ANN ARBOR, MI – On a day when temperatures dropped to 18 degrees below zero, it’s hard to think about much else.
But Ann Arbor officials have another thing on their minds: preparing for a potential future nuclear disaster.
City Council will consider a resolution Monday, Feb. 4 calling for strengthening local emergency planning by stockpiling nonprescription potassium iodide in communities within 50 miles of the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in southeast Michigan.
Ann Arbor is roughly 30 miles from the Fermi 2 plant on the shore of Lake Erie.
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The American Thyroid Association has called for pre-distribution of potassium iodide, also known as KI, to households within a 10-mile radius of nuclear power plants such as Fermi 2, and stockpiling it in public facilities such as schools, hospitals, clinics, post offices and police and fire stations in up to a 50-mile radius.
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The Fermi 2 plant is similar in design to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with a Mark 1 boiling water reactor, he said.
“This is a particularly controversial design,” he said. “The multiple-containment failure at Fukushima Daiichi demonstrated that this a vulnerable design. And while the circumstances of the Fukushima Daiichi accident were clearly unique, the problem of course is that there is a design flaw in the Mark 1 boiling water reactor design, that the containment is essentially too small.”
