Nuclear Power and Environmental Justice:

A Mixed-Methods Study of Risk, Vulnerability, and the Victim Experience

Elicia Cousins, Claire Karban, Fay Li, and Marianna Zapanta
Carleton College, Environmental Studies Comprehensive Project
Northfield, MN, USA

We hereby give permission for the Carleton Environmental Studies program to use and
reproduce this paper for education purposes, citing us as the authors. (The authors do not forego
copyright protection.)
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the many people who helped us through the senior
comprehensive exercise process. Without all of the support and assistance we received, we could
not have succeeded. We would especially like to thank our advisor, Kim Smith. Her insights and
advice were invaluable, both in preparing us for the experience and in helping us complete our
research and writing.
We would also like to thank Mark Kanazawa for helping us understand the methodology
and framework behind our project, and Tsegaye Nega in helping us frame our project
successfully.
We would like to thank Laura Chihara, for her patience and expertise with statistical
testing, and Joel Weisberg for all of his inspiration and support. In addition, Mallika Jayaraman
and William Mekeel both provided important assistance with the GIS analysis.
Finally, we would like to thank all of our family and friends for their support and
assistance during this process. We would especially like to thank Steve Cousins, Chenyang Li,
Rick Karban, and Megan Zapanta for their time and effort spent reading and editing our very
long drafts. Thank you all so very much.

Abstract: This study examines the social cost of nuclear power by focusing on the vulnerability
of disadvantaged populations and the potential harm they face in the case of a nuclear accident.
We begin with a spatial analysis of the distribution of nuclear reactors in the Eastern United
States. The distance-based method of centroid containment is used to identify zones of impact of
potential accidents at commercial reactors. Census data and Fishers exact tests are used to
compare the percentages of people of color, low-income people, women, children, and the
elderly in the Eastern U.S. to the percentages living inside the zones of impact. Results indicate
that nuclear reactors are located in areas with high proportions of certain populations (non-white
Hispanics, women, children and the elderly; p < 0.001). By examining the experiences of victims
of the nuclear accidents at Fukushima Daiichi, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, we illustrate
how this proximity to nuclear reactors translates into actual experience in the case of a nuclear
accident, with a focus on the social dimension of harm. Well-documented trends of social
vulnerability in the United States suggest that the most disadvantaged populations are more
likely to experience these social harms. However, current policy makers tend to ignore the needs
of these groups, which may further heighten their vulnerability. We argue that the utilitarian
framework currently used to create nuclear safeguarding policy is at the root of this lack of
recognition. Shifting to a Rawlsian approach to justice could allow for proper recognition of
vulnerable populations, leading to policy changes that protect these populations from further
harm without necessarily increasing costs to government.

Table of Contents
I.

Introduction .................................................................................................. 4

II.

Justice Framework ....................................................................................... 5

What is Environmental Justice? ................................................................................. 5
Origins ................................................................................................................ 5
Vulnerability ....................................................................................................... 5
Criticisms and Responses ................................................................................... 6
What is Justice? ............................................................................................................ 7
Utilitarianism and the Problems Associated ...................................................... 8
Rawlsian Theory of Justice ................................................................................. 8
Beyond Rawls: Recognition ................................................................................ 9
Nuclear Power and Environmental Justice ................................................................ 9

III.

Spatial Distribution of Nuclear Hazards ................................................... 11

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 11
Methods ....................................................................................................................... 12
Results .......................................................................................................................... 15
Vogtle Results ................................................................................................... 17
Discussion .................................................................................................................... 18

IV.

Social Vulnerability and the Victim Experience ........................................ 19

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 19
Methods ....................................................................................................................... 21
Findings ....................................................................................................................... 23
Uncertainty ....................................................................................................... 23
Displacement .................................................................................................... 26
Cultural Pressure ............................................................................................. 28
Social Rejection ................................................................................................ 30
Discussion .................................................................................................................... 32

V.

Analysis of Policy ..................................................................................... 34

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 34
Regulation and Legislation ........................................................................................ 35
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ............................................................... 35
Environmental Justice Policy ........................................................................... 36
Failure in Regulation Implementation ..................................................................... 37
Path to Recognition ................................................................................................... 39
Political Environment ....................................................................................... 39
Shifting Theoretical Frameworks ..................................................................... 40

VI.

Conclusions and Further Research ............................................................ 41

Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 41
Limitations and Further Research............................................................................ 43

I.

Introduction
Amidst growing concerns about global climate change, nuclear power generation has

increasingly been framed as a clean and safe alternative to the use of fossil fuels (Sailor et al.
2000). However, numerous examples of environmental injustice in the mining, fuel enrichmentfabrication, and waste-management stages of the US commercial nuclear-fuel cycle suggest that
nuclear power generation is in fact fraught with issues of human health, safety, and justice
(Alldred and Shrader-Frechette 2009). Close to 40% of the US population lives within a 50-mile
radius of a nuclear power plant, and the number of people living near nuclear power plants has
increased 4.5 times since 1980 (US Census Bureau). This study investigates whether the risks of
nuclear power are unfairly distributed across the population by way of nuclear reactor siting, and
the extent to which already disadvantaged groups are exposed to further harms.
We begin with an analysis of the spatial distribution of nuclear power plants in the
Eastern United States, concluding that nuclear reactors are indeed situated in areas with high
proportions of certain vulnerable populations (non-white Hispanics, women, children and the
elderly). Furthermore, the only nuclear facility that has been sited after the Three Mile Island
accident of 1979 is situated in an area with a disproportionately large population of African
Americans and people below the poverty line. We then illustrate what this physical proximity
would mean in the case of an accident by exploring the victim experiences of the three main
nuclear power plant accidents in history: Fukushima Daiichi, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island
(TMI). In doing so, we highlight some of the most profound social risks associated with nuclear
power that are often overlooked, largely because of difficulties in quantifying and addressing
them. Well-documented patterns of social vulnerability in the United States suggest that the most
disadvantaged populations would likely experience these costs to a greater extent in the case of
an accident.
Under a Rawlsian perspective, it is unjust that disadvantaged populations are further
harmed by the unequal distribution of nuclear power plants. However, because policies are
created under a utilitarian framework, current nuclear energy safeguarding policy does not
necessarily treat this situation as unjust. We suggest that on top of reducing overall risk, nuclear
safeguarding policy should provide recognition to the most vulnerable populations and protect
them from further harm. With a shift towards a Rawlsian framework of justice, the government

could achieve these goals without necessarily creating additional costs or decreasing the societal
benefits of nuclear power.
Our mixed-methods study is interdisciplinary in that it explores the strengths and
limitations of multiple disciplinary perspectives on the concepts of justice and risk. We argue
that it is the differing approach to these two key concepts that causes divergence and disconnect
in the discourse about the costs of nuclear power. In this, there is hope that a reexamination of
the meaning of justice and risk within the realm of nuclear energy safeguarding policy may allow
for the reduction and/or elimination of injustices in the current distribution of vulnerability to the
risks of nuclear power production in the United States.

II.

Justice Framework

What is Environmental Justice?

Origins
Many narratives describe the environmental justice movement as beginning in 1982 at
Warren County, North Carolina (Washington 2010). Claims of environmental racism arose after
a toxic waste dump was placed in Afton, a poor community that was more than 84% black
(Bullard 1990). Subsequent empirical research, beginning with the seminal study by the United
Church of Christ (1987), has shown that low-income communities and communities of color are
disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. The use of improved methodologies
involving Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and more sophisticated statistical methods has
strengthened this claim (Bullard et al. 2007). Recent literature has revealed environmental
injustices in the distribution of other environmental harms such as air pollution (Gordon et al.
2010) and soil lead (Zhuo et al. 2012). People of color and low-income people are also more
vulnerable due to factors like low socioeconomic status and institutional racism and oppression
when exposed to harms (Lee 2002).
Vulnerability
The environmental justice agenda has increasingly begun to address vulnerability to the
threats of both natural and technologically produced risks (Walker et al. 2006; Pelling 2005).
While the term vulnerability has been ascribed various definitions (Cutter 1996), it is often
defined in environmental justice literature as the characteristic of a person or group in terms of
their capacity to anticipate, cope with, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard (Blaikie
5

et al. 1994:9). Some groups are inherently more prone to damage, loss and suffering; generally
accepted indicators of social vulnerability include age, gender, race, sexuality, and
socioeconomic status (Cutter 2006). Elderly people, women and non-gender binary identifying
people, queer people, non-white people, and low-income people have more difficulty coping
with harm (Cutter 2006; Pulido 2000). Young children also experience more difficulty coping
with harms (Peek 2008) and are more biologically vulnerable to toxins (Landrigan and Garg
2002).
Blaikie et al. define risk as a combination of vulnerability and hazards, arguing that risk
is the compound intersection of vulnerability (starting from root causes such as limited access to
resources and leading to unsafe conditions such as fragile physical environments and economies)
and hazards (such as earthquakes and flooding) (1994). Cutter argues that because this definition
does not take into account an individuals proximity to the resource, a hazard-of-place approach
is more appropriate in that it describes the place-based interaction between biophysical
vulnerability (exposure) and social vulnerability in an overall determination of the differential
social burdens of hazards and how this relationship changes over time and across space (Cutter
et al. 2009:4). The acknowledgement of both physical and social aspects of risk seems
particularly relevant to risk management, but our analysis of current nuclear policy shows that it
does not in fact characterize or analyze risk in this way.
Criticisms and Responses
It is important to address the main critiques concerning this environmental justice
framework. Most criticisms are related to the following ideas: (1) environmental injustices do not
exist, (2) victims of injustices may economically benefit from the siting, (3) a correlation
between hazards, low-income people, and people of color does not constitute proof of
discriminatory siting, and (4) the solutions to environmental injustices are not feasible (ShraderFrechette 2002). The first of these concerns is addressed by the wealth of environmental justice
literature (described above) that demonstrates the distributive inequalities.
Proponents of the second argument posit that because siting of facilities and hazards may
benefit a community economically, there is not an injustice even if the community is
disproportionately low income or people of color (Ibid.). However, Bullard posits that
environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to
equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulations (Bullard 1996:493).
6

Additionally, because of the lack of power and economic prosperity in these communities,
receiving economic benefits for dangerous environmental hazards can be seen as coercion
(Brook 1998). Even if communities do benefit economically from hazards, this does not mean
that the residents want the hazard in their neighborhood; this can be seen through anti-hazard
protesting in the community. It is also unclear if the benefits actually go to those in the
community who are disproportionately at risk.
The third concern argues that a disproportionate effect on certain groups may not be due
to discriminatory siting because the vulnerable community may have moved in after the siting
process. However, because racial and income-level discrimination can affect access to housing
markets, people of color and low-income people often have less choice about where they can live.
This means that they might not be consciously choosing economic benefits (lower property
values, possible employment, or lower energy costs) over safety from environmental hazards.
Moreover, according to the Rawlsian theory of justice as fairness (discussed below), inequities
(like unequal access to clean water or air) should be distributed to benefit the least well off,
meaning that regardless of why hazards and disadvantaged communities are correlated, there
may still be an injustice.
Finally, many believe that the solutions to environmental justice are vague, infeasible, or
are worse than the injustices themselves (Ibid.). While some of this critique may be true if the
solutions are taken to the extremes (like immediately stopping pollution or immediately moving
all hazards to wealthy neighborhoods), the general idea of identifying, recognizing, and reducing
risks and unjust distribution of harm as much as practically possible is a reasonable goal. This
study focuses on the identification and recognition of risk in regards to nuclear power.
What is Justice?
The dominant utilitarian approach to justice largely overlooks the concerns raised by the
environmental justice movement, which relies on John Rawls notion of justice as fairness.
Although the Rawlsian theory of justice adequately covers distributive justice issues, it is
important to also address concerns of recognition. This study was conducted under the justice
framework of Rawls with the additional concern for recognition.

Utilitarianism and the Problems Associated

Under a utilitarian perspective, an action is acceptable if it promotes overall happiness,
which is aggregated across all of the inhabitantsof society, which might be a single nation
or the whole world (Posner 1981:49). Philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham
advanced this idea, positing that actions should be judged as just and unjust based on whether or
not the action promotes happiness (Lebacqz 1986). Although promoting overall good or
happiness in society is valuable, utilitarianism is problematic because the individuals rights
can be overridden when the greater good demands it (Ibid.: 21). Thus, in a utilitarian society,
some people can suffer greatly as long as the aggregate happiness is still increasing (Posner
1981). Utilitarianism is limited in its view of what is fair or justified because it overlooks the
question of who receives harms and benefits, and is not concerned with basic rights.
Rawlsian Theory of Justice
The limitations associated with utilitarianism lead us to John Rawls theory of justice.
Rawls theory of justice as fairness is a set of principles that are chosen from behind a veil of
ignorance, where one is without the biases associated with knowing his social position or status
(Rawls 1971). Rawls assumes that those in the original position are rational, and he posits that
these rational deciders would choose the two following principles of justice.
The first principle states that each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully
adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of
liberties for all (Rawls 2001:42). Essentially, this guarantees all citizens freedom of speech,
freedom of thought, freedom from assault, and the right to own property (Rawls 1971). In the
second principle, social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to
be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity;
and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(Rawls 2001:42). In other words, unequal distributions can be considered just as long as the
inequalities benefit the less privileged. This principle prevents both benefits and harms from
becoming concentrated. From the original position, people would likely choose this theory of
justice over utilitarianism despite the potential for decreased overall wealth or happiness. The
severity of risks associated with nuclear power production makes Rawls theory of justice most
appropriate for nuclear policy creation.

Beyond Rawls: Recognition

Though Rawls provides a good framework for justice in regards to distribution of harms
and benefits, he does not include a concept of recognition, or acknowledging the validity of
experiences in facing harms. In Defining Environmental Justice, David Scholsberg combines the
traditional distributive justice framework with concepts of recognition. Nancy Fraser and Iris
Young contend that a lack of recognition in the social and political realms, demonstrated by
various forms of insults, degradation, and devaluation at both the individual and cultural level,
inflicts damage to oppressed individuals and communities in the political and cultural realms
(Schlosberg 2007:14). This lack of recognition is not only harmful in and of itself, but it is also
one of the reasons for distributive injustice.
Recognition can exist on a psychological or a social status level. Charles Taylor and Axel
Honneth posit that recognition from others provides an individuals self-worth; Honneth argues
that in order to achieve recognition, individuals must be fully free of physical threats, offered
complete and equal political rights, and have their distinguishing cultural traditions free from
various forms of disparagement (Schlosberg 2007:17). Nancy Fraser, on the other hand, argues
that the concept of recognition exists on a social status and institutional level, as opposed to an
individual experience. Dominant culture supremacy, nonrecognition, and disrespect (such as the
promotion of stereotypes) are three status-based definitions of misrecognition (Ibid.). In this
study, recognition is conceptualized as existing on both the individual and structural level.
The root cause of the maldistribution must be correctly understood in order to effectively
address distributive injustices. Schlosberg suggests that the environmental justice movement
does look beyond distributive justice, and recognizes that inequitable distribution, a lack of
recognition, limited participation, and a critical lack of capabilities, at both the individual and
group level, all work to produce injustice (Ibid.:39).
Nuclear Power and Environmental Justice
As energy consumption continues to increase and Americans worry about dependence on
foreign oil, a greater demand for domestic energy production continues to bring new
environmental justice concerns to light. New grassroots groups have started to organize against
new energy sources such as hydraulic fracturing (Carre 2012; McAdam and Boudet 2012). This
demand for domestic energy raises environmental justice concerns over how Americas energy
future should develop and if vulnerable communities will continue to bear disproportionate
9

burdens from environmental harms. Finally, because nuclear power is a low-carbon energy
source, use of nuclear power may increase due to concerns about global warming and energy
security.
Much of the environmental justice literature regarding nuclear power in the United States
is qualitative and anecdotal, suggesting the presence of injustice related to Indian reservations
and nuclear power (Brook 1998; Angel 1991). Examples of possible environmental injustice in
the siting of nuclear reactors and nuclear waste include the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant
located in Mdewakanton Indian land in Prairie Island, Minnesota (Brook 1998), and another
plant at Point Beach, Wisconsin that is near Menominee territory (Prairie Island Coalition 1996).
Companies like Chem-Nuclear Systems, Inc. have purposefully targeted communities with a
small rural population with stable residency, a relatively low income, a majority of residents
having no more than a high school degree, and a conservative voting record because of a
perceived lack of ability to mobilize in protest (Sherman 2011:81).
There is still a gap in the quantitative environmental justice literature related to nuclear
power. Only one study thus far has used GIS to investigate injustice in the siting of nuclear
power facilities in the United States: Alldred and Shrader-Frechette (2009) compared the
demographics of people within census tracts and zip codes containing nuclear power facilities to
the demographics of state populations and concluded that environmental injustices may be
present within poor communities in the southeastern part of the country. Alldred and ShraderFrechette used the unit-hazard coincidence method, which examines the demographics within
the large geographic unit (such as zip code or census tract) that contain the target facility (Mohai
and Saha 2006). This method is problematic because it assumes equal distribution of harm
throughout the host tract, and does not account for a facility located near the edge of a tract that
could affect neighboring tracts (known as the edge effect). Section III improves upon Alldred
and Shrader-Frechettes study by using distance based methods in order to better examine
whether vulnerable populations are in fact disproportionately impacted by the harms of nuclear
power by way of their proximity.

10

III. Spatial Distribution of Nuclear Hazards

Introduction
The present analysis seeks to improve Alldred and Shrader-Frechettes method by using a
distance-based method in evaluating environmental justice concerns regarding the distribution of
nuclear reactors. Distance-based methods, such as the centroid containment method used in this
study, more accurately examine the demographics of people living nearby a facility (Mohai and
Saha 2007). The centroid containment method examines all geographic units that have their
center within the buffer zone of analysis. We identify all of the nuclear facilities in the Eastern
United States and outline a zone of impact around each facility to approximate the area that
would be most at risk in a nuclear accident.
The current model used by The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for
disaster planning also uses a distance-based approach. In the case of a nuclear accident, the
FEMA model approximates a 10-mile radius evacuation zone and a 50-mile radius
contamination zone from the facility where the emergency occurs. The 10-mile zone is the area
where evacuation plans have been created and rehearsed, while the 50-mile zone lacks such
planning. These zones are based on many considerations, including: airborne and
environmentally carried radiation, the need to assure adequate protection and evacuation,
standard meteorological conditions, time dependent characteristics of potential releases, and
duration in the environment.
In developing these zones, the EPA zones intended for each state to adjust the shape and
size to account for local variations in topography, meteorology, population density and
distribution, land use, transportation access routes, and jurisdictional boundaries (Cutter 1996).
However, no state except for California has done so because of the high cost and difficulty of
adjusting the complicated models. As a result, most states rely on the generic 10-mile and 50mile buffer zones that do not account for any location specific factors. While accurately
modeling all of these local factors was well beyond the scope of this analysis, we consider some
relevant factors to adjust the size of the buffer around each facility. In this, our aim was not to
predict the precise path of fallout, but rather to better identify the groups of people who would be
most affected by a nuclear accident.

11

Methods
We first obtained a user-made shapefile from Esri1 containing points for all of the nuclear
facilities in the United States. We confirmed that each of the data points was accurate by
overlaying the shapefile on a Bing Aerial Map2, which allowed us to zoom in on each point and
confirm if there was a satellite image of a nuclear power plant underneath.
We restricted our analysis to the Eastern region of the United states for two reasons: (1)
As we used very large census data files, analyzing the entire United States was not manageable
given the time frame of our analysis. (2) Sixty-three out of the 104 nuclear reactors in the United
States are located in the eastern part of the country. This was confirmed by a cluster analysis3 (p
< 0.01). For a list of the states included in the analysis, see Appendix 1.
Next, we calculated a buffer4 around each nuclear facility. Each buffer represents the area
of greatest danger from radiation if an accident were to occur. The buffer around each nuclear
facility differed in size based on three factors5: (1) the number of reactors at the facility, (2) the
amount of wet fuel stored at the facility, and (3) the seismic risk6 at the facility. These factors
were chosen because they are easily quantified and are not highly variable or uncertain. Many
factors that are important in estimating the path of fallout, like weather conditions, are
impossible to predict accurately because they are constantly changing. The factors that we chose
all inform the magnitude of an accident were it to occur, rather than the probability that an
accident will occur.
The current evacuation zone for nuclear facilities implemented by FEMA is 10 miles, so
we used a 10-mile buffer as a starting point, and increased buffer size according to the following
equation:

1

<www.esri.com>
A Bing Aerial Map contains projected, satellite imagery of the globe.
3
We used the Average Nearest Neighbor analysis, which measures the distance between each feature centroid and
its nearest neighbor's centroid location. It then averages all these nearest neighbor distances. If the average distance
is less than the average for a hypothetical random distribution, the distribution of the features being analyzed are
considered clustered. If the average distance is greater than a hypothetical random distribution, the features are
considered dispersed (ArcGIS).
4
A circular zone measured in miles.
5
Age was not included as a factor because of uncertainty. Most nuclear power plants in the U.S. were built in the
1960s and 1970s, however many plants have since had their operating licenses renewed. During the renewal process,
plants undergo a thorough check that should mean they are good as new. However, many cases report that plants are
still unsafe due to aging after renewal, leaving uncertainty for how to count age.
6
The seismic risk was calculated by the National Broadcasting Corporation, based on data obtained from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42103936/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/whatare-odds-us-nuke-plants-ranked-quake-risk/#.UPBWW4LgeTA>
2

12

Hazard buffer = 10 + 5[Ax + By + Cz]

Where:
x = seismic risk (1-5)
y = spent fuel risk (1-5)
z = number of reactors (1-2)
A = 0.1
B = 0.4
C = 0.5
The factors were assigned weights using an average weighted mean. The weights were
chosen primarily on our confidence in each factor, while the contribution of each factor to the
magnitude of a disaster was taken as a secondary concern. Thus, we are concerned more with
distinguishing between the buffer sizes at the different facilities and less with trying to model the
precise area that would be impacted in a disaster. For example, having a second reactor at a
facility increases the potential area of the impact, regardless of other factors that may also
increase hazard. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use a buffer analysis in this way to
look for environmental injustice in nuclear power plant siting. Thus there was no precedent for
weighting the factors, nor for which factors to include in the analysis.
The most heavily-weighted hazard factor in our analysis was the number of reactors at
each facility. Many facilities in the United States have two operating reactors rather than one,
which could double the size of the accident in the case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack.
This happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident when all three operating reactors failed at
the same time. In addition, there is no uncertainty as to the number of reactors at each site, so we
can be more confident in assigning it a heavy weight.
The amount of spent fuel at a reactor is an important hazard factor because, should an
accident occur, the radiation stored in the spent fuel could be released. The amount of spent fuel
is a result of several factors, including the number of reactors7, the number of years the reactor
has been operating, and the intensity at which each reactor is producing energy. Waste contains
radioactive isotopes that remain active and harmful for hundreds of thousands of years. At
nuclear power plants, waste is either stored in dry casks or in wet pools. Our analysis included

7

The buffer analysis includes both the number of reactors and the amount of spent fuel. Since more spent fuel is
likely to build up with more reactors, there could be concern that we are accounting for the number of reactors twice.
However, this is not the case because there are many other factors that contribute to the amount of spent fuel at a
facility (as stated in the text). Additionally, in the case of a nuclear accident, radiation could be released from core
malfunction in the plant itself, or from spent fuel, or from both locations. Since these constitute two distinct sources
of potential radiation fallout, so we have included them as separate factors in the analysis.

13

only the fuel stored in wet pools, since this is considered to be much more dangerous. Waste
from power production is dangerous and complicated to move, so it is stored at the facility where
it is produced. Although this was not meant to be a permanent solution for waste storage when
facilities were licensed, there is currently no feasible alternative.
Finally, seismic risk has always been considered an important factor in nuclear hazard
assessment. The NRC requires that any plant be designed to withstand the most severe natural
phenomena historically reported for the site and surrounding area. The NRC then adds a margin
for error to account for the limited historical data accuracy (NRC). The 2011 accident at
Fukushima Daiichi spurred many new investigations into the safety of the U.S. plants. Seismic
activity is important to consider for several reasons. Seismic activity could cause core damage to
a reactor itself, resulting in a release of radiation. Further, if an earthquake is severe enough to
damage the nuclear reactor, it is likely that the surrounding areas will also be damaged, making
evacuation much more difficult. In this analysis, we focus more on the extent to which an
earthquake would influence the scale of a disaster, rather than its impact on the probability of a
disaster.
Some of the nuclear facilities in our study area are located close enough to each other that
their buffers overlapped. This suggests that the people living within the overlapping regions of
the buffers may experience twice the harm because they could be affected by an accident at
either facility. However, since we aim to identify who would be affected, rather than the
probability that the population would be expose to risk, we merged overlapping buffers.
Having calculated the buffer areas of greatest harm, we then characterized the
populations living within the buffers, focusing on several variables that are known to increase the
vulnerability of those living around nuclear plants. The variables of age, gender, and race were
obtained from 2010 data from the United States Census Bureau8. Poverty data were obtained
from the American Community Survey9. All of the data were at the household level, allowing us
more precision than previous studies that have analyzed vulnerability from the census-tract level.
The proportion of each group (based on age, gender, race, and poverty level) inside the buffer
regions was then compared to the proportion of each group in the entire Eastern region. We used

8
9

<http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-data.html>
< http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t>

14

a Fishers exact test10 to determine whether the differences in proportions were statistically
significant.
All of the reactors currently in operation were commissioned before the Three Mile
Island incident in 1979. The high cost of reactors and the infrastructure and spent fuel that
accompany them make it unrealistic that environmental injustice in plant siting could be
addressed at an existing plant. Newly sited plants however, have an opportunity to consider the
surrounding populations in an environmental justice context. Recently, the NRC approved the
siting of two new nuclear reactors for the first time since 1980. The plants are currently under
construction in Waynesboro, Georgia at the existing Vogtle nuclear power plant (Peskoe 2012).
We isolated the data for this particular facility to examine the surrounding population using the
same methodology.
Results
Contrary to previous research that found no significant environmental injustice in nuclear
power plant siting, our analysis did find significant results, suggesting environmental injustice
issues. The results are significant (p<0.001) for all populations tested, and the cases of potential
environmental injustices are indicated (Table 1). The potential for injustice is particularly great
for non-white Hispanics, children under 10, people over 65, and women. Non-white Hispanics
are 5.53% of the population living within buffers (compared to a 4.775% regional average).
Children under 10 comprised 12.557% of the buffer population (compared to 12.418%
regionally), while adults over 65 were 14.078% of the population in the buffers (compared to
13.919% regionally) and women made up 51.471% of the population in buffers (compared to
51.248% regionally).

10

The Fishers exact test is used for analysis with two-by-two contingency tables. The test considers all the possible
cell combinations that would still result in the observed marginal frequencies. The test is exact because it uses the
exact hypergeometric distribution rather than the approximate chi-squared distribution to compute the p-value
(Bower 2003). We chose this test because it is more accurate than the Chi-squared test for two-by-two contingency
tables. The Chi-squared test takes the expected frequency in the null-hypothesis and compares it to the observed
frequency. This can produce problematic results with a small number of observations. Our analysis had a very large
number of observations, but there was no downside to using the more precise Fishers exact test.

15

Table 1. Significant (p<0.001) results comparing percentages of populations in buffers to percentages of

populations in the Eastern United States. The cases of potential environmental injustice (EIJ) are starred.

African American

Percent in
buffer
14.66

Percent in Eastern
Region
16.22

Potential EIJ

American Indian

0.35

0.43

Asian American

3.16

3.56

Asian Indian

0.96

0.99

Chinese

0.06

0.9

Filipino

0.36

0.37

Japanese

0.11

0.1

Korean

0.44

0.39

Vietnamese

0.24

0.27

Other Asian

0.43

0.55

Native Hawaiian and

other Pacific Islander
Non-white Hispanic

0.04

0.05

5.53

4.77

White

75.37

73.77

Below the poverty line

12.23

14.01

Under 10

12.56

12.42

Over 65

14.08

13.92

Female

51.47

51.25

Other significant findings include a higher than average proportion of Japanese, Korean,
and White populations in the buffer (p < 0.001). None of these populations are considered to be
especially vulnerable, however this does not negate the fact that other vulnerable populations still
exist within the buffer zone. In addition, we did not examine multiple variables at once (e.g.
those who are both under the poverty line and White), so it is possible that many of the people

16

who are living near the buffer are vulnerable as a result of other factors like poverty or age.
Regardless of the explanation, this finding demonstrates that it is not just a few small groups of
people who are affected by the dangers of nuclear power. In our study, 2.5% of the total Eastern
U.S. population is located within an evacuation buffer zone, and 50% of the population in the
entire country lives within 50 miles of a nuclear power facility.
Vogtle Results
In the impact zone around the Vogtle reactors, African Americans constitute 45.9% of the
population (compared to a national 12.6% or a regional 16.2%) and people under the poverty line
constitute 23.7% of the population (compared to a national 14.7% or a regional 14.0%). When
tested, these results were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001), which means that the
only recent nuclear power reactor siting occurred in a location that has disproportionately high
low-income and African American population (Table 2).
Table 2. Significant (p<0.001) results comparing the percentages populations in the buffer region
surrounding the Vogtle nuclear facility to percentages of populations in the Eastern United States.

African American

Percent in
buffer
45.9

Percent in Eastern
Region
16.22

Potential EIJ

American Indian

0.35

0.43

Asian American

0.99

3.56

Asian Indian

0.96

0.99

Native Hawaiian and

other Pacific Islander
Below the poverty line

0.1

0.05

23.74

14.01

Under 10

13.87

12.42

Over 65

13.29

13.92

Female

52.18

51.25

Because this is the first siting to occur after the Three Mile Island incident, it is important
to examine why the placement was allowed. Alldred and Shrader-Frechette assert the Southern

17

Nuclear Operating Companys (SNOC) criteria for evaluating environmental injustices are
flawed (2011). Part of SNOCs definition of environmental injustice requires that the
demographics of census blocks within a 50-mile radius of a facility must have a people of color
population or low-income population that is over 50 percent or that is above the state average by
at least 20 percent and that the facility must be within a densely populated area. Though the
Vogtle facility fulfills the first part of the requirement for the number of people of color, it is
ultimately declared to not be unjust because the population is not dense enough. In reality,
regardless of how densely populated the area is, those affected by the Vogtle facility still could
face an environmental injustice. SNOCs siting criteria is discussed in more detail later in the
policy section. Overall, it is important to consider that the only recent placement of a nuclear
power facility resulted in environmental justice issues.
Discussion
According to Rawls theory of distributive justice, it is unjust for disadvantaged
populations to bear further harms from the placement of nuclear power facilities unless they
derive special benefits. In this case, we find no reason to believe that vulnerable populations
benefit more from the availability of nuclear power than do less vulnerable populations (see
Section IV Discussion for further explanation). On these grounds, it would constitute
environmental injustice if our analysis found a higher proportion of more vulnerable people
living in buffer zones than in the East.
Our findings suggest that there may be environmental injustice in the siting of nuclear
power plants in the Eastern U.S. Our study relied on the distance-based method of centroid
containment, rather than the unit-hazard coincidence method used by Alldred and ShraderFrechette. This difference in methodology could explain why we found significant results
throughout the Eastern region while Alldred and Shrader-Frechette only found significant results
in a few regions of the Southeast. Distance-based methods have been shown to be more accurate
than unit-hazard coincidence approach particularly when using data sets with many variables,
such as the Census (Bullard et al. 2007). Specifically, we found that people below the poverty
line, women, children, and the elderly are disproportionately represented in populations near
nuclear facilities. In addition, the percentage of African Americans living in the buffer at the
Vogtle facility is three times greater than percentage in the Eastern region, suggesting an even
greater injustice. This is in spite of the fact that Vogtle hosts the newest nuclear power plants
18

since TMI, suggesting that environmental injustice concerns have not been addressed. These
findings raise concerns that warrant further investigation where there has been very little to date.
In characterizing the risk experience, we have thus far assumed that all people are equally
affected by nuclear harms. The present analysis assumed that all people living within the buffer
zones experienced the same risk, and that all of the people outside of the zone did not. This was a
necessary oversimplification of the risk experience for the purpose of conducting a simple,
distance-based GIS analysis. In order to distinguish the effects of harms on people within the
buffer, a more complicated notion of risk is needed. Turning to relevant literature and victim
experiences of nuclear disasters, it is evident that there are numerous social risks associated with
nuclear power, and varying levels of vulnerability to such risks. Section IV will examine the
experiences of victims of past nuclear accidents to better characterize the risks associated with
nuclear power.

IV. Social Vulnerability and the Victim Experience

Introduction
Section III showed that certain disadvantaged populations in the United States do in fact
bear a disproportionate burden of the risks of nuclear power by way of their proximity to nuclear
power plants. The purpose of Section IV is to explore the ways in which risk might translate into
actual experience in the case of a nuclear accident. To this end, we elaborate on the social
dimension of risk associated with nuclear accidents. We further suggest that certain
disadvantaged populations in the United States would likely be most vulnerable to such social
harms in the case of an accident.
While environmental justice and vulnerability literature seeks to elucidate the
complexities of social vulnerability in its characterization of risk, policy makers rarely consider
such qualitative aspects. Rather, risk analyses are based largely on quantitative models of
physical, biological, or economic factors (Short 1984), describing the impact of accident events
in terms of direct harms such as death, injury, disease, and environmental damage (Kasperson et
al. 1988).
Much of the literature on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Schull 1995),
the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 (Yablokov 2009), and Three Mile Island (Wing et al. 1995), as
well as studies of populations living near normally operating nuclear power plants (Schrader-

19

Frechette 2002; Spix 2008; Mangano 2008), focus on cancer rates and other physical health
impacts. While substantive and powerful, such studies face limitations in proving a causal
relationship between radiation and adverse health effects, particularly when it comes to low-dose
radiation (Schull 1995; Brenner et al. 2003). This leaves the literature vulnerable to criticism and
disregard, even by groups like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World
Health Organization (WHO), which continue to assert that the health risks of low-dose radiation
exposure are minimal (Yablokov 2009)11.
While the biophysical health impacts of radiation exposure are important to consider,
such a narrow focus ignores other components of the disaster experience that warrant attention.
The present section aims to look beyond biophysical impacts and paint a more holistic picture of
the victim experience by considering the types of sources of the stress described by victims of
the three major nuclear power plant accidents at Fukushima Daiichi, Three Mile Island, and
Chernobyl. While stress is commonly regarded as an emotional condition without significant
biological consequences, recent medical research demonstrates that stress in and of itself has a
deleterious effect on health, weakening the functioning of the immune system and exacerbating a
wide range of other pathologies (Sered and Fernandopulle 2006). It can also affect everyday
behavior and psychological health (Havenaar and van den Brink 1997), as shown through
research conducted after Chernobyl (Bromet et al. 2011), Three Mile Island (Bromet and
Schulberg 1986), and Fukushima Daiichi (Brumfiel 2013).
As sociologist Kai Erikson aptly puts it, technological disasters entail everything that
can go wrong when systems fail, humans err, designs prove faulty, [and] engines misfire
(1994:141). In the following discussion, we use a framework adapted from Bertazzi (1989; see
Table 3) to show that certain elements of the stress experience following technological disasters,
particularly uncertainty and cultural pressure, recur with haunting frequency in the experiences
of victims of all three of the largest nuclear power plant accidents in history.

11

In 1959, the WHO and IAEA entered into a working agreement (WHA 12.40) to determine the effects of ionizing
radiation on human health, essentially placing the WHO under the supervision of the IAEA. Many critics argue that
this partnership undermines the mission of the WHO (to promote and protect the health of all people), as it
conflicts with the mission of the IAEA (to increase the use of atomic energy worldwide).

20

Table 3: Categories of stressors arising from technological disasters, adapted from Bertazzi (1989). Subcategories that arose in the present analysis are shown on the right.

Uncertainty

State of disaster as it progressed

Level of radiation exposure
Fear of future health problems associated with
radiation exposure
Feeling vulnerable and unprotected

Displacement*

Cultural pressure

Conflicting public pressure and messages from

government, media, and non-government sources
Community division (in beliefs about health
impacts and appropriate behavior)
Loss of trust in authorities

Social rejection

Discrimination on the basis of residence

contaminated area
Difficulty in finding marriage partner
Fear of social rejection

Housing, job, and financial insecurity

Separation from family, relatives, and friends
Isolation in new environment
Loss of homeland

* New category that arose within the present analysis; Bertazzis category of housing and job insecurity was
changed to displacement so as to encompass other key stressors in evacuation.

Methods
We examined first-hand accounts of victim experiences of the three most significant
nuclear power plant accidents: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Daiichi. Several
studies have found parallels in the mental, physical, and social risk factors arising from
technological disasters in different countries (Norris et al. 2001; Havenaar and van den Brink
1997; Meichenbaum 1994), including the Bertazzi study (1989) that developed the framework
we apply here. This led us to assume that many aspects of the victim experience transcend
differences in nationality and culture, justifying our examination of accidents in three different
countries. This assumption was largely confirmed by our analysis, as we found striking
similarities in the experiences and emotions described in the various first-hand accounts.
Data from Japan were derived mainly from free-response sections of a survey of 10,633
evacuees from Fukushima, conducted by the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation
Commission (NAIIC), as well as two other small-scale surveys of evacuees conducted by NGOs

21

Friends of Earth Japan (FoE) and Citizens Against Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants. Two
other documents recording the voices of Fukushima residents and evacuees, published by local
NGOs in Fukushima, were also used. One author conducted interviews12 with Kanna Mitsuta of
NGO Friends of Earth Japan, and Kazumasa Aoki of the citizen group Citizens Against
Fukushima Aging Nuclear Power Plants, so as to provide a perspective based on activism and
direct victim support.
The optional nature of free-response sections of surveys leads to potential bias in the
collection of responses, likely exaggerating the voices of the most aggravated and those who feel
most strongly about the topic of the survey. However, there is reason to believe that such
respondents were not the minority in these surveys. For example, the survey of 10,633
respondents drew 8,073 comments in the free-response section. Further, given that the most
vulnerable populations would likely be the most aggravated, the bias in these responses does not
detract from our analysis, as we are most interested in understanding the experiences of the most
vulnerable.
The bulk of Chernobyl accounts are from Svetlana Alexievichs Voices of Chernobyl
(1999), a collection of narratives and interviews of Belarusian13 residents, evacuees, power plant
workers, scientists, medics, former Party members, and soldiers. These interviews were openended and minimally structured, which suggests that the content reflects minimal interviewer
bias. To our knowledge this is one of the few collections of direct voices of Chernobyl victims.
Kai Eriksons analysis of Three Mile Island in A Whole New Species of Trouble (1994) was used
to draw further parallels among the three events. Because Three Mile Island did not result in a
significant release of radiation, it apparently did not result in large-scale displacement or
significant issues with social rejection. For this reason, Three Mile Island is not referenced in the
sections below on displacement or social rejection.
These first-hand accounts were coded thematically by word, phrase, or sentence based on
the categories laid out in the Bertazzi (1989) framework, including uncertainty, housing and job
insecurity, social rejection, media siege, and cultural pressure. While one of us was primarily
responsible for the coding process, another coded sample excerpts and reached very similar
conclusions in categorizing the data. This served to minimize interpretation bias and ensure a

12

Interviews were conducted in person using the interview guide approach, a method in which interviews are based
on a predefined list of topics rather than a list of specifically worded questions. See Appendix 3 for list of topics.
13
Belarus absorbed over 80% of the radioactive fallout of Chernobyl (Alexievich 1999).

22

level of validity. Throughout the coding process, it became clear that two of Bertazzis categories
were not as useful as others in characterizing the data. We introduced the term displacement to
replace housing and job security in order to capture a broader range of elements that victims
identified as stressful in the evacuation process. The category of media siege14 had little
application to the data in this analysis, so it was not used. For further data disaggregation,
subcategories were developed based on common themes that appeared within the data as well as
in relevant literature (Table 3). We suggest that this modified framework is more suitable in
thinking specifically about nuclear power plant accidents.
Findings
Uncertainty
The story begins with uncertainty. When residents of Tohoku felt the tumultuous tremors
of the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011, few were aware of the potential dangers
to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility along the coast. Slow and inconsistent
information transmission left residents largely uninformed about the state of the disaster as it
progressed (Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission). Even plant workers were
uncertain as to the gravity of the situation, despite being ordered to stay on site and attempt to
keep the situation under control: Responding to the accident was a priority, yet there was no
way for the workers to monitor their radiation exposure. I felt endangeredI feared for my life
(NAIIC:68). Residents who received evacuation orders were not told why such evacuation was
necessary, leading many to leave only with the bare necessities (NAIIC). In some areas, residents
were ordered to stay at home, also with little understanding of the disaster. As a resident of
Minamisoma recounted, In Haramachi in Minamisoma, we were told to stay at home and were
never once told to evacuate. On TV, all they said was there are no immediate health effects,
making us even more afraid (NAIIC:55).
Pennsylvania residents living near Three Mile Island (TMI) experienced a similar sense
of unsettling insecurity at the time of the accident. While there was only a recommendation of
evacuation for 3,500 residents, roughly 150,000 people were frightened enough to flee (Erikson

14

This category referred to the role of media focus and exaggeration of negative impacts in exacerbating stress.
While relevant, accounts used in this analysis from both Fukushima and Chernobyl referred more to the lack of
media attention and consistency as a cause of stress.

23

1994). As reported by a family that traveled several hundred miles away from the vicinity of
TMI after hearing evacuation orders,
So we got in the car and headed South and we got as far asI believe it was
Durham, North Carolina, where we stopped first. And we didnt know how bad
we were hurt. I remember when we went to the motel, I remember sleeping with
my hands between my knees, and I was just trembling, worried sick about what
this had done to our family and the ones who were still back there (Erikson
1994:149).
This account reveals uncertainty with regard to both the state of the disaster, as well as to
the level of radiation exposure. Things were even worse in certain areas around
Chernobyl, particularly Belarus, where residents initially received no information about
the accident (Alexievich 1999; Shcherbak 1989). As a schoolteacher who eventually
evacuated from the Chernobyl zone recounted,
In the early daysmy emotions were mixed. I remember my two strongest
feelingsfear and a sense of outrage. Something terrible was happening and we
had no information: the authorities were silent, the doctors said nothing
(Alexievich 1999:143).
As feelings of uncertainty in relation to the state of the disaster subside, a new form of
uncertainty takes over. In an exploration of the victim experiences of TMI, Erikson describes
radiation as a strain of a whole new species of trouble involving toxic substances, which are
distinct in that they cannot be seen, smelled, or touched, and can crouch [in the body] for years,
even generations, before doing their deadly work (1994:150). Radiation exposure thus arouses
deep uncertainty with regard to potential health impacts. Many victims of TMI explained that it
was as if they had a time bomb ticking inside their body (Erikson 1994). As a primary
subcontractor employee of the Fukushima Daiichi plant said, I have been worried about my
health since March 11I have suffered from stomach cancer before and if I get it again because
of working on this accident and die, it will be unforgivable (NAIIC:70).
Such concerns are especially prevalent among parents of young children, likely because
of the heightened health risks children face through radiation exposure (Landrigan and Garg
2002; National Research Council 2005). In the free-response section of a survey of evacuees of
Fukushima, 600 respondents (8%) wrote about their fear that the health of their children and
unborn children might be affected by radiation exposure (NAIIC). One parent expressed

24

profound guilt and regret over exposing his child to such unknown risks because of his familys
inability to evacuate: I am suffering with the guilt of knowing that I, a parent, am allowing my
child to be exposed to radiation. Each day is a living hell and I feel as though I want to die
(Friends of Earth Survey I). Another parent, in voicing what she would say to the national and
prefectural government, wrote:
I seriously want them to think about how it would feel to stroke their sleeping
child at night, just wishing that all of the radiation in their childs body would
transfer into their own. There are direct health impacts, there arent direct
health impactsthats all irrelevant. Something that I did not wish for, that was
not there before, is now inside my precious childs body. That alone makes me
scared. I am so anxious that I cant stand it (FoE Survey II).
One of the greatest concerns with radiation has to do with its ability to induce genetic
mutations (Caldicott 2011) or cause breaks in chromosomes, which can cause offspring to be
born with serious mental or physical disorders (Michal et al. 1993). Such fear has been the
source of much pressure for exposed women to seek abortions and abstain from having children,
as will be discussed in the later section on cultural pressure. Here, a mother from Khoiniki,
Belarus describes her daughters fears:
My daughter said recently, Mama, if I give birth to a monster, I will love it
anyway. Can you imagine! Shes a teenager and she has thoughts like that. Her
girlfriends, they all think about it, too (Alexievich 1999:152).
Here, a mother from Fukushima describes a different response to the same fear:
My daughters classmate said shed never marry. March 11 made her afraid to
have children, because she couldnt even be certain about her own future. This is
a teenager speakingshes 18, a senior in high school15.
The last point to be made about such fear and uncertainty is that it is long-lasting, if not
permanent. Such emotions can affect ones perceptions not only of personal health but also of
ones surroundings; simply being outdoors can evoke uneasiness. Consider the following quote
by a woman after TMI, followed by that of a Russian historian who lived through Chernobyl:

15

As described in a group interview of male and female office workers in Fukushima, filmed by documentary
filmmaker Ian Ash. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAo5bOGJvLo>

25

I used to lay out in the sun, but ever since TMI I dont lay out in the sun anymore,
because youre thinking about the radiationWhats to say that the stuff isnt
coming over and just coming right down on me? (Erikson 1994:156)
I am afraid of the rain. Thats what Chernobyl is. Im afraid of the snow. The
forest. This is no abstraction, no thought-out conclusion, but a personal feeling.
Chernobyl is inside my house (Alexievich 1999:136).
As is apparent in these quotes, the spectacle of a failed technology can translate into the
spectacle of a failed environment, arising from the sense that the toxins that are now embedded
in the tissues of the body have contaminated the surrounding countryside as well (Erikson 1994).
As Erikson writes, the whole natural envelope in which people live out their lives has become
defiled and unreliable (1994: 155). The following lament of a Belarusian mother after
Chernobyl captures this sentiment once again:
I am afraid to live on this land. They gave me a Geiger counter16, but what am I supposed
to do with it? I do the laundry, its snowy white, but the meter goes off. I cook, bake a pie,
it rings. I make the bed, it rings. What do I need it for? I feed the children and weep.
Why are you crying, mama? (Alexievich 1999:115)
Displacement
Technological disasters often involve the release of toxins into the environment,
necessitating the displacement of residents of newly contaminated regions. First and foremost,
this involves the stress arising from new financial burdens17, and the need for securing new
housing and employment. However, it also involves the difficulties of adjusting to the new
environment and to separation from friends, relatives, and familiar social networks. In the freeresponse section of the NAIIC survey, 334 respondents (4%) wrote of constant stress due to an
unfamiliar environment and prolonged refugee life. Another 24 (0.3%) respondents explicitly
mentioned the difficulties of building new relationships and getting along with people in their
new environment, and feeling isolated and alone. One woman from Fukushima explained her
feeling of being in limbo:
Im getting used to life here in Kyoto, but I cant help but feel as though its just a
temporary, almost borrowed life. I dont have relatives or close friends in Kyoto,

16

An instrument that measures ionizing radiation.

May includes costs associated with moving, greater transportation costs to visit family members, paying for new
housing, and continuing to pay loans for previous home(s).

17

26

and its hard to feel like this is where I really should be, and that my feet are
firmly on the ground (Fukushima City Happy Island Newspaper).
Housing, job, and financial uncertainty can also serve as barriers to evacuation,
heightening the stress associated with the inability to evacuate. In Japan, only areas in which
cumulative radiation exposure is projected to reach 20mSv/year18 have been evacuated by the
government, leaving residents of other areas to decide whether to evacuate voluntarily without
government compensation. As a result, many who wish to evacuate cannot afford to; according
to a 2011 survey by Friends of Earth Japan, financial and employment uncertainty were the main
barriers to evacuation, and this continues to be true (Mitsuta interview). In many cases the
mother and children have evacuated for the sake of the childrens health, while the father
remains in Fukushima to continue his job and earn money. In the free response section of the
NAIIC survey, 290 respondents (4%) wrote about how much they missed seeing members of
their family.
Lastly, the sense of losing the town of ones birth is another source of hardship. The
following words from a woman from Fukushima illustrate her husbands difficulty in realizing
and accepting this new reality:
When we visited our house briefly on March 6, my husband suffered from shock
when he realized that he could not return to the house he was born in, and he is
currently in hospital (NAIIC:57).
A father from Koriyama City19, who sent his wife and two children to live in the less
contaminated neighboring prefecture of Yamagata, conveyed deep sadness in losing the
ability to raise his family in his hometown:
I was born and raised in Fukushima. I love Fukushima. I wanted to send my kids
to the same elementary school that I attended. I wanted to live in Fukushima for
the rest of my life (FoE Survey II).
As an evacuee from the Chernobyl zone explained, the longing to return home never subsides for
some:

18

This is despite the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law in Japan, that defines 1 mSv/year as the permissible limit of
exposure for the general public. After Chernobyl, Belarus ordered the mandatory evacuation of areas higher than 5
mSv/yr. 5 mSv/year remains the maximum exposure for nuclear power plant workers in Germany.
19
One of the main commercial cities of Fukushima prefecture, 34 miles west of Fukushima Daiichi facility. Despite
extremely high levels of contamination, the city was not included in the official evacuation zone.

27

My grandmother never adjusted to the new place. She missed home. Before death,
she begged for sorrel soup. But they had banned sorrel for several years, it
collects radiation more than anything. We took her back to her native village of
Dubrovniki to bury her. It was inside the zone, behind barbed wire (Alexievich
1999:87).
Cultural pressure
Those who experience a nuclear accident suddenly find themselves subject to various
pressures regarding what to believe and how to behave. After the accident at Fukushima,
government officials and spokespersons from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
largely downplayed the gravity of the situation for the sake of avoiding panic (Birmingham and
McNeill 2012). These authorities still encourage residents to continue life as usual, and
encourage evacuees of many contaminated areas to return and contribute to the economic revival
of the region (Aoki interview). Those who rely on mainstream media and believe this
authoritative stance are pitted against those who do their research on the Internet, where
numerous sources claim that areas up to 80km away from the Fukushima plant are contaminated
enough to justify immediate evacuation. Such conflicting sources of information have created
distinct divisions within communities. The same situation arose in areas affected by Chernobyl
fallout, as demonstrated in the following dialogue between two mothers, documented in a letter
written by a village schoolteacher and evacuee from the Chernobyl zone:
One said, Im off to stay with my parents. Ill take the children. If anything
happened to them, Id never forgive myself.
The other replied, According to the papers, things will return to normal in a
few days. Our troops are there. Helicopters, armored vehicles. It was on the radio.
Youre panicking....
They raised their voices and and ended up arguing. Mutual accusations:
Youre a traitor! Where is your maternal instinct? Fanatic!
Youre the traitor! What would happen to us if everyone behaved like you?
Would we have won the war? (Alexievich 1999:143)
Such disagreements create conflict not only among community members but also within
families. In Japan, common patterns involve divergence in opinion between spouses, not
uncommonly leading to divorce (Mitsuta interview; Aoki interview). Another common pattern
involves disagreement among married couples and their parents, as the older generation is more
likely to obtain information from mainstream media sources through television and newspapers,
while the younger generation is more likely to rely on the Internet.

28

One of the main consequences of this conflicting and inconsistent stream of information
is a deep loss of trust in authorities. In the free-response section of the NAIIC survey,
approximately 2,700 respondents (34%) described both the information issued by and behavior
of the government and TEPCO as unreliable and not trustworthy, and expressed resentment
towards these authorities. Consider the following excerpts from free-response sections of this
survey:
Now I realize that all of what TEPCO explained was lies, and that I was deceived
(NAIIC:57).
I question the humanity of those people (NAIIC:56).
Data were deleted and deceptive instructions were given even though they were
aware of the real situation. Do they really value our lives? (NAIIC: 57)
Such a trend was seen after TMI as well; one of the main findings by the research team
that studied behavioral and mental health effects for the Presidents Commission on the Accident
at Three Mile Island was the sharp decline in trust and respect for public officials (Dohrenwend
1983). The voice of the following middle-aged woman from TMI sounds all too familiar:
Everything is under control. Bullshit. Nothings under control. I dont believe anything
I hear from them (Erikson 1994:154).
What emerges from these voices is not only resentment, but also a sense of powerlessness
in the face of incompetent and inconsiderate authority. They suggest a loss of faith in science and
technology, and even in humanity; as Chernobyl photographer Victor Latun said, Scientists
used to be like gods, and now they were fallen angels. Demons. Natalya Roslova, chairman of
the Mogilev Children of Chernobyl Womens Committee, expressed a similar sentiment:
People come to the zone20 as they do to a cemetery. Its not just their house thats
buried there, but an entire era. An era of faith. In science. In a just social ideal. A
great empire fell apart (Alexievich 1999:174).
Another form of cultural pressure affects women of childbearing age , who become
subject to pressures regarding reproductive behavior (Havenaar and van den Brink 1997). This
was likely a reason for increased rates of abortion (Rachmatulin et al. 1992; Knudsen 1991) and

20

Referring to the Chernobyl zone, or the evacuated area of contamination.

29

lower pregnancy rates (Ericson and Kallen 1994; Irgens et al. 1991) seen in areas contaminated
by fallout from Chernobyl. Such pressure can come directly from health providers, close
acquaintances, or be self-imposed based on acquired knowledge about the potential risks. A wife
of a Chernobyl clean-up worker said, We were expecting our first baby. My husband wanted a
boy, I wanted a girl. The doctors tried to talk me into having an abortion. Your husband was in
Chernobyl (Alexievich 1999:114). One young Belarusian woman remembered hearing
repeatedly that for some people, to have a child is a sin. A sin to love (Alexievich 1999:87).
Anecdotal evidence suggests that rates of abortion have already increased in Fukushima21; as one
woman from Fukushima said, I knew women who were visibly pregnant, then suddenly werent.
They became afraid of what would happen to their babies. Her male co-worker explained,
Although more than a year has passed, we are still suffering. Issues such as this
problem of increasing abortions bring anguish to our hearts. Aborting their babies
or being unsure as to whether they can marry? Women should not have to think
about such heart-breaking things! We are facing a problem that has taken away
our basic right to the pursuit of happiness.22
Social rejection
The marriage concerns described above also speak to the wider issue of stigma facing
exposed populations. As defined by sociologist Erving Goffman, stigma arises from an attribute
that is deeply discredited within society, causing an individual to be reduced in our minds
from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one (1963:3). The consequences of such
stigma may include psychological impacts that negatively affect self-esteem, academic
achievement, and health (Major 2005); Link et al. further posit that because stigmatization
affects so many domains within peoples lives, it may have dramatic bearing on the distribution
of life chances in such areas as earnings, housing, criminal involvement, health, and life itself
(2001:363). After toxic disasters, residents and evacuees of contaminated regions often suffer
social and economic discrimination and stigmatization, simply through association with the name
of the contaminated region (Bromet et al. 2011). Such a trend was seen among survivors of the
nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Lifton 1967) and Chernobyl evacuees (Bromet et
al. 2011). As a Belarusian father explained after Chernobyl,

21

As described in a group interview of male and female office workers in Fukushima, filmed by documentary
filmmaker Ian Ash. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAo5bOGJvLo>
22
See footnote 21.

30

You want to be like everyone else, but you no longer can. You may not. People
regard you differently. They ask you questions: were you afraid? How did the
station burn? What did you see? And things like, can you have children? Did your
wife leave you? At first we were all turned into freaks. The very word
Chernobylite is like an alarm. Everyone turns in your direction. Hes from there
(Alexievich 1999:32).
After Chernobyl, evacuees of contaminated regions were met with a fear of contagion. Such
fears even affected interactions among children, as recounted by a mother and evacuee from
Pripyat23:
When we settled in Mogilev and our son started school, he came home crying the
first day. He had been put next to a little girl who refused to sit with him because
he was full of radiation and she could die. My son was nine and it turned out that
he was the only Chernobyl child in his class. Everyone was afraid of him and
called him lightning bug. I was sad to see his childhood ending so soon
(Alexievich 1999:122).
In Japan, anecdotal evidence suggests that similar stigmatization has already begun to
affect victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (Jacobs 2011; Aoki interview). In the
free-response section of a survey of evacuees of Fukushima, 17 respondents (0.2%) described
experiencing prejudice and misunderstanding on the grounds of being an evacuee from
Fukushima. No less potent is the fear of discrimination, particularly with regard to marriage.
Such fears are not unfounded, in light of the difficulties that women from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki faced in finding marriage partners (Lifton 1967). As one young woman from
Fukushima wrote:
Im starting to hear whispers of how unmarried people in Fukushima will only be
able to get married to others from their hometowns, and that marriages will
otherwise be broken off. I am just worried about the future (FoE Survey II).
According to Kanna Mitsuta of Friends of Earth Japan, the fear of discrimination has
prompted many to hide their Fukushima origins. In one example, students received explicit
instructions to do so: During an off-campus school trip, the school made it so that the bus didnt
indicate that the kids were travelling from Fukushima. The teacher told the kids, Dont say that
youre from Fukushima (Mitsuta interview). Such experiences suggest that the meaning of

23

A town in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, that was part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

31

radiation stigma involves an interplay between the actual experience of differential treatment and
the fear of such treatment.
Discussion
One of the goals of the preceding section was to complicate the notion of risk that we
have come to associate with nuclear power plant accidents. After a certain point, objective
reality loses relevance in moments of conflicting streams of information, secrecy, and
uncertainty, as seen in the case of the three most deadly nuclear accidents in history. The
stressors we describe thus have as much to do with perceived risk as with objective, calculated
risk (which, in the case of nuclear power, is endlessly difficult to characterize).
The range of potential impacts on biological health, wellbeing, and health-related
behavior is vast for anyone involved, regardless of age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status.
However, we suggest that such stress is amplified in certain populations of heightened
vulnerability. For example, the stress of parents (especially mothers) with preschool age children
was particularly evident throughout the present analysis, a well-documented trend associated
with technological disasters (Havenaar et al. 1996; Bromet and Schulberg 1986). Children are
also particularly sensitive to physical and mental harm (Peek 2008; Bromet et al. 2000), a trend
reflected in a recent survey of child evacuees from Fukushima24 that revealed stress levels double
the Japanese average (Brumfiel 2013).
A similar trend is evident in the United States, where low-income populations and people
of color may encounter such stressors at higher levels and face greater difficulties in coping with
them. Low-income populations are more likely to lack financial resources (Cutter 2006) and
expansive social networks to rely upon (Dominguez and Watkins 2003) during emergencies. The
differential response and recovery to Hurricane Katrina is a telling example of such trends: while
those with resources left before the hurricane arrived, those without resources (mainly the poor,
African American, elderly, or residents without private cars) had to remain and deal with the
oncoming disaster (Cutter 2006). Low socioeconomic status is also associated with lower
educational attainment, which constrains understanding of and access to disaster warnings and
information on recovery (Ibid.). It follows that such populations would be more prone to stress
from feelings of uncertainty.

24

This survey was filled out by the parents of child respondents.

32

Further, low-income populations already have the worst health and health care, and bear
the highest burden of all diseases (Sered and Fernandopulle 2006). People of color also have
higher rates of illness and mortality, and lower usage rates of health care facilities and
procedures. Low-income Hispanics appear particularly vulnerable in this regard; between 1996
and 1999, 37 percent of this group were never insured with private coverage, and up to 80
percent were uninsured at some point in those three years (Doty and Holmgren 2004). The
apparent relationships between poverty, race, poor health, and barriers to accessing health care
would become even more problematic for people coping with stress and the associated health
impacts of a nuclear accident.
Thus far we have shown that certain disadvantaged populations are made further
vulnerable physically, by way of their proximity to nuclear power plants. These same groups are
likely to suffer greater costs in the case of an accident and face more difficulties in recovery.
Under the Rawlsian framework of justice, this constitutes unfairness and injustice: the existing
unequal distribution of risk further harms those who are already worse off. This raises the
question of whether these groups derive any special benefits, such as cheaper electricity or
employment. However, cheaper electricity is a benefit to residents of the whole region served by
any given power facility, and thus cannot be seen as a unique benefit to vulnerable populations.
Further, some cases show that people of color and low-income people are excluded from
employment at such facilities because of required specialized knowledge (Lerner 2005) and
language skills. The well documented trend of racial and gender discrimination in the labor
market is further indication of potential exclusion (Burstein 1985; Tomaskovic-Devey 1993).
As Section V will reveal, it appears that these disadvantaged groups are not being taken
into consideration by policy makers concerned with nuclear energy safety. By Scholsbergs
(2007) logic, this lack of recognition may further heighten the vulnerability of these groups to
both social and physical risks, and contribute to further injustice. We will argue that policy
should be designed to recognize the vulnerabilities of disadvantaged groups and to minimize
their exposure to harm.

33

V. Analysis of Policy
Introduction
Sections III and IV identified potential environmental injustice issues in the siting of
nuclear power plants and the distribution of vulnerability to associated risks. Section III showed
that non-white Hispanics, women, children, and the elderly are are disproportionately located
near nuclear power plant facilities. Section IV argued that spatial distribution does not paint the
whole picture, and a nuclear accident would likely cause greater hardships for disadvantaged
groups. This distribution of risk is problematic, and it is the governments responsibility to
address such concerns. But like anything else, safety comes at a price. It is not necessarily better
to simply have more protection if it doesnt target the right populations. While current policy is
designed to ensure the safety of the general public and power plant workers, we argue that
Congress must enact policy targeted at protecting those most vulnerable.
The current definition of risk in the policy-making realm allows for environmental justice
concerns to go unnoticed. This gap can be seen in the nuclear industry through plant-siting
processes. In exposure assessment, analysts must make many assumptions about variability in
natural dispersion patterns and population movements, about other sources of exposure, and
about the susceptibility of those exposed (Vig and Kraft 2003: 228). These assumptions often
result in environmental justice problems because they oversimplify risk, leading policy makers to
ignore or incorrectly identify populations of color or the poor. Another consequence of this type
of assessment is mis-recognition: analysts often mis-identify those who are most vulnerable.
Those that are most vulnerable suffer disproportionately from harms, and when policy makers
fail to recognize these groups, their vulnerability is heightened. Thus, mis-recognition can cause
a vicious cycle of harm when additional hazards are constructed and the most disadvantaged go
unprotected. This failure to protect the right groups is apparent in our GIS analysis and the
conclusions found by Allred and Schrader-Frechette; nuclear plant siting does not necessarily
avoid impoverished communities and areas with larger populations of color (2009). In addition,
there are many policy implementation and regulation enforcement failures that further exacerbate
the risk to these groups.
The utilitarian definition of justice in current policy is also at the root of this problem.
Nuclear safeguarding policy is created and evaluated based on the goal of maximizing the good
for society (e.g. determining the most efficient location to site a plant). Renn points out that from
34

a utilitarian perspective, this is not a problem, because the poor...[benefit] by accepting a risk in
exchange for money, and the richalso [win] by spending money for not being exposed to the
risk (1992: 63). While the utilitarian perspective provides techniques and instruments with
which to measure and compare losses and gains, this perspective overlooks the needs of the
individual (Renn 1992). When this happens, unjust distribution of harms may occur. Rawls
would also argue that if the most vulnerable are indeed exposed to greater risk, then they must
derive some exclusive benefits in order to make this distribution fair. Sections III and IV of this
study suggested this is not true in the distribution of the harms of nuclear power production;
disadvantaged groups are likely further harmed by the unequal distribution of nuclear reactors. It
follows that such groups thus deserve additional protection, but current policy fails to both
recognize and protect them. We argue that if nuclear safeguarding policy were to shift towards a
framework of Rawlsian justice, the benefits of nuclear power could still be shared by all while
the most vulnerable receive better protection.
Regulation and Legislation
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The main regulatory body in the nuclear industry is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), whose regulations are determined by the U.S. government. The NRC is responsible for
ensuring the safe use of radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while protecting
people and the environment[and regulate] commercial nuclear power plants and other uses of
nuclear materials, such as in nuclear medicine, through licensing, inspection and enforcement of
its requirements (NRC 2013). The NRC accomplishes these tasks through various inspections
and reviews.
One of the most important tasks delegated to the NRC is power plant siting. Typically, the
agency collaborates with plant owners to determine new plant locations. The top five methods
used in the siting process are: (1) favorability selection, (2) qualitative comparison, (3) costeffective analysis, (4) site rating, and (5) comparison screening (Ford et al. 1979). Aside from
favorability selection and cost-effective analysis, these methods all use a list of pre-determined
qualitative criteria to compare proposed sites. Favorability selection involves site selection based
on a persuasive number of favorable conditions, and cost-effective analysis relies largely on
engineering costs. These five approaches are often combined to determine the qualities of each
proposed plant location, and then the best site is chosen.
35

The NRC is also in charge of enforcing safety measures at current plant sites. Annual
NRC inspections are based on the seven cornerstones of the reactor oversight process: initiating
events, mitigating systems, barrier integrity, emergency preparedness, public radiation safety,
occupational radiation safety, and security. If problems are discovered during annual plant
inspections, the agency issues sanctions for noncompliance. In 2010, the NRC issued nearly 200
reports using these sanctions, indicating frequent violation of safety measures. The safety criteria
used to evaluate plants is based on the agencys concept of risk, which is established in the
combined answers to the following questions: What can go wrong? How likely is it? What would
be the consequences? While the definition of risk is purposefully vague to allow the NRC to
apply it ubiquitously, the risk assessment that goes into policy-making does not incorporate
many important social factors of risk, leading to shortcomings in emergency response plans and
safety regulations. More importantly, this incomplete definition does not specify the importance
of protecting the most vulnerable populations, leading to issues of environmental justice that may
go unaddressed.
Environmental Justice Policy
This lack of focus on environmental justice issues has persisted despite the federal
governments attempts to incorporate such concerns into agency operations. In 1994, Bill Clinton
signed Executive Order 12898, which stated that each federal agency shall make achieving
environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate,
disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs,
policies and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States.
While the Executive Order theoretically applies to all government agencies, the NRC stated that
it was already in compliance with the new regulation through the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA), despite the fact that NEPA does not directly address environmental justice issues
(NRC). NEPA requires federal agencies to publish an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
when an action significantly affects the environment, hence the NRC asserts that E.O. 12898
does not establish new substantive or procedural requirements applicable to NRC regulatory or
licensing activities because they already evaluate environmental justice concerns under NEPA
(NRC 2004). However, because NEPA is procedural and does not require actual reduction of
environmental harms addressed in an EIS, the NRC is not compelled to act on these statements.

36

Thus, instead of working in tandem, NEPA and the Executive Order allow the NRC to identify,
but not necessarily reduce environmental injustices (Ibid.).
The Vogtle facility in Georgia presents one of the most recent examples of ignored
environmental justice concerns. In 2012, the NRC submitted an EIS for Southern Companys
proposal to build two new reactors at the Vogtle site. The report contained the Southern
Companys staff-designed methodology for the environmental justice evaluation, which
examined the 491 census block groups within 50 miles of the site. The methodology stated that
environmental justice concerns would only be considered valid if: (1) the population in question
exceeded at least 50 percent of the entire population for the block group, and (2) the percentage
of the examined population was 20 percent greater than the same population in the block groups
state. While both people of color (in over 160 census blocks) and low-income populations (in
over 70 census blocks) met or exceeded these criteria, Southern Company ultimately concluded
that none of these populations would be disproportionately harmed by the construction of
reactors 3 and 4 because impacts of plant construction [and operation] on minority and lowincome populations in the region of interest would be SMALL [sic] because no environmental
pathways or preconditions exist that can lead to adverse and disproportionate impacts (DOE
2012: 4-61). Based on the significance levels established by the NRC created to help guide its
assessment of environmental impacts, a SMALL rating describes environmental effects [that]
are not detectable or are so minor that they would neither destabilize nor noticeably alter any
important attribute of the resource (Ibid.: xxiv). From an environmental justice point of view,
this rating seems to completely ignore the social vulnerability of the populations of color and
low-income living at the Vogtle site. Additionally, the staff stated that [d]epending on how each
community participates in the distribution of construction-generated income and tax revenues,
the impacts on minority and low-income communities would likely be beneficial impacts and
no particular demographic groups would be excluded from these benefits (Ibid.: 4-61). This
conclusion contradicts the literature regarding the vulnerability of people of color and lowincome populations.
Failure in Regulation Implementation
Regulatory implementation failures demonstrate that successful protection of vulnerable
populations will require more than just a framework shift. Because firms are not directly harming
social welfare when not complying with safety regulations, safety violations are morally
37

ambiguous. Because of this, regulators often avoid punishment (Brown and Rankin 1990). In
addition, regulators value good relations with regulated firms. This is not just because conflicts
are stressful to all parties involved, but also because good relations facilitate education and
persuasion (Ibid.). One of the NRCs largest challenges is to maximize its regulatory ability on a
limited budget. According to the NRC, all licensed plants are subject to routine inspections to
ensure that regulation is followed and that safety is upheld. However, the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS) found that only 5% of activities at nuclear power plants are actually audited
each year (UCS 2011). While this review process is meant to provide a snapshot of the condition
of all plants, even when the NRC finds problematic patterns revealed in the review process, they
are not extrapolated to other unevaluated plants, and thus the oversight process risks overlooking
significant safety violations industry-wide (Ibid.).
An annual report by the UCS lists all recorded inspection results, providing a detailed
account of each case of plant-specific implementation failure. For example, at the Monticello,
MN plant, problems included the failure to implement timely and effective corrective actions to
inspect and flush the fire sprinkler pipingafter the discovery of degradation in piping for the
fire protection system and [f]ailure to develop and apply proper post-maintenance testing
criteria for testing conducted in April 2009 (Lochbaum 2012: 15). Within this single report,
between 2 to 8 sanctions were given at each of the 12 inspected U.S. nuclear plants. A more
recent issue highlighted by the Fukushima Daiichi accident is the NRCs lack of reliable and
complete safety regulations for severe accidents, also known as beyond-design-basis accidents.
Beyond-design-basis regulations, which would enforce stricter safety requirements beyond
simply what the reactors are built to withstand, are becoming more pressing as the threat of
severe accidents (either by natural forces or terrorist actions) increases (Lochbaum and Lyman
2012).
Another potentially dangerous gap in policy implementation is the lack of
communication between nuclear power plants and local and state governments with nearby
communities. Officially, the NRC is committed to public involvement and the sharing of
information (NRC 2012; Lochbaum 2011). However, examples in practice suggest that this
process is not functioning effectively. In addition, several processes, such as EIS composition,
still exclude public input (DOE 2012).

38

Among the reasons for implementation failure are the weak incentives to adhere to
existing standards. Many other equipment malfunctions arise when plant owners treat the
symptoms of operation complications, rather than addressing structural causes. In Palisades, MI,
for example, one of three pumps supplying cooling water to emergency equipment failed for the
second time in two years because when the problem initially arose, the plant owner addressed it
by replacing the faulty pump with new parts with the same design and composed of the same
material as the old parts, so the parts remained vulnerable to stress corrosion cracking
(Lochbaum 2011: 23). Not only did they choose a symptomatic fix over a simple, permanent fix,
but also the Situation Inspection Team sent by the NRC identified no violations of regulatory
requirements. When incidents like these are free of government sanctioned consequences, plant
owners are encouraged to make decisions based on what is easiest for the plant rather than what
is safest for the public. Thus, it is essential that regulation enforcement be actively improved.
Path to Recognition
Political Environment
In general, policy makers in the environmental policy domain fail to focus on the needs
of vulnerable populations because many of these disadvantaged individuals are poorly organized.
Since policy makers are elected officials, they tend to act based on what is most favorable with
their constituents. For this reason, some policies are based more on public opinion than on the
necessary safety precautions. A 1987 study by the EPA compared the relative risk of 31
environmental problems in relation to four different kinds of risks: cancer, noncancer health risks,
ecological effects, and other effects on human welfare. They found that, rather than employing
the priorities determined by EPA managers, the agencys actual risk management priorities were
more consistent with public opinion (Vig and Kraft 2003). Clearly, current policy creation needs
to shift its focus from pleasing the people to protecting the people.
Part of the problem is that the American form of government is based on rationalist,
egalitarian principles. Specifically, it relies on the principle of consent, meaning that the people
have the power to decide how policy is shaped. Thus, a large challenge in implementing any
change through policymaking lies in the difference between politics and policy. Politics shapes
policy. Interest groups often lobby policy makers to favor their causes, and the information
provided by interest groups often enlightens public policy. However, all points of view are not
necessarily represented equally (Noll and Owen 1973). Lobbying is expensive. Both money and
39

expertise are required, but vulnerable populations are often comprised of individuals with limited
resources in these categories. Other factors that affect successful representation include selfinterest, group size, size of the stake, and uncertainty (Ibid.). Hence, smaller, well-funded groups
with minimized free-riders, composed of individuals with large stakes are the most likely to be
heard by policy makers, and are therefore the most successful. Moreover, if the effects of the
regulation, or the specific identity of the benefactors or the losers, can be identified beforehand
with reasonable accuracy, then the incentive to lobby significantly increases (Ibid.). Wealth and
expertise are two main barriers currently preventing people of color and low-income populations
from forming successful interest groups and thereby getting recognized in the environmental
policy realm. Thus, we argue that it is essential for both a fundamental shift in policy to take
place and for lobbying to become more accessible to vulnerable populations.
Shifting Theoretical Frameworks
While greater safety standards are necessary, simply creating more safety legislation does
not solve the problem. Greater safety regulations are neither all good nor all bad. Through their
creation, resources must be diverted from the production of goods and services, in turn hindering
economic productivity (Brown and Rankin 1990). For this reason, safety standards can both be
difficult to construct and to implement. Moreover, there is no clear-cut answer as to what
precautions should be legally required or as to how stringently these legal requirements should
be enforced (Ibid.). What is clear, however, is that the current policy framework fails to
successfully protect those who need it most. Going forward, a shift in the theoretical framework
of nuclear safety regulation may contribute to solving this problem.
Current legislation is based on utilitarian values, as can be seen in the methodology
employed in creating policy evaluation schemes. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA), one common
approach, evaluate[s] proposed regulations and new environmental policies to determine
whether they are likely to increase economic welfare (Vig and Kraft 2003: 204). Because CBA
allows risks and benefits to be commensurable, policy makers favor it, and upon first glance, this
technique appears to streamline the policy creation process. As a result, [p]olicies where the
aggregate gains outweigh the aggregate costs can be justified on ethical grounds because the
gainers could fully compensate the losers with monetary payments and still be better off with the
policy (Ibid.:203). This type of rationale falls under the scope of utilitarianism, which seeks to
maximize total happiness and reduce suffering (Lebacqz 1986). Through a utilitarian lens, CBAs
40

are effective in determining legislative needs since the method evaluates the aggregate costs to
the aggregate benefits of each regulation. As long as the total social welfare increases after
policy creation, that policy is effective.
However, policies created under a utilitarian framework do not necessarily benefit those
who need protection the most. As we have seen, vulnerable populations appear neglected under a
CBA approach; they are not recognized because if the gains for certain vulnerable populations
arent large enough, then there is no economically feasible reason to create, much less enforce, a
law to protect them. This logic, however, is heavily critiqued by Rawls, who believes that the
most vulnerable would not consent to a utilitarian social contract; the most disadvantaged should
only agree to bear unequal burdens of harm if they derive special benefits. This argument is
further advanced by the fact that CBA measures utility in monetary units, which are perceived as
incommensurable with the risk of serious health problems or death (Renn 1992). Under a
Rawlsian framework, the government could create policy to protect those most at risk not only
from the immediate effects of an accident, but also from experiences like displacement and
discrimination. This type of recognition could be as simple as including clauses specifying
evacuation help requirements for people of color and those below the poverty line. Thus,
refocusing the framework used in policy creation could dramatically benefit those most at risk
without necessarily creating additional costs for the government.

VI. Conclusions and Further Research

Conclusions
From a Rawlsian perspective, there are injustices in the distribution of harms posed by
nuclear reactor siting in the United States. We investigate this matter through both quantitative
and qualitative analyses. Our spatial analysis improved upon an earlier study by using a
distanced-based GIS method and found that there are disproportionate numbers of non-white
Hispanics, women, children under the age of 10 and adults over the age of 65 located near
nuclear power facilities in the Eastern U.S. Additionally, the population surrounding the Vogtle
reactors in Georgia (where there are two new reactors in construction) is disproportionately
African American and low-income, even though Southern Nuclear Operating Company refuses
to acknowledge it as such. A subsequent qualitative analysis examined how the proximity to
nuclear reactors would translate into actual experience in the case of an accident, with a focus on

41

the social dimension of risk. In previous nuclear accidents, victims struggled with uncertainty,
displacement, cultural pressures, and social rejection. Those who are already more vulnerable
(e.g. women, poor people, and people of color) are likely to face more difficulties in dealing with
these hardships. Under a Rawlsian framework, this is unjust, and the government is responsible
for rectifying this injustice through policy that protects the most vulnerable populations from
further harm. However, in analyzing nuclear safeguarding policy, we found that nuclear
safeguarding policy lacks such focus largely because of its basis in utilitarianism. We argue that
a Rawlsian approach to justice would lead to better recognition of existing problems of injustice,
and guide policy to create appropriate solutions.
Our research is not necessarily advocating for reducing the amount of nuclear generated
in the U.S. In the context of climate change, nuclear power is an important low-carbon energy
source. However, because there are injustices within the current system, we advocate for policy
solutions that address these issues. Such solutions do not necessarily have to increase costs to
government or decrease the societal benefits of nuclear power. For example, more
comprehensive information dissemination and better public access to this information could
serve to reduce anxiety caused by uncertainty. This is already highlighted by right-to-know
legislation25 and the 1994 Executive Order (Foreman 1998), so a large part of fulfilling this goal
would simply require more effective implementation of existing guidelines. Stakeholder
participation in discussions regarding nuclear energy risk assessment and management could
further shed light on the types of harms often ignored by policy makers, such as the social harms
described in this study. While this type of paradigm shift was mandated by a landmark report by
the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1996), Understanding Risk, risk analysis remains
dominated by the technocratic views of scientific experts (Shrader-Frechette 2010). If the public
and victims of environmental injustice were given an equal voice in risk assessment and
decision-making, this could help to reduce harms to the most vulnerable.
While our study is based on a Rawlsian approach to justice and points out several large
justice problems, we are not advocating for an immediate, overall fix. As Amartya Sen argues,
justice exists along a continuum, it is not simply either achieved or not achieved (2009). With
this in mind, we hope that future research and policy will take steps to acknowledge, recognize,
and reduce the injustices highlighted in this study.

25

For example, the 1986 federal law mandating the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

42

Limitations and Future Research

While the present study identified potential injustices in the nuclear power industry, it is
important to address methodological limitations that could be addressed in future research. We
restricted our spatial analysis to the Eastern U.S. because nuclear reactors are clustered in this
region, but a future study could include the entire U.S. In such a study, demographics of
populations within buffer zones could be compared to regional or state populations and the
overall U.S. population. Additionally, the present study attempted to differentiate nuclear power
facilities based on potential impact zones in case of a nuclear accident, but did not incorporate
important variables such as weather and topography due to the complexity of and difficulty to
predict these factors. A more sophisticated nuclear fallout model could include these variables
and be incorporated into future studies to more accurately identify potential victims.
Furthermore, due to time constraints, we were not able to test the buffer zones for
robustness; future studies could test different impact zone sizes and formulas for reproducibility
in results. Additionally, future research could more specifically examine the risk posed by each
individual facility throughout the country. This could be used to create a relative risk index
(ranking the facilities based on the likelihood of an accident) of nuclear power facilities, which
could then be incorporated into an assessment of population composition near nuclear facilities
associated with different risk levels. This would provide insight into whether the riskier facilities
are located near more vulnerable populations than the less risky facilities.
Future studies could further explore the social dimensions of risks posed by nuclear
power in a number of ways. More data sources could expand the social vulnerability analysis,
creating a more complete picture of victim experience and vulnerability in the event of nuclear
disaster. An examination of the daily experience of living near normally operating reactors could
provide insight on the average harm an individual endures. This type of analysis could be
accomplished through case studies of communities located near nuclear facilities, with a focus on
areas with potential environmental justice concerns. Finally, further policy analyses could inform
policy makers of more specific approaches that could reduce current and prevent future injustice.
Our analysis of policy focused on the NRC, though there are other key government agencies and
interest groups that influence nuclear power policy in the U.S. Future research could include a
comprehensive investigation of the actors influencing nuclear power regulation.

43

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Appendix 1
States included in Eastern region
Alabama
Washington D.C.
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan

New Hampshire
New Jersey
New york
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia

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Appendix 2
Map of the study area in the Spatial Distribution analysis (Section III). Census tracts in the
Eastern region
in purple,
impact zones
are in green,
the nuclear
power
facilities
ImpactareZones
of Nuclear
Facilities
in thewhile
Eastern
Region
of the
US are
represented by dots.

Legend
Nuclear Power Facility
Impact Zone
Eastern Region Census Tracts

0 50 100

200

300

400
Miles

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Appendix 3
Interviewees were prompted to explain what they have learned through their interactions with
residents and evacuees of Fukushima, regarding the ways in which the following factors
contributed to post-disaster experiences and ongoing stress:
Uncertainty about the state of the disaster as it progressed
Uncertainty about the possible health impacts and how to avoid them
Inconsistent media coverage regarding the conditions of the disaster and associated health
impacts
For residents, the extent to which insecurity in the ability to find new employment and
find/afford housing has prevented evacuation
For evacuees, the extent to which the fear of contamination of their home led to their
decision to evacuate
The experience of social discrimination outside of Fukushima prefecture, on the basis of
radiation exposure
Conflicting cultural pressure regarding how to behave and what to believe with regard to
health risks

52