"Quake Risk Exceeds Licensed Limits at U.S. Nuclear Plants"

"WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren today called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to direct the licensees of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and Seabrook Station in New Hampshire to immediately implement mitigation measures against seismic risks that were previously unknown.

Reports released Thursday by the NRC reveal that dozens of reactors that reassessed their vulnerability to earthquakes in the wake of the March 2011 meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are at greater risk than they were originally licensed to withstand.

'We were alarmed to discover that of the dozens of reactors that re-assessed their vulnerability to earthquakes in the wake of the Fukushima meltdowns, the newly evaluated seismic risk at both Pilgrim and Seabrook is larger than the risk the reactors were originally licensed to withstand,' write the Senators in the letter to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane."

Environment News Service had the story April 18, 2014.