Nuclear Power Plant Severe Accident Research Plan

In 1986, the Three Mile Island Public Health Fund commissioned a national team of researchers to prepare an alternative emergency plan for the region around the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. This nontechnical book, addressed to emergency workers, the public and policymakers, presents the results of their research in the form of a bold plan that is applicable to any nuclear plant emergency. It builds on the principles that local knowledge is valuable, not unsophisticated, that communities are adaptive, not inflexible, and that information must be made available and accessible to the people who most need it.

This book appraises the current understanding of nuclear power plant accidents and the challenges posed to emergency planners. The contributors address the crucial need for real-time monitoring of both the development of the accident and the dispersion of radiation into the atmosphere.