012.pdf.


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