Disasters

"The nuclear crisis in Japan provides an impetus for Congress to confront a failed national policy on dealing with spent fuel from U.S. reactors, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee yesterday."

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactors to phase out some equipment that eliminates explosive hydrogen, the gas that blew up the outer containments of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi in Japan."

"The workers at Japan's stricken nuclear power plant — known as the Fukushima 50 — expect some of them will die within weeks or months, the mother of one has reportedly said."

"The Indian Point nuclear power plant is currently in violation of fire safety regulations and is seeking more than 100 exemptions from those regulations, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday."

"The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday radiation in a village outside the evacuation zone around a stricken Japanese nuclear plant was above safe levels, urging that Japan reassess the situation."

"Very low levels of radiation turned up in a sample of milk from the West Coast state of Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday, but federal officials assured consumers not to worry."

TEPCO and the Japanese government's constant assurances that the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima is under control have started to unravel. Releases of radioactive material continue. Mounting radiation at the site threatens to curtail efforts to prevent more radiation releases.

"A consumer and environmental advocacy group urged the Obama administration to freeze construction of new nuclear reactors and halt re-licensing of the oldest of the nation's 104 plants until safety lessons from the Japanese nuclear crisis can be absorbed."

"As Japan wrestles with its nuclear crisis, the U.S. nuclear industry is seeing a partial meltdown in public support as Americans wonder whether such tragedy could strike here."