Almost three years after the accident at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a delegation
from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
travelled to Japan.
NRC experts assisted the Japanese government
after the accident, but this was the first
time many of the NRC officials responsible
for reactor safety in this country had been
able to talk to those involved, and see firsthand
the lingering effects of the accident.
Despite the passage of time and the amount
of cleanup work completed, many reminders
of the earthquake and tsunami remain.
But the starkest images for the NRC delegation
were the deserted areas nearby.
Tens of thousands of people displaced by this
accident, and that picture in my mind I don't
think will ever go away.
And it just drives home to me how important
our jobs are.
You know it's tough to go up there and to
see the homes that won't be inhabited again,
to see the businesses that have stock inside
of them and inventory inside of them that
won't be used anymore, to see the farms that
won't be cultivated again.
Going through these little towns that were
evacuated, never going to be able to return
again or maybe decades before people can return.
And so it really struck in me, we not only
need to prevent accidents from happening,
but we need to be prepared should the unexpected
happen.
The NRC group spent many hours discussing
their impressions with many different perspectives,
but they all agreed that the trip was memorable
and important.
I don't know of any other way I could have
achieved the same level of understanding of
what happened here, and what the people on
site and the people in the surrounding communities
went through.
Today the Fukushima Daiichi site is home to
many large tanks filled with contaminated
water and bags filled with contaminated soil
and debris.
Although the radiation levels have dropped,
workers and those touring the site still wear
respirators and protective clothing.
It is impossible to imagine what it must have
been like in March 2011 when the earthquake
and tsunami hit the site, but the NRC officials
saw a simulation that came eerily close.
Sound of control room alarms and nuclear plant
operators speaking Japanese
And the NRC group also heard firsthand accounts
form those who had been working during the
accident.
He said we frequently conducted drills, but
what I saw on that day was totally bigger
than what I had trained for.
I was convinced I would never see anything
worse.
This was an event that was beyond anything
that they had prepared for, that they had
trained for, that they expected.
Quite frankly, it was something beyond their
imagination.
The experiences that they had at Daiichi with
respect to no indications, not knowing what
the explosion was or was not.
They were a staff that went over two weeks
without knowing the status of their families
in terms of "were they safe?"
You know "how had they been impacted by the
natural event -- the earthquake and the tsunami?"
The feeling of helplessness in the face of
natural events was a strong message for some
on the trip.
This happened because of a natural disaster
and I don't care how smart we are, and I don't
care how advanced we are.
We don't control natural disasters.
For more than two and a half years, the NRC
has used that unpredictability of natural
events magnified by the experiences in Japan
to develop a list of lessons learned from
the accident.
This trip provided even more focus on that
area because many of those involved are the
very people responsible for making U.S. nuclear
plants safer.
Seeing the damage from the tsunami and the
earthquake really brought home the challenges
that we're facing and the importance of the
work that we're doing now in terms of examining
what we need to do for U.S. plants.
I think what we tried to do with the lessons
learned, as we were trying to implement those
shortly after the event, was to ensure that
we gave the operators -- the people at the
plant -- the better tools to deal with something
that's unexpected, when it goes beyond what
you are normally expected to face with accidents.
: We need to make sure that was as a regulator
and the industry that we regulate has the
capabilities to deal with events that we don't
anticipate.
I have some pretty high confidence that the
things that we have instituted and are instituting
in the United States are the right primary
things that we should be doing to improve
and enhance safety.
Safety is not a stagnant endpoint.
You always have to keep looking.
Stay active.
Don't ever think that it can't happen.
It can happen.
It has happened.
Don't allow it to happen again.
