• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

More than a 1000 residents of Fukushima in Japan have filed a criminal complaint demanding that government officials be jailed over last year’s nuclear disaster. And, recent reports have surfaced of a number of Blue Fin tuna caught off the coast of California carrying radiation linked to the accident. Last year’s accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Power plant was triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s Northeastern coast, destroying the Fukushima power plant’s electrical system, causing coolants to stop functioning and resulting in a reactor meltdown. In the wake of Fukushima, anti-nuclear activists have attempted to raise the alarm about aging nuclear facilities in the US for the past year.

In fact, earlier this year, Southern California’s nuclear power facility at San Onofre was shut down after the discovery of a leaking steam generator tube. The leak at San Onofre comes from new equipment, installed only two years ago as part of a $674 million steam generator upgrade completed in 2010. Now, an engineering review by Southern California Edison which operates San Onofre reactor has found that in the process of replacing the faulty generators, the reactor power supply may not have withstood an earthquake. Edison disclosed information in a federal government filing that backup diesel generators that kick in in the event of an earthquake to control heat at the reactors might not be designed properly. The backup generators in question have been in place for thirty years.

GUEST: Rochelle Becker, Executive Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility

Visit www.a4nr.org for more information.