Excellent corroboration for Hatrick Hattie Penry. All that was
ever required was to read the FOIA documents and
understand that they were certified authentic.
=== Mike Ruppert
Nuclear
regulators misled the media after Fukushima, emails show
10
March, 2014
Emails
obtained by journalists at NBC News reveal that officials at the
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission — the government agency
that oversees reactor safety and security — purposely misled the
media after the Fukushima, Japan disaster in 2011.
On
Monday this week — one day shy of the third anniversary of the
Fukushima meltdown — NBC published emails
obtained through a Freedom of Information Act that for the first time
exposes on a major scale the efforts that NRC officials undertook in
order to diminish the severity of the event in the hours and days
after it began to unfold.
“In
the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the
Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to play
down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to America’s aging
nuclear plants,” Bill
Dedman wrote for NBC.
Through
the course of analyzing thousands of internal NRC emails, Dedman and
company unearthed evidence that proves nuclear regulators went to
great lengths to keep the scary facts about the Fukushima meltdown
from being brought into the public eye.
Even
when the international media was eager to learn the facts about the
Fukushima tragedy while the matter was still developing, emails
suggest that the NRC’s public relations wing worked hard to have
employees stick to talking points that ignored the actual severity of
the meltdown.
"While
we know more than these say,” a
PR manager wrote in one email to his colleagues, "we're
sticking to this story for now."
That
story, Dedman wrote, was filled with “numerous
examples…of apparent misdirection or concealment”
waged by the NRC in an attempt to keep the true nature of the
meltdown hidden, especially as concerns grew that a similar event
could occur on American soil.
“The
talking points written during the emergency for NRC commissioners and
other officials were divided into two sections: ‘public answer’
and ‘additional technical, non-public information,’”
Dedman wrote. "Often
the two parts didn't quite match.”
According
to NBC, emails indicate that the NRC insisted on sticking to talking
points that painted a much different picture than what was really
happening three years ago this week. Japanese engineers employed by
the NRC at American facilities were effectively barred from making
any comments to the media, some emails suggest, and at other times
those regulators rallied employees at the NRC to keep from making any
comment that could be used to disclose the detrimental safety
standards in place at American facilities.
In
one instance cited by Dedman, spokespeople for the NRC were told not
to disclose the fact that American scientists were uncertain if any
US facilities could sustain an earthquake like the one that ravaged
Fukushima .
"We're
not so sure about, but again we are not talking about that,"
reads one email cited by NBC.
At
other times, the report added, NRC officials were left in the dark
about what was actually unfolding on the other side of the Pacific
because access to social media sites had been blocked on their work
computers, causing some regulators to only hear about information
pertaining to Fukushima once it trickled down to a point where they
could access it.
In
one email, for example, NRC public affairs official David McIntrye
wrote in apparent disbelief to his colleagues that scientist and
actor Bill Nye was participating in “an
incoherent discussion on CNN”
about a potential hydrogen explosion at Fukushima.
“I’m
not buying it,”
McIntyre wrote.
Five
minutes after that email was sent, a colleague responded by
writing, “There
is a good chance it was a hydrogen explosion that took the roof off
that building, though we are not saying that publicly.”
Days
later, McIntyre blasted his supervisor for hesitating during a CNN
interview in which he was asked if US plants could withstand an
earthquake on par with the one suffered by residents of Fukushima.
“He
should just say ‘Yes, it can.’”
McIntyre wrote, instead of hesitating. “Worry
about being wrong when it doesn’t. Sorry if I sound cynical.”
NBC
News did not respond specifically to emails published in Dedman’s
report, but the agency’s public affairs director emails a statement
ensuring that "The
NRC Office of Public Affairs strives to be as open and transparent as
possible, providing the public accurate information in the proper
context."
“We
take our communication mission seriously. We did then and we do now.
The frustration displayed in the chosen emails reflects more on the
extreme stress our team was under at the time to assure accuracy in a
context in which information from Japan was scarce to non-existent.
These emails fall well short of an accurate picture of our
communications with the American public immediately after the event
and during the past three years,” NRC
Public Affairs Director Eliot Brenner wrote in the email.
Arguably
more disheartening than the NRC officials’ attempt to whitewash the
disaster, however, are the facts of the matter addressed in secret by
the agency but not disclosed publically. More than 30 of the nuclear
power reactors in the US are of the same brand used in Fukushima, NBC
reported, and some of the oldest facilities in operation have been in
use since the 1970s. Despite this, though, the NRC instructed
employees to not mention how any of those structures would be able to
stand up against a hypothetical disaster.
On
Monday, Fukushima expert and author Susan Q. Stranhan published an
op-ed carried by the Philadelphia Inquirer which called into question
the safety of the several nuclear facilities within the state of
Pennsylvania, where a disaster in 1979 at Three Mile Island refocused
national attention on the issue of nuclear safety.
“During
Fukushima, the NRC recommended that Americans living within 50 miles
of the plant evacuate, a wise call based on a dangerous radiation
plume that spread about 30 miles northwest of the reactors. Despite
that experience, the NRC today remains steadfast in its belief that
the existing 10-mile emergency evacuation zone around US nuclear
plants is adequate and that there would be plenty of time to expand
that zone if conditions warranted,” Stranahan
wrote.
“Three
years after Fukushima Daiichi, the NRC and the nuclear industry
continue to repeat a familiar mantra: The likelihood of a severe
accident is so low there is no need to plan for it. That was what the
Japanese said, too.”
Meanwhile,
RT reported last
month that a new lawsuit has been filed by crewmembers who sailed on
the USS Ronald Reagan three years ago to assist with relief efforts
off of the coast of Fukushima but now say they were poisoned by
nuclear fallout. When filed, Attorneys said that “up
to 70,000 US citizens [were] potentially affected by the
radiation” and
might be able to join in their suit
U.S.
Nuclear Agency Hid Concerns, Hailed Safety Record as Fukushima Melted
Bill
Dedman
10
March, 2014
In
the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the
Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to
play down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to America’s aging
nuclear plants, according to thousands of internal emails reviewed by
NBC News.
The
emails, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show that the
campaign to reassure the public about America’s nuclear industry
came as the agency’s own experts were questioning U.S. safety
standards and scrambling to determine whether new rules were needed
to ensure that the meltdown occurring at the Japanese plant could not
occur here.
At
the end of that long first weekend of the crisis three years ago, NRC
Public Affairs Director Eliot Brenner thanked his staff for sticking
to the talking points that the team had been distributing to senior
officials and the public.
"While
we know more than these say," Brenner wrote, "we're
sticking to this story for now."
There
are numerous examples in the emails of apparent misdirection or
concealment in the initial weeks after the Japanese plant was
devastated by a 9.0 earthquake and 50-foot tsunami that knocked out
power and cooling systems at the six-reactor plant, eventually
causing releases of radioactive material:
Trying
to distance the U.S. agency from the Japanese crisis, an NRC manager
told staff to hide from reporters the presence of Japanese engineers
in the NRC's operations center in Maryland.
If
asked whether the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on the California coast
could withstand the same size tsunami that had hit Japan,
spokespeople were told not to reveal that NRC scientists were still
studying that question. As for whether Diablo could survive an
earthquake of the same magnitude, "We're not so sure about, but
again we are not talking about that," said one email.
When
skeptical news articles appeared, the NRC dissuaded news
organizations from using the NRC's own data on earthquake risks at
U.S. nuclear plants, including the Indian Point Energy Center near
New York City.
And
when asked to help reporters explain what would happen during the
worst-case scenario -- a nuclear meltdown -- the agency declined to
address the questions.
As
the third anniversary of Fukushima on Tuesday approaches, the emails
pull back the curtain on the agency’s efforts to protect the
industry it is supposed to regulate. The NRC officials didn't lie,
but they didn't always tell the whole truth either. When someone
asked about a topic that might reflect negatively on the industry,
they changed the subject.
NBC
News requested in late March 2011 all of the emails sent and received
by certain NRC staffers during the first week of the crisis. Other
news organizations and watchdogs filed similar requests. The NRC has
now been posting thousands of emails in its public reading room over
the past two years.
The
NRC declined to discuss specific emails or communications. But
Brenner provided an emailed statement: "The NRC Office of Public
Affairs strives to be as open and transparent as possible, providing
the public accurate information in the proper context. We take our
communication mission seriously. We did then and we do now. The
frustration displayed in the chosen e-mails reflects more on the
extreme stress our team was under at the time to assure accuracy in a
context in which information from Japan was scarce to nonexistent.
These e-mails fall well short of an accurate picture of our
communications with the American public immediately after the event
and during the past three years."
Dating
back to the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis in 1979, many nuclear
watchdogs and critics have said that the NRC acts first to protect
the industry, and its own reputation. One critic said these emails
solidify that perception.
"The
NRC knew a lot more about what was going on than it wanted to tell
the American people," said Edwin Lyman, senior scientist at the
nuclear watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists and co-author of
the new book "Fukushima:
The Story of a Nuclear Disaster,"
which relied on some of the same emails. "They immediately put
out information that implied that U.S. reactors were in a better
position to withstand Fukushima type events than Fukushima reactors
were, but it was clear that the what the NRC knew internally was not
nearly as positive."
'We
all need to say a prayer'
From
the earliest hours of the crisis, the emails among NRC staff show
deep concern about the developing crisis in Japan, particularly among
the technical experts.
The
first word that the powerful earthquake and tsunami waves had
devastated the Fukushima plant came early morning (Eastern time) on
March 11, 2011. Throughout the day, staff at NRC headquarters in
Rockville, Md., struggled to learn what was going on in Japan. The
chief of the NRC Component Integrity Branch, senior engineer David
Rudland, was asked by a colleague if he had any new information. [The
emails excerpted in this article are shown
in full in a PDF file.]
From:
Rudland, David
Date:
Friday, March 11, 2011, 10:54 AM
No,
at this point all we know is that they are struggling to shut down
the plant.
We
all need to say a prayer.…
By
that afternoon, the news was worse. An officer in NRC research passed
on to his colleagues a status update from the Japanese electrical
company.
From:
Nosek, Andrew
Date:
Friday, March 11, 2011, 4:46 PM
There
was a triple SBO.
SBO
is nuclear jargon for a station blackout. The earthquake had cut
electrical power to the plant, and the tsunami had damaged the backup
diesel generators.
NRC
operations officer Daniel Mills had an emotional reaction:
From:
Mills, Daniel (NRC operations officer)
Date:
Friday, March 11, 2011, 4:49 PM
BBC
is reporting radiation levels at reactor are 1000x normal. I feel
like crying.
The
NRC staff recognized immediately the public-relations nightmare that
Fukushima presented for nuclear power in the United States. More than
30 of America's 100 nuclear power reactors have the same brand of
General Electric reactors or containment system used in Fukushima.
American
nuclear reactors are well into middle age. The median age of an
operating reactor in the U.S. is 34 years, placing start-up in midst
of the Carter administration. The oldest -- the Ginna plant near
Rochester, N.Y. -- was licensed in 1969, the year Neil Armstrong
walked on the moon. Only four of the 100 reactors have begun
generating power since 1990. The newest, at Watts Bar in Tennessee,
was licensed in 1996, when many of this year's high school seniors
were born.
The
unfolding disaster in Japan triggered immediate alarm inside the NRC
about plans to announce regulatory actions. Seeing the video from
Japan, NRC engineer Richard Barkley pointed out that the NRC staff
that week to recommend extending for 20 years the license for
reactors a nuclear power plant in New England called Vermont Yankee.
He warned colleagues, "That was a very scary picture to myself,
much less the public, especially since the machine is a GE designed
BWR (boiled-water reactor) not radically different in size, age and
design than some high visibility plants in my region. I can see the
cards and letters coming to my in-box by Monday." (Ultimately,
the NRC delayed the Vermont Yankee re-licensing only briefly,
approving it on March 21. This year the plant's owner plans to close
it, a victim of the competition from falling prices for natural gas.)
Three
decades after the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear
plant in Pennsylvania, nuclear power companies saw hope for a
renaissance, with the first new reactors in years being planned. But
public opinion was fragile: If the Fukushima reactors, built by
American companies, could be overwhelmed by natural disasters, could
the public trust that American power plants were safe?
'We
are not talking about that'
In
the NRC's Office of Public Affairs, the first talking points had been
written and distributed by 10:25 a.m. on Friday, less than 10 hours
after the quake. NRC technical experts were cautioned repeatedly not
to make any public statements. All information had to come from
Public Affairs.
In
an email sent at 2:56 p.m., the updated talking points were
unequivocally reassuring: "The NRC has regulations in place that
require licensees to design their plants to withstand environmental
hazards, including earthquakes ... based on historical data from the
area's maximum credible earthquake, with an additional margin added."
But
privately, the NRC was aware of uncertainties.
An
hour before that email was sent, Brenner, the public affairs
director, sent a "great work so far" memo to his staff at
HQ and around the U.S. His third bullet point highlighted he NRC's
role in helping Japanese engineers deal with the problems at
Fukushima -- a fact not mentioned in the NRC's press releases that
day. The emails indicate that the Obama administration and the NRC
were keen to keep up the appearance that they were merely observing
the Japanese nuclear crisis and had no responsibility for helping
resolve it.
From:
Brenner, Eliot
Date:
Friday, March 11, 2011, 1:54:57 PM
While
one reporter knows or has guessed that there are Japanese here in our
Ops center in communication with their home authorities, we will NOT
make the[m] available and we will NOT volunteer their presence. If
anyone knows they are here and wants to talk with them, they will
have to make the request through the embassy to have it relayed to
these folks.
The
memo also instructed staff to evade any questions about efforts by
the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) to model the
effects of similar earthquakes and tsunamis on California plants:
“NRR
is getting tasked with making an overlay of the Japanese conditions …
to see how west coast plants stack up against it,” it said. “We
think preliminarily Diablo would have had no trouble with a wave that
size. [For an earthquake of about] 8.9 we're not so sure about, but
again we are not talking about that.”
NBC
NEWS
In
congressional testimony and interviews in that first week, NRC
Chairman Gregory Jaczko was quick to say that the NRC could learn
lessons from Fukushima.
"We're
going to take a good solid look at everything that comes out of
Japan, and if we need to make modifications to our facilities in this
country, then we'll do that," he told NBC News on March 16. He
did not disclose that the NRC technical staff had already been
reassessing, before Fukushima, increased risks from earthquakes,
tsunamis, dam failures and power blackouts.
The
talking points written during the emergency for NRC commissioners and
other officials were divided into two sections: "public answer"
and "additional technical, non-public information." Often
the two parts didn't quite match.
One
topic the NRC avoided in the talking points, even when responding to
a direct question: meltdown.
"Q.
What happens when/if a plant 'melts down'?
"Public
Answer: In short, nuclear power plants in the United States are
designed to be safe. To prevent the release of radioactive material,
there are multiple barriers between the radioactive material and the
environment, including the fuel cladding, the heavy steel reactor
vessel itself and the containment building, usually a heavily
reinforced structure of concrete and steel several feet thick.
"Additional,
non-technical, non-public information: The melted core may melt
through the bottom of the vessel and flow onto the concrete
containment floor. The core may melt through the containment liner
and release radioactive material to the environment."
The
Japanese public television network, NHK, asked if the NRC could
provide a graphic depicting what happens during a meltdown of a
nuclear reactor.
From:
McIntyre, David
Date:
Friday, March 18, 2011, 9:02 AM
NRC
would not have such a graphic. I suspect any number of anti-nuclear
power organizations might.
When
reporters asked if the Japanese emergency could affect licensing of
new reactors in the U.S., the public answer was "It is not
appropriate to hypothesize on such a future scenario at this point."
The
non-public information was more direct: This event could potentially
call into question the NRC's seismic requirements, which could
require the staff to re-evaluate the staff's approval of the AP1000
and ESBWR (the newest reactor designs from Westinghouse and General
Electric) design and certifications."
On
the subject of tsunamis, the public assurances omitted the
"non-public " nuances that might have given the public
reasons to doubt nuclear power safety:
Design
standards varied significantly from plant to plant in the U.S.
The
experience in Japan had taught the NRC that it needed to study the
dangerous effects of “drawdown,” the powerful receding of ocean
water near the shore that can precede a tsunami's arrival.
And
although the U.S. was developing new tsunami standards, those
wouldn't be in draft form for another year.
'It
was a hydrogen explosion'
The
NRC spokespeople sometimes had trouble following the public debate,
because for days their computers were blocked by security rules from
accessing Twitter and YouTube. And they often had incomplete
information about events in Japan.
From:
McIntyre, David
Date:
Saturday, March 12, 2011, 10:02 PM
Just
saw an incoherent discussion on cnn by Bill Nye the science guy who
apparently knows zilcho about reactors and an idiot weatherman who
said Hydrogen explosion? Pfft. I'm not buying it.
His
boss sent back the following reply, correcting the staffer and
explaining plans to ask the Obama administration to help blunt
critical news coverage.
From:
Brenner, Eliot
Date:
Saturday, March 12, 2011, 10:07 PM
1:
There is a good chance it was a hydrogen explosion that took the roof
off that building, though we are not saying that publicly.
2:
I have just reached out to CNN and asked them to call (former NRC
Chairman Nils) Diaz, and reached out to push the white house yet
again to start talking on background or getting out in front of some
of this crap.
On
March 20, when Energy Secretary Steven Chu hesitated on CNN when
asked if U.S. plants could withstand a 9.0 earthquake?
McIntyre,
one of the agency’s spokesmen, suggested to his bosses what Chu
should have said:
From:
McIntyre, David
Date:
Sunday, March 20, 2011, 10:01:00 AM
He
should just say "Yes, it can." Worry about being wrong when
it doesn't.
Sorry
if I sound cynical.
The
public affairs staff showed disdain in the emails for nuclear
watchdog groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists.
After
the UCS raised concerns about diesel backup power and batteries being
inadequate, as at Fukushima, spokesman McIntyre dismissed it as
"bleating" from nuclear power foes.
When
Steven Dolley, former research director of the NCI and a reporter for
McGraw Hill Financial's newsletter Inside NRC, asked McIntyre for a
nuclear containment expert to speak to a reporter, the spokesman
asked if the reporter had contacted the industry's lobbying group,
the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Dolley
asked, "So, should I say NRC is deferring inquiries to NEI?"
suggesting that the NRC was deferring to the industry it is supposed
to regulate.
McIntyre
shared this exchange with his bosses, adding the comment, "F---ing
a-hole."
There
is NO SUCH NRC REPORT!
The
NRC's Public Affairs staff attempted to discredit news reports that
raised questions about nuclear plants, even when they were based on
NRC data.
A
story by this reporter for msnbc.com (now NBCNews.com) reported that
the NRC hadpublished
a study six
months earlier with new estimates of the risk that an earthquake
could cause damage to the core of U.S. nuclear power plants. The
plants were listed in alphabetical order, along with the NRC's risk
estimates.
The
msnbc.com story, published on March 16, ranked the U.S. nuclear
plants by those NRC estimates. Surprisingly, the highest risk was not
on the Pacific Coast, where plants are designed and built with severe
earthquakes in mind, but in the Central and Eastern states, where
scientists have raised their estimate of the earthquake risk since
the plants were designed and built. The story said that the NRC still
described the plants as safe, but also said the margin of error had
shrunk.
We
had checked our understanding of the report with NRC earthquake
experts, but NRC spokesman Scott Burnell responded to the story by
asking the same staff to find fault with it.
From:
Burnell, Scott
Date:
Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 6:22 AM
I
know you're going to have a cow over this - somewhat inevitable when
a reporter new to the subject tries to summarize things. Apart from
"you're totally off-base," what specific technical
corrections can we ask for??
OPA
(Office of Public Affairs) - this is likely to spark a lot of
follow-up. The immediate response would be "that's a very
incomplete look at the overall research and we continue to believe
U.S. reactors are capable of withstanding the strongest earthquake
their sites could experience." I'll share whatever we get from
the experts.
Senior
officials at the industry's lobbying arm, the Nuclear Energy
Institute, sent emails asking the NRC for help rebutting the story.
Burnell urgently asked again for errors in the article.
From:
Burnell, Scott
Date:
Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 11:11 AM
Folks,
the expected calls are coming in -- We need a better response ASAP!
But
the NRC experts found nothing to correct.
From:
Beasley, Benjamin
Date:
Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 12:31 PM
I
have received no concerns or corrections regarding the MSNBC article.
From:
McIntyre, David
Date:
Thursday, March 17, 2011, 2:20 PM
I
just filed this request for correction with The Huffington Post,
which has a report of Cuomo wanting to shut IP based on the MSNBC
report:
There
is NO SUCH NRC REPORT! The NRC does not rank nuclear power plants
according to their vulnerability to earthquakes. This "ranking"
was developed by an MSNBC reporter using partial information and an
even more partial understanding of how we evaluate plants for seismic
risk. Each plant is evaluated individually according to the geology
of its site, not by a "one-size-fits-all" model - therefore
such rankings or comparisons are highly misleading. Please correct
this report.
His
colleague in Atlanta, spokesman Joey Ledford, replied, "Great
talking point, Dave. I wish I had it during my 10 or so calls today
trying to debunk this thing."
The
New York Times, which was reporting a story about Indian Point, was
dissuaded from using the NRC's risk estimates. We asked the New York
Times reporter, Peter Applebome, why he ignored the NRC data. He
replied in an email, "Burnell said it wasn't accurate and
included rankings the NRC never made. I have no idea if that's
correct, but I was writing a column on deadline and figured I did not
have the ability to figure out who was right in the time I had."
In
his piece,
Applebome quoted the NRC downplaying the risk: "Officials with
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say the site is safe and that its
earthquake threat is on the lower end nationally and in the
Northeast." The NRC's recent study with a different picture was
ignored.
The
NRC followed up with a
blog post from
Brenner, the public affairs chief, cautioning the public, “Don't
Believe Everything You Read.” Brenner called the msnbc.com report
"highly misleading."
He
didn't mention that its figures came from the NRC.
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