Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares Fund calls for full disclosure from NRC on "slow motion Fukushima" at Ft. Calhoun

On the Rachel Maddow Show, Joseph Cirincione (picture at left), President of the Ploughshares Fund, called for "full disclosure" from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding the "slow motion Fukushima" underway at Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant on the historically flooded Missouri River in Nebraska. He pointed out that just last year, NRC cited Ft. Calhoun for one of only two "yellow" safety violations in the entire U.S., for its woefully inadequate preparation for floods. NRC's documents reveal that Ft. Calhoun was vulnerable to a full meltdown from a flood of only 1,010 feet above sea level, just a feet above where flood waters actually now stand at the plant. Since then, despite Ft. Calhoun's initial resistance and foot dragging vis a vis NRC's enforcement orders, flood defenses are now supposedly good up to 1,014 feet, although these preparations have yet to be inspected by NRC, and are of course currently facing a real-life, ultimate test. For example, just last Sunday, when the Aqua Dam failed, Ft. Calhoun was forced onto emergency diesels, as flood waters lapped at a main transformer -- from flooding nearly 8 feet below the 1,014 foot level. Cirrincione also warned about the risk of an upstream dam, such as at Fort Peck, failing, as well as building foundations at Fort Calhoun itself being undermined. He called on Omaha, 19 miles to the south, to begin making preparations now for emergency evacuation, should the worst happen at Fort Calhoun. Regarding Ft. Calhoun's "yellow finding," Dave Lochbaum at Union of Concerned Scientists has praised NRC: "Kudos to the NRC for taking pro-active steps last year to make Fort Calhoun better protected against this year’s flood."