U.S. Sen. Markey slams NRC for biased study of HLRW storage pool risks
September 17, 2013 
U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)
As shown at Fukushima Daiichi, GE BWR Mark I (as well as II) high-level radioactive waste storage pools risk catastrophe. Only, the 31 U.S. Mark I and II HLRW storage pools often contain many times more inventory than do Japan's pools. Beyond Nuclear has published a backgrounder on GE BWR Mark I and II HLRW storage pool risks.
The storage pool at the Pilgrim Mark I, near Boston, still to this day contains every single irradiated nuclear fuel assembly ever generated there since 1972, amount now more than 600 metric tons.
On the eve of a public meeting at the agency's HQ in Rockville, Maryland, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA, photo left), a long-time congressional watchdog on the nuclear power industry and its supposed regulators at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has written a blistering letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane regarding NRC staff's "Draft Consequence Study" of the radiological risks of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool fires.
Markey references a "devastating critique" of NRC's "Draft Consequence Study" submitted on August 1st by Dr. Gordon Thompson, expert witness on behalf of an environmental coalition including Beyond Nuclear.
Markey points out the irony of NRC's current flip disregard of pool fire risks, given NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane's co-authorship of a 2003 study, along with several others, including Thompson, as well as IPS Senior scholar Bob Alvarez, that clearly exposed the potentially catastrophic fire risks of pool storage:
