Justice Department memo reveals NRC thwarted criminal investigation into company falsifying documents to site North Anna nuke on earthquake fault

A recently surfaced US Department of Justice document from May 11, 1977 reveals that the NRC thwarted a criminal investigation of Virginia Electric Power Company’s (aka Dominion) willful withholding and falsification of documents to the federal licensing agency in the originally siting of the North Anna on an earthquake fault. The North Anna nuclear power plant has been shut down since the August 23, 2011 earthquake that rattled the East Coast and is now confirmed to have exceeded the reactors’ design safety margin.  Company officials are pressuring the NRC to allow the restart amid dozens of aftershocks and an even shakier history of obfuscation, corruption and collusion.  Dominion is hoping to get the plant up and running soon without going through a thorough inspection of both units. Despite the fact that the earthquake exceeded the design basis for the reactors, Dominion is seeking make plant design changes without going through a formal license amendment process that would open them tothe transparency of public hearings and a review of the sordid siting history.

The newly surfaced document comes with a letter from Project on Government Oversight (POGO) written to NRC Chairman Greg Jazcko requesting that the agency release withheld documents archived at the University of Virginia that are potentially relevant to the proposed restart of the quake-rattled North Anna nuclear power plant in Mineral, Virginia.  POGO simulataneously released the May 11, 1977 Justice Department memo regarding the role of first the United States Atomic Energy Commission and then the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission role in the systematic cover-up and obstruction of justice in falsification of documentation in the original siting, construction permit and operation licensing process of the North Anna nuclear power plant in Mineral, Virginia.

Beyond Nuclear filed a November 2, 2011 supplement to an October 20, 2011 emergency enforcement petition  incorporating the DOJ document and further calling on the NRC to suspend the restart and operation of the reactors until a formal license amendment is filed by Virginia Electric Power Company (Dominion) with full public hearings opportunities.