Palo Verde Nuclear Plant – emergency plans found wanting

planning only for a 10-mile evacuation zone around reactors is inadequate because it doesn’t take into consideration the possibility of having to evacuate a larger area and the consequences of civil disorder that might ensue from gridlocked roads in the scramble to flee…… emergency plans wrongly assume that a severe problem at a nuclear facility would not be accompanied by other emergencies.

Palo Verde nuclear response a worry, Palo Verde’s plans for evacuations debated, by Ryan Randazzo – Aug. 14, 2011, The Arizona Republic, People living within 10 miles of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix are well-aware they are in the evacuation zone of Arizona’s only nuclear power plant.

Those 11,545 residents get an annual calendar from the plant’s owners with instructions on what to do in the remote event of a disaster…..

Federal emergency plans for U.S. nuclear reactors, laid out in 1978, have a 10-mile perimeter divided into segments that could be evacuated. If radiation escaped from a plant, it’s likely all people 2 miles around the plant and 5 miles downwind would immediately be ordered to leave, while weather conditions and the severity of the radiation release would determine who else would need to be evacuated from the 10-mile zone.

While the zone can be expanded, any evacuation beyond 10 miles would be improvised.

The difference between evacuating a narrow 10-mile perimeter and one extending to 50 miles around Palo Verde would be moving 11,545 people, estimated to take about three hours, or relocating nearly 2 million people. Most of the evacuation zone around Palo Verde is empty desert west of Buckeye, while the larger radius extends as far as downtown Phoenix, and evacuating it essentially could amount to a national crisis requiring military assistance….

the unimaginable happened at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, spurring leading U.S. scientists to ask if emergency plans are sufficient, especially now that many more people are living closer to reactors than 25 years ago. Only about 1,500 people lived within 10 miles of Palo Verde when it opened in the mid-1980s. Almost eight times as many live there now.

While workers at the Arizona plant might have to contend with high radiation levels that could cause burns, illness or even death, the primary health concern for citizens outside the plant would be developing cancer over time from exposure.
Critical voices Some nuclear-industry experts said the Fukushima disaster exposed weaknesses in the U.S. emergency plans for nuclear plants, particularly for managing a large-scale evacuation.

The Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, which advocates for increased safety and more rigorous regulatory oversight at nuclear facilities, contends that a wider evacuation is plausible, given what happened in Japan, and that U.S. plants should practice for radiation releases involving multiple reactors when they conduct routine emergency drills.

The group says that planning only for a 10-mile evacuation zone around reactors is inadequate because it doesn’t take into consideration the possibility of having to evacuate a larger area and the consequences of civil disorder that might ensue from gridlocked roads in the scramble to flee.

They believe a bigger evacuation like that advised for U.S. citizens in Japan could cause mayhem in a metro area like Phoenix and could lead to deaths as panicking people try to escape down congested roads. Emergency responders should be prepared to handle a broader evacuation, rather than preparing only for the small, relatively easy 10-mile one, officials from the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

And because a wider evacuation might be necessary, emergency planners should also consider giving people within a broader perimeter of nuclear-power plants the same information and instructions as those living in the 10-mile zone.

The group also argued that emergency plans wrongly assume that a severe problem at a nuclear facility would not be accompanied by other emergencies. If a severe earthquake or other event damaged a nuclear plant, it also would likely damage surrounding infrastructure and any help might be spread thin throughout the region, the watchdog group said.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/08/14/20110814palo-verde-nuclear-safety.html

August 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA

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