Reports on the status of the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant failure continue to be confusing. US officials warn military and civilian personnel to evacuate to a minimum of 50 miles from the plant while Japanese officials limit evacuation to a 12 mile radius. Expanding the evacuation zone will increase the number of people displaced from their homes from tens of thousands to over a million and a half.

In 1985 the NRC acknowledged that a severe core melt down could occur in the United States. They’ve known all along here in this country that disaster could come and with 23 plants similar in design to the Fukushima GE Mark 1 reactors a similar loss of containment is highly possible. (see video below)

Nuclear reactors using the GE Mark 1 BW Reactors

There are 23 GE Mark1 Boiling Water Reactors in the U.S. of the same design as those at Fukushima. This list from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission shows which designs are Boiling Water or Pressurized Water reactors. Here is the list of Mark I BWRs in the country.

Browns Ferry 1,2,3 (W of Huntsville, AL); Brunswick 1,2, ( 40 miles W of Wilmington,NC), Cooper (23 miles south of Nebraksa City, NE), Dresden 2,3 (25 miles SW of Joliet, IL), Duane Arnold ( 8 miles NW of Cedar Rapids, IA), Fermi 2 (24 miles NE of Toledo, IL), FitzPatrick (6 miles NE of Oswego, NY), Hatch 1,2 (20 miles S of Vidalia, GA), Hope Creek 1 (18 miles SE of Wilmington, DE), Monticello (35 miles NW of Minneapolis, MN), Nine Mile Point 1 (6 miles NE of Oswego, NY), Oyster Creek (9 miles S of Toms River, NJ), Peach Bottom 2,3 (17.9 miles S of Lancaster, PA), Pilgrim 1 (38 miles SE of Boston, MA), Quad Cities 1,2 (20 miles NE of Moline, IL), Vermont Yankee (5 miles S of Brattleboro, VT).

Karl Grossman, investigative journalist and professor of journalism at SUNY College at Old Westbury speaks with Democracy Now

JUAN GONZALEZ: You’re saying that the NRC itself estimated a 50/50 chance of a meltdown in our plants here within 20 years?

KARL GROSSMAN: Over a 20-year period. That was formal testimony provided to a watchdog committee in Congress chaired by Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, when he asked the question, “What does the NRC and its staff believe the likelihood to be of a severe core meltdown?” So, you know, when you hear these lines about, “Oh, the chances of a severe core meltdown, infinitesimal,” and if there is, like you’re hearing these reports out of Japan, an accident, “Oh, just some minor effects among the population”—not at all.

You go to the documents. And many of them were, well, secret for years. In my book—I did a book in 1980, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know about Nuclear Power—there’s a line in a Atomic Energy Commission report, “WASH-740-Update”: “The possible size of the area of such a disaster”—this is a meltdown with loss of containment—”might be equal to that of the State of Pennsylvania”—in other words, covering the whole state of what would be the state of Pennsylvania, which almost occurred with the Three Mile Island accident. We’re talking about huge disasters here. And with a loss of water accident in a spent fuel pool, because you’ve got much more nuclear garbage—and again, no containment—it would be even worse.