I would say it has. The folks I've worked with at the NRC are very serious about safety and really take their job to heart. If I had to guess, I would say the past problems with Nuclear probably had more to do with the old Atomic Energy Commission that was split up in 1974 it wasn't regulating well. When the AEC was split into the NRC and ERDA, there were probably some cultural left overs from the AEC for some time afterwards. Just a hunch, kind of like how the FAA gets its mission muddled from time to time because it has a dual mission like the AEC used to have (promote and regulate), whereas the Nuclear split now is Regulate (NRC) and Promote (DOE, which is where the ERDA was combined into). And the NRC is independent, unlike DOE which reports to the EOP.

The fact that a zone exists does not mean the zone is contaminated, and it does not mean a release has occurred. You can confusing what can happen, the reason, with the evacuation, the precaution and assuming that an evacuation means a health significant release has occurred. I don't know how else to explain it. The fact that some radiation release has occured does not mean the region is contaminated or that this is the reason the evacuation was ordered. Evacuations are done before releases occur, if possible, and in this case thats what Japan did. They declared an emergency when it was clear it would not be possible to get a cold shutdown, thats a precaution in case things get out of control to prevent exposure to the public.

So, the data, the NNSA data as of April 29 is airborne readings:

http://blog.energy.gov/content/situation-japan/

This shows some caesium detected using airborne testing (not uranium or plutonium as someone else claimed). In those areas, the vast majority of the area the hr dose is below 0.1 mrem/hr. The annual normal dose a person gets in the US gets every year is about 360 mrem. If you fly or live in higher altitudes your annual dose is considerably higher. If you work at a nuclear powerplant your annual dose is around 1000 mrem a year. If you live in Denver, CO it would be 700 mrem/yr. If you spend a year on the beaches of Brazil your dose would be 5000 mrem/yr. Incidentally, 5000 mrem/yr is the legal occupation dose limit. Its a bit conservative.

The maximum rate measured is in an area north west of the plant on a diagonal approximately 30km long. The rate measured was between 1.9-19 millrems/hr. If you were is one of the areas, and getting a maximum dose at 19 mrem/hr it would take approximately 19 hours to get Us average, or , 263 hours to get a beach dose from Brazil. This is assuming you were near an emitting source. These dose rates will not make you sick (or kill you). If you stayed there for a few weeks you may increase your chances of cancer. Even then its not a given you will get cancer, everyone is different and it depends on how healthy you are, your genetics, distance from source, shielding, etc.

http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/rad-health-effects.html

Based on information from the NRC, if you smoke a pack of cigarettes you will lose 6 years of life expectancy. If you are 15% overweight you will lose 2 years of life expectancy. If you get a 360 millirem dose, you will lose 18 days, so figure at 19 mrem/hr its about a day.

As most of the area was measured as being below 0.1 millrem an hour, and the other ranges around the northwest region around 1.9 mrem/hr down to 0.19 mrem/hr, you wouldn't be talking about an appreciable effect. At 0.19 mrem/hr thats nor much at all when the US average is 1 mrem a day.

My definition of significant may be different from yours. Significant to me means it will make you sick now. Is there a likelihood of increased cancers, in that strip of 1.9-19 millirem/hr potentially if you stayed there for a few weeks. Given that the evacuation was done a long time ago, no one should be in that area that does not have adequate protection. So the health effects should be minimal at this point, if people evacuated (which apparently most did).

Additionally, keep in mind that distance from the source will reduce exposure (the inverse square law). Shielding will also reduce exposure, so just because an area may have sources does not mean you will be equally exposed to them or that its an equal amount (hence the variance in that red region). Increased shielding will decrease exposure. Internal exposure can be prevented with masks and clothing.

Anyway, theres some data. I'm tired.

Thats terrible to hear, and I have no doubt it was as you said. In all fairness, we are talking about many decades ago, and everyone is allowed to learn from their mistakes. I think it is unfair to blame the current personnel and leadership of the NRC, now under a different president and different party, new commissioners, managers and probably all new staff for failures of the past. Provided those lessons were learned of course.

My own personal opinion, based on experience with the NRC, is that the current NRC is very sensitive to any reported failures of licensees and seems more than willing to take action. I've been part of a few actions against licensees, and the NRC didnt quibble when the argument was made that a deficiency was found. They sited the licensee and fined them pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, as I said before, if you or anyone else know of an action that an NRC licensee has taken, or failed to take, that will present harm to the public, file an allegation. Equally, if the NRC is being deficient file an allegation, and contact the NRC IG. Screwups don't seem to be tolerated at the NRC these days.

OT: I just saw this from the NRC:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced today it will exit “monitoring mode” and transition its response to the Japanese Nuclear emergency from its 24-hour Operations Center to its Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR). The NRC activated its headquarters-based Operations Center on March 11, 2011, in response to the events at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. Since that time, staff from throughout the agency supported the U.S. government’s response, including staff dispatched to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

“The conditions at the Japanese reactors are slowly stabilizing. As conditions have continued to improve and the Japanese continue to implement their recovery plan, the NRC has determined that it is time to adjust our response,” said Executive Director for Operations Bill
Borchardt.

It depends on what you are doing, but if you have to compare different things and work with a lot of open windows absolutely multiple windows are a must. This actually seems to be more common now with non-technical folks. Where I work almost everyone has two LCDs.

I think you misunderstand the burden of proof, the party making the affirmative assertion provides proof. I'm not making an affirmative assertion, you are (that levels are presenting a significant health risk). The WHO website has a FAQ here:

http://www.who.int/hac/crises/jpn/faqs/en/index.html

EPAs link to radiation monitoring:

http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/data-updates.html

But if you have an independent source that shows there is a release that presents a significant threat to health of the public, I'm a big enough man to acknowledge facts.

Shoreham was decommisioned WAY back in 1989, the plant was shut down and hasn't operated since. Not sure how much more you want done with a site that doesnt have a working reactor or fuel.

You know you can file a public complaint on all of these things and the NRC has to investigate. Just call the NRC and say you want to make an "allegation", thats a special meaning at the NRC and means they have to document it and investigate. If you can't do that, then I'm sorry theres not much anyone can do if you don't file a complaint. The NRC is in fact a public regulatory and I know the people there actually care, they are human, they can make mistakes, and if you believe they did then take action. You say you live near that plant, you have standing, file a claim for gods sake!

And if that doesnt work, call the IG and your congressman. I'm not sure what else a democracy can do beyond that, but you have lots of options.

Good point, and I bet theres more wind right offshore too. (And probably some uppity folks that think this will spoil their view)

Thank you for correcting that, the EPA report says:

"Analyses of this batch of filter data identified low levels of uranium consistent with natural levels typically seen in the US."

So I'm not sure the EPA evidence is as conclusive as you may think. If the source is from exposed rods, we should see more see more contamination. This may be from the steam plumes from the spent pools. As were discussing the reactor, the spent fuel pools are a different issue. Loss of containment of the BWR, and Uranium from the BWR has not occurred. The spent fuel pools are not contained in that design, and the Japanese also dont use dry casks and don't have a national repository, so its no wonder they have issues. Thats not a reactor accident, thats a failure to maintain your spent fuel.

And I can't find anything in the NY Times article other than this statement "Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions." I don't see anything that says "Unit 3 blew pieces of fuel rod up to a mile from the site". This sounds like some rods we flung out of unit 2 and are on the site, could you point me to a source that says unit 2 rods were thrown a mile from the site?

Also, I don't see any official reports of this occurring, not on the IAEA website, NRC, or JNSA. If you have a link, I'd be delighted to read it.

> "They" that are the authorities responsible for overseeing such reactors. I read that like 10 years ago, so I have no source in mind.

Do you mean the US NRC?

> But as this topic is coming up quite often I might invest the time to find references.

Please do, I'd be happy to read it.

GE designed the BWR, not the plant and not the Tsunami wall. The Tsunami wall was insufficient for the Tsunami, the accident did not happen because of a design flaw in the GE BWR it happened because the Tsunami took out the Diesels and when the batteries ran out there was no power to run the cooling pumps.

The blame belongs with TEPCO and the Japanese government. There were and are completely responsible for the operation of their nuclear power reactors, not any international body.

Yeah, do keep in mind that I speaking about reactors, not other uses of fissile material. Windscale was a military pile core used for bomb production, not a power reactor. So apples and oranges, but if you want to include all nuclear accidents, that is a much longer list.

Windscale also had no containment (unlike TMI), the core caught on fire and there was a a plume from the fire (although the filters appear to have contained most of the byproducts, a smart addition). There was no plume or core fire at TMI.

No one was evacuated from the area of Windscale, and yet apparently there were no long term health effects. Surprising, but thats apparently the case.

An excellent set of sources, thank you.

> Thirty years later they admitted it was far closer to a majour catastrophe with a true melt down and a possible explosion.

Who is they, and where is this report? I havent seen anything to support your assertion, so if you have some sources I'm all ears.

The evacuation was a precaution immediately after the emergency was declared because there might be a release. If you evacuate after a release you're probably screwed and already breathing in byproducts.