The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released transcripts today showing top agency officials supported the NRC chairman's controversial recommendation to evacuate Americans who were within 50 miles of the crippled Japanese reactors last year.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko led the commission's response following a powerful earthquake and tsunami last March that triggered explosions, radioactive leaks and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi power station in northeast Japan.

The transcripts outline conversations between Jaczko and NRC staff members who set up an emergency operation center in Rockville, Md., during the first 10 days of the Japan crisis.

According to the documents, Jaczko had the support of NRC Operations Director Bill Borchardt in sending a recommendation to the U.S. ambassador to Japan to evacuate Americans from within 50 miles from the crippled plant.

"If this happened in the U.S., we would go out to 50 miles," Borchardt told the chairman during a March 16, 2011, call. "That would be our evacuation."

Jaczko's recommendation was criticized by Republicans and some environmental groups because NRC only evacuates Americans within 10 miles of damaged U.S. nuclear plants. At the time, Japanese officials were evacuating individuals within 12 miles of the Fukushima reactors (E&E Daily, June 24, 2011).

It was later revealed that Jaczko partially based his recommendation on the incorrect assumption that the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 of the plant was completely dry.

An NRC official said in the transcript that an explosion leveled the "structure for the Unit 4 spent fuel pool all the way down to the approximate level of the bottom of the fuels" and "there's no water in there whatsoever."

NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner told reporters today that he is glad the pool was found to be full of water, and the situation was better than they had expected.

The transcripts show, agency officials said, how NRC officials were forced to make decisions based on partial or missing information but that they accurately gauged the severity of the situation unfolding in Japan.

"Any crisis of this magnitude has a fog of war in terms of there's a high degree of uncertainty of information and missing information in making decisions ... in response to any large-scale crisis," said Dan Dorman, the director of NRC's Division of Security Operations Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response.

Brenner said the transcripts were released to "give the American public ... a very firsthand look at what it is we do in a time of crisis" and that the chairman's office was not involved in redacting the documents.

NRC officials also said they compiled a report after the emergency operation center was shut down to identify the largest challenges in responding to the accident.

Scott Morris, deputy director for incident response in NRC's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, said agency officials during a domestic crisis would have better information than they had during the Japan crisis.

"If we had a severe accident in this country, we would expect to have much more direct access to the licensees, to the local responders who have a much better picture of what's going on at the site," Morris said.

Despite NRC's insistence that releasing the documents today was not political in nature, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jaczko's former boss, said the transcripts "dispel claims made by his fellow commissioners that Chairman Jaczko failed to keep them informed as the disaster unfolded."

Markey rebuffed some of the commissioners' complaints last year that they were kept out of the operation center during the Japan crisis. He also said the transcripts show Jaczko was following the guidance of senior NRC staff and other federal officials when he recommended a 50-mile evacuation.