Oct 12 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Patricia Daddona The Day, New London, Conn.

Staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission want commissioners to rewrite federal regulations to reflect security improvements put in place at nuclear reactors after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

On Wednesday, Luis A. Reyes, executive director of operations for the NRC, released a report completed in September on how nuclear reactor owners have improved their response to major emergencies. The agency limits the specifics it provides to the public, citing the sensitivity of security matters.

"This is really aimed at improving emergency planning," said Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman.

Proposed revisions to federal regulations could include, for instance, dedicating key staff to emergency response on every shift. The way reactors are run today, if there were a terrorist attack at a reactor, plant operators would be responsible for managing the actual emergency "plus communicating it to the outside world," Sheehan said.

Another recommendation involves setting up additional emergency communication sites in addition to the ones nuclear reactor owners now use. Staff at Millstone Power Station in Waterford, for instance, would go to the Armory in Hartford for a facility to relay information to public officials and the public at large in an emergency.

Reyes also suggested requiring reactor owners to "beef up" existing emergency communication sites, Sheehan said.

Based on more than 700 comments and input from the public and emergency officials at a conference in Maryland last fall, Reyes also suggested the NRC require immediate public notification of security incidents, Sheehan said. Conference participants pointed to critical lags in the time it took reactor owners to alert the public to incidents at the plants, he said.

Reyes also recommended conducting a new study of evacuation planning. Instead of updating evacuation plans every 10 years in connection with the census, as is the case now, updates could be required when population spikes or land use changes significantly, Sheehan said.

The recommendations do not address the National Academy of Sciences' criticism of the vulnerability of spent fuel pools used to cool and store radioactive waste, Sheehan said. The agency is studying that issue separately, he said.

Paul Gunter, who is director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear Information Resource Service, said the proposals are not far-reaching in that they fail to address how reactor owners would handle "fast-breaking" terrorist events.

Gunter also said the proposals fall short because they do not mandate change, but instead allow the NRC to oversee individual reactor owners' performance, thereby giving the NRC "no way to enforce" the recommended revisions. Reyes' proposals also fail to adhere to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which requires all emergency sirens used to alert the public to have backup power, Gunter said.