Nuclear engineer accuses regulators of safety cover-up

He added the NRC “may be motivated to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency.” He claimed redacted documents in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request showed the NRC possessed “relevant, notable, and derogatory safety information for an extended period but failed to properly act on it.”

{mosads}The report in question was completed four months after an earthquake and resultant tsunami caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan to experience a meltdown.

The report concluded that, “Failure of one or more dams upstream from a nuclear power plant may result in flood levels at a site that render essential safety systems inoperable.”

Eliot Brenner, an NRC spokesman, told The Hill on Monday that the flooding report has been rolled into the agency’s “very robust” body of work on lessons learned post-Fukushima. He declined to comment directly on the letter.

“We cannot discuss the reasons for the redactions,” Brenner said. “The NRC coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security, the Army Corps of Engineers and FERC on the necessary redactions.”

The NRC began pursuing safety regulatory reform shortly after the Fukushima disaster. Some commissioners have voiced concern that the agency’s five-year timeline is too aggressive, while others — notably the White House and Democrats — have praised the endeavor.