US NRC Blog Update: Documenting a Sobering Trip to Fukushima

Documenting a Sobering Trip to Fukushima

Leave a comment Posted by Moderator on January 5, 2015

Scott Burnell
Public Affairs Officer
As we mentioned on the blog last year, senior NRC leaders visited the site of the Fukushima nuclear accident and the surrounding area. Now, the agency has published a report that includes essays on what the team members learned. The report helps ensure current and future NRC staff can benefit from the team’s experience in the future.
The group included managers from the agency’s reactor oversight, research and emergency preparedness programs. They make up most of the agency’s Fukushima Steering Committee, which guides the staff’s implementation of what we learned from the accident. They also take active roles in ensuring U.S. nuclear power plants are prepared to deal with events similar to what happened at Fukushima experienced.
It’s clear from the team members’ essays that the visit affected them deeply. For example, Bill Dean (now director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation) was Administrator of the NRC’s Region I office outside Philadelphia when he took part in the trip. “Most importantly, it enabled us to observe firsthand the far-reaching impacts of a nuclear disaster—not only its physical effects on the facility and the surrounding countryside but also its impact on a nation’s psyche and its people,” Dean writes. “What resonated with each and every one of us is that we cannot allow a Fukushima-like event to occur in the United States.”
Marc Depas, Adminstrator of the Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, reflects on discussing the accident with plant staff at Fukushima. “Hearing these TEPCO employees describe what they faced and then seeing the actual physical configuration of equipment at the Fukushima sites left an indelible impression on me regarding the importance of being prepared for the unexpected,” Depas writes. “In that context, I considered the safety measures and enhancements that the NRC has required … The key in my view is to ensure that these safety measures are rigorously implemented and maintained.”
The team’s visit covered both the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and the nearby Fukushima Daini plant, which safely withstood the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The visit also covered Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, a nuclear power plant on Japan’s west coast that survived a strong 2007 earthquake.
You can read the essays from Dean and the other trip participants in the report, and you watch a summary video about the trip on the NRC’s YouTube channel.