Mar 17 2011
Huffington Post: At California Nuclear Plant, Earthquake Response Plan Not Required
As the world’s attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.
But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.
Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request.
One Response to “Huffington Post: At California Nuclear Plant, Earthquake Response Plan Not Required”
That is simply incorrect. PG&E built an Emergency Operations Center for the County at the County Operational Center, participates actively in emergency planning, installed and routinely tests pole mounted sirens in evacuation zones, etc.
However, evacation routes are regularly proven as inadequate to handle normal commuter traffic after many accidents, or even the routine traffic during the far-too-often wildland fires.
There is an active opposition to the plant by many local residents and an long-term well-organized effort of 30+ years through the local Mothers For Peace.
PG&E’s emergency planning and response capabilities proved wholly and crimminally incompetent recently in San Bruno. In the aftermath their most basic record keeping again has proven to be so manifestly incompetent for many decades that they rented the Cow Palace simply for sorting. It is not the first demonstration of their sophistication.
We moved outside the evacuation zones when we decided to have children.