Boxer, Feinstein Push For Inspection Of California Nuclear Plants
California Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein sent a letter to the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday, urging him to conduct a full-scale inspection of nuclear power plants along the California coast.
In the letter, the senators wanted inspections of the San Onofre plant, in San Clemente, and the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, both of which are near earthquake faults. They want to evaluate their safety and emergency preparedness.
The senators also asked the NRC to respond to questions about plant design and operations, type of reactor and preparedness to withstand an earthquake or tsunami.
“Roughly 424,000 (people) live within 50 miles of the Diablo Canyon and 7.4 million live within 50 miles of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,” the letter read. “Although many safety measures have been taken to address potential hazards associated with these facilities, we need to ensure that the risk is fully evaluated.”
They refer to a 2008 California Energy Commission report, which presented what they call “very clear warnings of potential threats” at both plants.
This report, they said, found that the San Onofre plant could experience “larger and more frequent earthquakes” than the maximum 7.0 magnitude earthquake predicted when the plant was designed.
“It is our understanding that the NRC has not taken action to address these warnings in the report,” the senators wrote. “It is also our understanding that the 2008 report found that there is an additional fault near the Diablo Canyon plant that should be taken into consideration as part of NRC’s re-licensing process.”
The senators also demanded answers to the following questions:
What changes to the design or operation of these facilities have improved safety at the plants since they began operating in the mid-1980s?
What emergency notification systems have been installed at California nuclear power plants? Has there ever been a lapse of these systems during previous earthquakes or emergencies?
The questions went on to address back-up power plans in case of an emergency and how the NRC plans to alert the public.
