As the world’s attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.
But the emergency plan for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the California coast, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, does not include a ready response for an accident triggered by an earthquake. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.
As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan — one of the world’s most proficient engineering powers — the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?