Reuters

For almost 40 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s mantra has been that public health and safety are adequately protected by the agency’s regulatory standards. But the triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant 18 months ago suggests that the commission needs to go beyond direct health impacts in adopting safeguards, commission staff members and outside experts argued at a three-hour hearing on Tuesday.

The question of a gap in regulations was first raised early this year by Gregory B. Jaczko, the commission’s previous chairman, who advanced the idea that the commission’s goals were so flawed that what transpired at Fukushima could have been judged to meet the agency’s safety standards. Tests so far have suggested that no member of the general public received a radiation dose high enough to cause immediate health effects.

But land contamination forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and has prevented most of them from returning, some noted at the commission hearing. “The Fukushima disaster has cast a brighter light on the true aspects of post-accident conditions, such as land contamination,’’ said Allison M. Macfarlane, who took over as the commission’s chairwoman in July.

Referring to the contamination, Ralph Andersen, an expert testifying on behalf of the nuclear industry, said that “by any measure, this condition is unacceptable.’’ Still, Mr. Anderson and commission staff members made the point that steps meant to reduce the chances of public exposure to radiation would also make the kinds of accidents that make big areas of land uninhabitable less likely.



Edwin S. Lyman, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that is generally critical of the nuclear industry and the commission’s regulations, said that many of the agency’s judgments were based on the possibility of a quick release of radioactive material, which could cause exposures before people in the area could be be moved away.

The Fukushima plant did not have large, quick releases, he said. But slower releases caused tremendous damage, he said.

Commission staff members said that although protection of real estate is often not explicitly mentioned in its regulations, it is taken into consideration at various stages.

Dr. Macfarlane raised the question of how far afield the commission might have to go in assessing potential economic damage. One effect of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster was the closing of other reactors around Japan and the loss of generating capacity, she pointed out.

An expert from the Environmental Protection Agency, Al McGartland, director of the National Center for Environmental Economics, pointed out that a study of Superfund designations by his agency showed that a finding of toxic contamination changed the values of property nearby that was not contaminated.

Some commission procedures are mandatory regardless of their costs because they are needed to provide adequate protection’ for the public. Others are subject to a cost/benefit analysis. If benefits are calculated to include the goal of protecting real estate as well as averting radiation doses, the commission could impose more expensive rules.

The agency has not established a timetable for making a decision on whether to revise its regulations. But Dr. Macfarlane has established the issue as a priority, so a vote is possible before the end of the year.

The commission is considering rewriting its rules with varying levels of thoroughness. If it changed its method of evaluating safety, one question is whether this would apply to new reactors only or to existing reactors as well.