NRC Licensed Diablo Illegally

[bananas]

From the Abalone Alliance rss feed:

"In August 1984 Diablo Canyon was illegally licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Here is an original article written in February 1985 documenting what happened."

http://www.energy-net.org/blog/2011/07/19/nrc-licensed-diablo-illegally/

NRC Licensed Diablo Illegally
Posted on July 19, 2011 by aaenergynet

Secret transcripts leaked

It’s About Times / January-February 1985

On January 10, KRON-TV (San Francisco channel 4) released a three-part confidential transcript it had obtained of a closed-door 1984 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) meeting at which key decisions were made on the fate of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The 235-page document contains revelations about the agency’s license review process, and provides evidence that the commissioners allowed their concern for Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s profits to outweigh consideration of the public’s health and safety.

The transcripts are the same ones that the Mothers for Peace, the legal intervenors against Diablo, tried to have presented as evidence in their suit to stop the plant. The Mothers contended that the transcripts would show that the NRC ignored advice from its own lawyers that the effect of an earthquake on the emergency evacuation plan was important enough to justify a public hearing before licensing. But the NRC refused to release the documents, and the US Court of Appeals hearing the case ruled that the NRC’s decision — that the emergency response plan was flexible enough to deal with an earthquake – was “reasonable.”

The transcripts also show the commissioners trying to work .out a line of defense they could use to justify their decision not to delay further operations at the S5.3 billion plant. At one point, according to the transcripts, Commissioner James Asselstine told the others he thought they were “working backwards” — that they already had decided, for reasons that had no basis in fact, to allow the plant to proceed, and were trying to find a legally sound way to justify that decision.

The issue before the commission at the closed door meeting was whether or not to include in its review the possibility that an earthquake could impede evacuation of the area around the plant after an accidental release of radiation unrelated to the quake. Current evacuation plans do not include provisions for the off-site effects of a quake — fallen bridges, impassable roads, etc. — on emergency evacuation.

<snip>

[aquart]

1. Hang them.

Or make them live within five miles of it. With their children.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Deckard Cain is not going to be pleased.

:(

[FBaggins]

3. No mention of what law was supposedly broken

Though it does say that they lost in court and then later says that they're filing a new appeal. Since that occurred more than 25 years ago and the plant wasn't shy down... There doesn't appear to be anything illegal.

On edit - The House held hearings on the matter and determined that the NRC had intentionally avoided public hearings on the matter, but didn't keep the plant from operating on that basis. Both the US Court of Appeals and the USSC disagreed with MFP that the license was illegal.