Why You Can't Trust Joe Mangano and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League on Radiation and Public Health

More than a few folks have passed along a news clip to us from The Chattanoogan detailing another "study" by Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) claiming that they've discovered higher mortality rates in populations living near the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. We don't believe this study is credible.

Mangano and company are making these claims despite the fact that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the radiation that a typical American is exposed to over the course of a year. Meanwhile, exposures from life saving medical procedures like CT scans and X-Rays account for about 50%.

Putting that aside, a number of third party experts and journalists have regularly taken turns debunking Mangano's research. In 2011, Michael Moyer of Scientific American said the following about one Mangano study that claimed Americans were suffering from severe health effects in the wake of Fukushima:

[A] check reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths.

[...]

Only by explicitly excluding data from January and February were Sherman and Mangano able to froth up their specious statistical scaremongering.

This is not to say that the radiation from Fukushima is not dangerous, nor that we shouldn’t closely monitor its potential to spread (we should). But picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics. Beware those who would confuse the latter with the former.

Here's a statement from Ralph Andersen, NEI's chief health physicist regarding Mangano's track record:

Mr. Mangano's allegations of health effects associated with emissions from nuclear power plants have been reviewed in detail and repeatedly discredited by at least 8 state and 2 county public health departments, as well as the USNRC, as follows:

USNRC; State of Connecticut; State of Florida; State of Illinois; State of New Jersey; State of New York; State of Pennsylvania; State of Minnesota; State of Michigan; Westchester County, NY and Suffolk County, NY.

In fact, we are not aware of any federal, state, or local government public health departments that have reviewed Mr. Mangano's allegations and found them to be credible.

As for BREDL, they have a dubious track record of their own. Back in 2007, our own David Bradish took a closer look at some of BREDL's claims in regards to Plant Vogtle in Georgia and found ample evidence that BREDL manipulated the numbers to "fit their presumptive conclusions."

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Experts Weigh In: Joseph Mangano Study Hopelessly Flawed

For the nuclear industry, safety is the top priority, and it goes to great lengths to minimize radiation exposure to the public and employees. So exhaustive are these measures that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the annual radiation that a typical American is exposed to. Nearly half come from medical exposures.

Yet Joseph Mangano seems intent on repeatedly and falsely stating otherwise. Most recently, Mangano published a study that suggests a correlation exists between the closing of Rancho Seco and the decline in cancer rates in the surrounding area. We responded by reminding the media to consider Mangano's lack of credibility when it comes to "scientific findings" before distributing the study to their readers. This week, local Pennsylvania experts came to the same conclusion about his bogus work. An especially compelling statement comes from the state's director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection:

David J. Allard, director of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Radiation Protection, oversees nine active nuclear power plants on five sites throughout the state. DEP also oversees licensing for medical, academic, industrial type of sources of radiation including nearly 30,000 pieces of x-ray equipment in facilities, half of which are used by dentists.

“The technical reality with these nuclear power plants is that under the federal regulations, Title 10, Part 50, in the code of federal regulations, these power plants can’t emit liquid and airborne radiation that cause greater than three millirem of radiation,” says Allard.

“We see lots of background (radiation) and it’s only when you have Chernobyl or Fukushima where you actually see material on our samples other than the natural background and some residual fallout from the 50s and 60s. We monitor this and quite honestly at those kinds of levels, it’s really, really difficult to measure.”

According to Allard, radon, chemical exposures, genetics and lifestyles may have more impact on the prevalence of cancer rates.

“The problem is that correlation does not mean causation just because people live next to a power plant,” he says. “People are moving in and out. There are other major sources of radiation exposure that the public gets that really swamp whatever little radiation does come from the nuclear plant. The big one is the medical screenings…In these studies, whether by the NRC or Mr. Mangano, you have to control for those other sources of exposure.”

If his word isn't good enough, check out our past coverage of Mangano's sloppy research (a generous phrase for his work). The fact remains that America's nuclear plants are proven to be safe and continue to operate according to rigorous and comprehensive safety standards.

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The State-of-Play of Nuclear Safety After Fukushima

If anything set the table for the American nuclear industry’s response to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi, it was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. After that event, the security of all essential infrastructure was rethought. For all kinds of power plants, an important issue was keeping them functional after a devastating attack.

What happened at Fukushima was a devastating attack, albeit one without human agency. Because of the 2001 terrorist attack, the American industry was in many ways much better prepared for such an episode than the Japanese industry; still, Fukushima presented new lessons to be learned and new ways to enhance safety. The first lesson: never let a disaster go to waste. It has a lot to teach you.

The industry and the NRC are in broad agreement on the high-priority actions that should be taken at America's reactors. The industry's Fukushima response priority has been to identify those activities that provide maximum tangible safety benefits in the shortest time and implement them first.

That’s Anthony Pietrangelo, NEI’s senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, and he gets right to plant and public safety – “provide maximum tangible safety benefits in the shortest time.” The earthquake in Japan was unpredicted, but the workers at Fukushima Daiichi were already working to bring the reactors offline when the tsunami hit. That swept away the emergency generators and other emergency equipment.

The greatest safety improvement to protect against extreme events, regardless of their cause, comes from the FLEX response strategy that the industry began implementing last year. The heart of this effort is adding more portable, backup safety equipment at each reactor. More than 1,500 pieces of equipment have been acquired or ordered, including portable generators, diesel-driven pumps and satellite phones. The additional portable equipment will provide power and water to maintain key safety functions in the absence of AC power and heat transfer capability from permanently installed safety systems. These functions are reactor core cooling, used fuel pool cooling and containment integrity.

We may say, though, that the Fukushima workers didn’t expect emergency gear to wash away. Though the FLEX equipment is stowed at the facilities in order to prevent being destroyed, what if it were anyway? How do the plant workers deal with that?

In addition to new equipment being placed at all U.S. reactors, the industry is developing regional response centers in Memphis and Phoenix that will serve as dispatch points for additional equipment and resources. The regional response centers will be capable of delivering another full set of portable safety equipment, radiation protection equipment, electrical generators, pumps and other emergency response equipment to an affected site within 24 hours after an extreme event.

Of course, the world came together to offer help to the Japanese as needed and requested. Why not formalize that effort to respond to emergencies here and internationally?

In addition, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations has upgraded its emergency response center, and the facility is operational. This center will facilitate the sharing of equipment and technical expertise whenever and wherever it is needed. Thus, between the equipment available via the regional response centers and the equipment purchased by each site, the industry will have significantly enhanced its capability to assist any site in an emergency.

INPO is the right venue for this because it already maintains a database of parts available at the various facilities.

Pietrangelo also addresses what the industry and NRC have done to deal with the most frightening aspect of a nuclear energy accident, the potential release of radiation. It is potential rather than inevitable; the goal is to keep it in the former category. The best answer is to install a filtering option well suited to the nature of each facility and the potential threats it faces, but the NRC and regulators in general tend to prefer singular solutions.

One prominent area of industry/NRC interactions of late is the NRC staff recommendation for external, filtered containment vents for boiling water reactors with Mark I and II containments. The Electric Power Research Institute concluded after intensive analysis that filtered vents aren't necessarily the most effective way to filter potential radioactive releases from fuel damage. The industry believes the optimal filtration method should be determined on a plant-specific basis. The NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards shares that view. The five-member Commission ultimately will decide the future course of action in this area.

If it were just the industry wanting this flexibility, one might conclude that it smells cynically of an industry wanting to go cheap, safety be damned. But no: the approach is probably not, in aggregate, the least expensive way to address filtering, but it acknowledges that a large country provides a range of potential disaster scenarios that are not the same from one to another region. That’s one thing – well, two things. More importantly, other regulatory bodies and watchdogs believe it is the correct approach, too. I’m not sure this quite rises to the level of a contention. We’ll see how it goes.

Pietrangelo makes a simple, strong case for nuclear energy.

Because the long-term fundamentals show a continued, if not growing, need for nuclear energy around the globe, it is paramount that existing facilities are operated safely even as advanced-design reactors are brought to market in the years ahead. Innovation, knowledge transfer, training, and strong safety cultures are among the elements that will define the future ability of nuclear energy technologies to help meet societal needs.

There are a lot of moving parts to this piece, written for Power Engineering. I’ve focused on some key safety points here, but there’s more, including a section on industrial preparedness and another on regulation. The whole thing is worth a careful read if you’re interested in the state of play of post-Fukushima safety planning.

For a little more background, here is NEI’s video on FLEX:

A detailed overview of the nuclear industry's FLEX approach to enhancing safety post Fukushima.

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The FLEX Solution: America's Nuclear Industry Responds to Fukushima

Earlier today, the Nuclear Energy Institute released a five-minute video explaining the comprehensive and tailored response strategy that it is implementing across the industry to enhance nuclear plant safety in the face of extreme natural events.

To produce the high-definition video, NEI acquired first-of-its kind footage of the deployment of new emergency response equipment at U.S. nuclear energy facilities. The video also features animation and interviews with industry leaders and technical staff discussing nuclear plant safety.


The diverse and flexible (“FLEX”) response strategy developed by industry addresses the major challenges encountered at the Fukushima Daiichi power station following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami: the loss of power to maintain effective reactor fuel cooling.

Additional on-site portable equipment is being acquired to help ensure that every U.S. nuclear energy facility can respond safely to extreme events, no matter what the cause. The equipment ranges from diesel-driven pumps and electric generators to ventilation fans, hoses, fittings, cables and satellite communications gear. It also includes support materials for emergency responders. For additional information concerning how the American nuclear energy is applying lessons learned from Fukushima, please visit the Fukushima response section of NEI.org.

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Guest Post: Responding to Anti-Nuclear Fearmongering

Earlier today, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Phillip Lipscy, Kenji Kushida and and Trevor Incert entitled, "Protecting nuclear plants from nature's worst." Steve Kerekes, NEI's Director of Media Relations, left the following comment in response at WashingtonPost.com:

This is a pathetic case of opportunistic fear-mongering. To the extent that there really is public concern about U.S. nuclear plants’ ability to withstand extreme events, it centers around what MIGHT happen in fantastical scenarios. This week, here’s what actually DID happen: The largest Atlantic storm ever recorded slammed into the New Jersey shore, creating record human and property devastation, yet every nuclear energy facility in this super-storm’s path – including the oldest nuclear plant in operation – managed through it safely and expertly with no threat or damage. Every … single … one.

Does this mean we should stop looking for safer ways to operate? Of course not, and we never will. At this very moment, the public has the opportunity to comment to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on draft guidance that nuclear energy facilities would use to perform flooding hazard assessments as part of the response activities under way to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. This is being done with an eye toward providing another layer of protection above and beyond those that already exist and that make nuclear energy facilities exceedingly capable of withstanding extreme events of all kinds.

The authors – who somehow seem to think that natural events can affect only nuclear facilities and nothing else around them – are simply are wrong in claiming that facilities on the Eastern seaboard have “minimal protection” against inundation. The Salem/Hope Creek plant, for example, is designed for a category 4 hurricane arriving during high tide and a full moon. During Hurricane Sandy, the plant saw river levels consistent with some of the highest levels in its past (between 97 and 98 feet). This was still below the facility’s site grade and more than 20 feet below the water levels it is designed for.

As objective observers seek to better cope with devastating events like Hurricane Sandy, it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll identify other priorities for action before they feel a need to better fortify the nuclear energy facilities that are our nation’s largest source of low-carbon electricity.

For the latest information on how the nuclear industry has been applying lessons learned from Fukushima since the March 2011 accident, please visit SafetyFirst.nei.org.

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You're welcome, Mr. Lochbaum

One of the blogs we regularly monitor is All Things Nuclear, the blog on commercial nuclear energy sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

It was impossible to miss this passage in a post published there yesterday by David Lochbaum. He wrote the following after participating in a panel discussion on industry safety at the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly:

Before closing, I wish to express my appreciation to Marv Fertel, Tony Pietrangelo and NEI for including me on this panel. They knew beforehand that my views would not align with theirs and could have easily and justifiably not invited me to the panel. I applaud Marv and Tony for soliciting a broader spectrum of viewpoints.

You're welcome, Mr. Lochbaum.

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UCS Channels Goldilocks In Response to Fukushima

NEI's Senior Vice President of Communications, Scott Peterson, passed along the following note concerning last week's report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, "U.S. Nuclear Power Safety One Year After Fukushima."

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has weighed in on the U.S. response to Fukushima and their conclusion is clear: We’re moving too slowly….No, wait, we’re moving too fast!...Check that, too slow!

Taking a page from Goldilocks, who couldn’t seem to find the right size chair, UCS can’t seem to find the right speed for applying lessons learned in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan a year ago.

After first praising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for reacting quickly to the events in Japan, a new UCS report prods the agency to move faster. Then report declares that “speed is not always a virtue.” In the most remarkable twist of logic, UCS criticizes the nuclear energy industry for “acting too hastily by launching a voluntary program” to improve safety.

Really? Moving too quickly to improve safety?

At least the UCS report got something right. The industry is not waiting for orders from the NRC to act. Our FLEX strategy protects against the two main safety issues at Fukushima¬—the loss of electrical power and the loss of cooling capability—by stationing emergency backup equipment in multiple locations, including regional centers.

Every U.S. nuclear operator has committed to order additional equipment by the end of the month, and more than 300 pieces of backup emergency equipment has already been delivered or ordered. Rather than applauding these proactive safety measures, UCS complains that the industry is “jumping the gun” by getting ahead of the NRC.

The industry and the NRC are in general agreement on the issues that need to be addressed, but the regulatory process takes time. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the NRC fast-tracked the industry’s safety response by issuing a series of orders, with a deadline of October 2004.

After the industry met that deadline, the NRC began a rulemaking process to codify the orders and essentially get its procedural/bureaucratic house in order. Along the way, it added a few more requirements that weren’t finalized until close to the end of the decade. In that case, UCS distorts the facts to complain that the industry’s response was too slow.

Now that we are moving even more quickly to respond to Fukushima, UCS says we are going too fast. Does UCS seriously believe we should just sit and wait while the NRC process unfolds? We see ways to strengthen our defenses against extreme events now, and we are acting. To do otherwise would be an abrogation of our responsibility.

The NRC will oversee our safety enhancements, and will not hesitate tell us to do something more or something different—backed by the agency’s full enforcement authority—as the regulatory process plays out.

That approach might not satisfy Goldilocks or UCS, but we think it is juuuuust right to ensure that lessons learned from Japan are applied as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Scott also contributes on occasion to the Huffington Post.

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