No emergency procedures in place if crises arise in high-level radioactive waste storage pools

In a video entitled "Why Fukushima Can Happen Here: What the NRC and Nuclear Industry Dont Want You to Know" posted at the Fairewinds Associates website, nuclear engineers Dave Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds explain what went wrong at Fukushima Daiichi, then show how similar catastrophes can happen right here in the U.S., not only in General Electric boiling water reactors of the Mark 1 containment design, but in any atomic reactor. The event, sponsored by C-10 and other environmental groups, took place in June 2011 at the Boston Public Library.

At one point, Dave Lochbaum explains that there are no procedures in place for nuclear power plant personnel to follow during a crisis involving a high-level radioactive waste storage pool. The upside, he joked, is if such safety regulations don't exist, then at least the industy can't violate them. The downside, of course, is a pool accident could unleash catastrophic quantities of hazardous radioactivity onto the waves and winds, to contaminate people and ecosystems downwind and downstream.