STAR continues to engage in legal interventions to bring key policies
up to date. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
considers terrorist acts against reactor spent-fuel pools
"unforeseeable" and therefore excludes them from safety regulations.
Equally disturbing, when the NRC does consider the possibility of a
terrorist attack, its scenarios show a four-person team as the maximum
credible threat against a nuclear plant. Under this assumption, mock
terrorist attacks conducted at nuclear power plants have succeeded an
astounding 50 percent of the time.
In November 2001, STAR filed litigation to block the Millstone Nuclear
Power Station from doubling the amount of spent nuclear fuel stored in a
vulnerable spent-fuel pool—which would have greatly increased the
potential danger if subjected to a terrorist attack. Since then we've
been working to get immediate protective actions implemented at Millstone. Specifically, our lawsuit demands the creation of a national program to place spent fuel safely into hardened steel and concrete for dry onsite storage containers. The outcome of this pending litigation will have major national implications.
STAR is concurrently using other NRC licensing and enforcement cases
to highlight the problems of nuclear plants and force legal and political
action.
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