The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region VII office announced July 6, 2018, the states of Missouri and Nebraska, along with Atchison County in Missouri and Nemaha and Richardson counties in Nebraska, will participate with the Nebraska Public Power District in a one-day exercise on July 31, 2018, in support of the Cooper Nuclear Station, located near Brownville, Nebraska.
The routine exercise will test the abilities of the states, the utility, and the participating counties to protect the health and safety of the public living and working in the vicinity of the Cooper Nuclear Station. The exercise is a biennial requirement to determine the adequacy of the state and local radiological emergency preparedness and response plans. It will require the activation of emergency facilities by the participating state and local officials. The activities of the state, county and local units of government will be observed and evaluated by the FEMA Region VII Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Program.
Cooper Nuclear Station on-site performance will be observed and evaluated by officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). A public meeting will be held Thursday, August 2, 2018, to describe and explain the full-scale response exercise process. Since the process of evaluating the full-scale response exercise will take months, the preliminary findings are very limited in scope.
Members of the public and the media are invited to attend this meeting beginning at 10 a.m. (CDT) at the Nebraska Public Power District, Emergency Operations Facility, 902 Central Avenue, Auburn, Nebraska. Representatives from FEMA Region VII will chair the meeting and explain the exercise process. A representative from the NRC Region IV office, located in Arlington, Texas, will discuss activities conducted on-site at the power plant during the exercise.