Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members called today for the agency to quickly address the safety and instrumentation of spent fuel pools at nuclear plants.

NRC senior management representatives and technical experts said spent fuel pools need instruments to read temperatures and water levels during emergencies and that the information should be accessible from a plant's control room. Current instruments are often not designed to function during accidents, they said.

The staff's recommendation stems from a dozen safety proposals made by an NRC task force that reviewed the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant (ClimateWire, July 13).

In August, NRC commissioners ordered staff to prioritize and collect stakeholder comments on the task force proposals (Greenwire, Aug. 22). The commission's staff prioritized the recommendations into three tiers, with spent fuel pool instrumentation in the top tier.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in an interview that commissioners will have their first opportunity to respond to the staff recommendations next week. Jaczko said he hopes the initial decision will follow shortly.

"Most of the recommendations are pretty straightforward, especially the short-term actions," he said.

Click here for the NRC staff's report.