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NRC inforamtion sources
I have gotten six useful (sometimes contradictory) replies from my
radsafe post, and a lot of "me too" replies. here is a summation of
the useful replies and associated commentary that came with them. I
got enough "What did you find out ?" replies that I felt I should post
this. These responses have had identifying info taken out to the best
of my ability.
=============
1.
I am writing to give you some bad news. I have spoken with a
OPA (publc affairs) at the NRC. The person in charge of this is
a Mr. Victor L. Dricks at 301-415-8204.
- the site is down because the "NRC was crucified in the media for
having a controversial document on the site." I believe that the
document was the jet into the reactor containment report.
- there is no date when the site is going to be returned (even in
part).
- the NRC has no plan to review the documents on the site to
determine if they should be on or off. That is, they are not
presently reviewing the materials on the site to determine if they
should be on or off. (?)
- the NRC is still developing a plan to plan on how to implement a
review system on the site and new documents.
- the NRC will not be putting things of obvious "no terrorist threat"
(like the 8 series of Reg Guides, how to apply for an NRC license,
how to renew an NRC license, etc.) up until the review is completed.
- the NRC answer to every request is to "call the PDR Public Document
Room and get it from them."
- the NRC feels a greater duty to the safety of the American people
than making any quick move to get the information needed by their
licensee's or the public back up quickly.
- I was asked for who I am, who I work for, where I am, my position,
what information I "thought" I needed, and why I needed the
information. When he found I was in an agreement state the little
help I was getting went to a "why do you want it from the NRC - call
your state program." My answers that the state was directing us to
pages on the NRC website (now unavailable) were met with a kind of
"that is your problem" and again a go to the PDR.
[The non sequiteur in this statement is of course, the Agreement States
don't do nuclear power plants, what are they supposed to provide for
those requests? -ZAC]
- My not too gentle reminders that the NRC was a government agency
that has both an internal safety duty (to shut down the website and
check for sensative materials) and a responsibility to the licensee's
and public to make public information available to the public were
simply pushed aside.
If you push you will get the "who are you, who do you work for, what
is your position, why do you need this information" followed by the
"well I guess YOU are not concerned about how terrorists could use
this information?" It is a catch 22. What I (and I think all of us)
expect is that the NRC will get a program going to restore as much of
the website as possible and as soon as possible. There seem to be no
plans to do that.
===========
2.
As for the NRC website, please understand from where the organization
is coming. Although the information has been readily available for
some
time, the NRC is attempting to minimize the potential for organizations
and individuals to mis-use ANY information provided on the website. I
hope you would agree it is more prudent to fail conservatively in this
arena. As the "official" NRC response has stated, the staff is working
to restore the information as soon as safely possible. Indeed, even
those of us within the organization have been restricted from the
information.
Does this cause an inconvenience? Absolutely.
As you most likely know, the mission of the NRC is to protect the
health and safety of the public in regards to SNM usage and byproducts.
I
view this temporary minor inconvenience well worth the final result of
eliminating one source of sensitive information to those who would
misuse it.
The NRC has been redesigning its website for several months to achieve
a more user-friendly interface. This temporary shutdown has provided
an
impetus for the website designers to speed along the implementation.
============
3.
You may be able to get the information you need from INPO. It may not
be as timely as NRC's but it should be better than no information at
all.
You will have to contact INPO to set up authorization to access their
site,
if you haven't done so already.
============
4.
I don't know of any recourse other than to find out how the NRC was
getting
their info about the plants and get yourself put on automatic cc: from
there.
Might have to call all the plants--you know they're still reporting to
the NRC
every day.
============
5.
A FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request might work. But, given the
time
allowed for them to respond it would no longer be timely information.
============
6.
When the site comes back up, it may still restrict access to some areas
and
require a password to get the information.
=====
- A day without radiation would be a day without sunshine.
Zack Clayton
Columbus, Ohio, USA
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