Dear Liz,
Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has promised to reevaluate the threats earthquakes pose to U.S. nuclear reactors.
So why has the agency suppressed a report from one of their own inspectors about the Diablo Canyon reactors in California?
Yesterday, the Associated Press exposed an internal NRC report about the two 1960-era nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon and dramatic new information about faults surrounding the plant. These faults are capable of causing an earthquake far larger than the reactors were designed to withstand.
This is a bombshell -- there is no way that the NRC should allow these reactors to continue to operate given this new information.
We need your help! Write to NRC Chairman Macfarlane and demand that the NRC shut down the Diablo Canyon reactors.
More than a year ago the NRC's own inspector recommended that, because of new seismic information, the reactors are no longer in compliance with their license and should be shut pending a public licensing review.
Incredibly, federal regulators have sat on this report for more than a year and have taken no action to protect the public from this threat.
We're not going to let them get away with this inaction. Today, we are filing a petition with the NRC demanding that the agency shut down the reactors and keep them shut unless they can prove, publicly, that the reactors can withstand a major earthquake.
In addition to suppressing the document, the NRC has failed to follow its own rules to respond to a report like this within 120 days of its filing.
Write to Chairman Macfarlane and demand that she take decisive action to assure public safety immediately.
The bottom line is that these reactors could never be built now in the midst of these seismic faults. The NRC must act in the public interest and not in the interests of Diablo's owner, Pacific Gas and Electric.
Demand that NRC Chairman Macfarlane put peoples' safety ahead of the profits of Pacific Gas & Electric.
Standing with you,
Damon Moglen,
Senior strategic advisor,
Friends of the Earth |
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