A Dylan Ratigan Show panel talks about how officials can prevent a nuclear meltdown in Japan and how radiation will affect the population.

MSNBC TRANSCRIPT:

>>> at this hour, a desperate scramble to contain the spiraling catastrophe at the fukushima nuclear plant, fears now that two more reactors at units five and six may indeed be unable to be stoned from blowing themselves. experts say the disaster there has eclipsed three mile island and could ultimately reach a level only previously achieved, yes in chernobyl. fears of radiation exposure heightened by the fact tens of thousands are homeless and exposed to the elements as a result. hundreds of thousands more are still missing. all of this in the near-freezing cold in northern japan that now gr grips the quake and tsunami-ravaged area. rescue workers.

>> the whole place has been devastated. you look around you, there’s nothing left. there’s a few buildings standing. but survives, picking through the debris of what’s left and, it’s an appalling situation.

>> reality of finding someone alive in the debris is very small. but we obviously continue to search.

>> from the situation on the ground to the danger in the sky, a no-fly zone now over — now in effect, i should say, over that nuclear plant to prevent nuclear particles from spreading. radioactive material directly released into the atmosphere during the fire at the unit four reactor was the concern.

>>> so how great is the risk? the latest reading around the reactor conplex revealed an exposure rate of what they call four recommend per hour, radiation dose ages measured in units referred to as recommenm. the highest permissible dosage for new u.s. nuclear workers is to be exposed to five rem per year. the laws that limit the american public to receiving doses of 1/10 of one rem per year. so a lot of radiation, certainly a lot more viewed than acceptable, is being emitted from that area. joining us is barry scanlan, former fema official under president clinton. and the weather clanle’s bryan norcross, has a lot of information for us on how this particulate can spread. my understanding is that the primary risk is that the atmosphere takes the particulate in and spreads it around. is there a way to assess how much of that is happening and how much of that could happen?

>> well, the issue is getting this radioactive material into the atmosphere or into the water, and then having the natural processes move it around, downstream, downstream air wise or water wise. good news i the wind is coming in from the northwest, blowing whatever is coming out of that nuclear plant offshore, and that’s going to continue for a while. the only way we have to assess what’s — what amount is in that wind is by their measurements there at the plant. the plant is not putting out radiation, it’s putting out some material, especially by way of explosion, but it’s pleblowing offshore. tomorrow japanese time through thursday, it’s going to be there. downstream it continues to come in from the west and continues offshore. later in the weekend it becomes a little less certain. if they keep it contained, like they have to the extent they have right now with the wind patterns we see for the foreseeable future, there does not appear to be a major risk of whatever comes out spreading to the surrounding area. however, that’s only if they keep it reasonably well contained, as they have so far, reasonably well.

>> barry, if we are so fortunate to be blessed by winds and other variables that don’t spread the material around, it doesn’t address the on the ground issue of the fact that, again, you’ve got four rem per hour coming off of unit four when the u.s. threshold for nuclear workers is five rem per year. is there any contingency, any material, are there jackets, are there coats, anything that the human beings that are close to it that facility, whether they work there or simply can get away from it, can physically put on their body?

>> well, dylan, i think that they’ve done the evacuation as best they can in a phased approach, two miles, five miles and further out to get people to safety as best they can. there’s potassium iodine tablets we use in the united states, and either states or the plants have them to disperse after an event, which you know, lowers the effect on the thyroid, but there’s also the standard in the united states of a 50-mile radi radius, checking vegetation, as brian noted the waterways, something they’ll be testing for some time. obviously there’s a medical problem for these people that they’re going to monitor for a good amount of time.

>> what will that medical problem be.

>> well it could come from all sorts of different effects or playout after chernobyl there was a lot of instances of leukemia. but it’s something overall they’ll monitor for the course of years, frankly, to see what happens but they seem to have done the evacuation properly, tried to get as many people away in the most orderly way possible and now it’s a situation they’re going to have to monitor. another big issue that they’re going to deal with, of course, both in the tsunami region that was not affected by the nuclear plant but especially in the area with the nuclear plant, is all of the debris removal. this is not an easy issue for them to deal with. if they’re able to have a long-term recovery and build back better and stronger, they’re going to need to deal with that issue pretty quickly.

>> brian, is there any indication what they could do, not only with the debris that barry was just referring to, but also the sea watt that is being used to try to avert a more extreme event, as obviously being contaminated? any idea what happens to the actual sea water?

>> well, they’ve got to keep that all contained. if it becomes radioactive, if it’s carrying radioactive material, the whole game here is to keep all of this contained in that one area they’ve evacuated. it’s important to note about radiation, radiation exposure is cumulative. if they’re getting five rems per day —

>> they’re getting four rems per hour.

>> right. but if they’re getting that, they — they’re monitoring people carefully, and what counts is the total that you get over time and as long as they’re not getting a heavy duty dose, you know, they’re making the medical equation that these people are going to be okay if they get them out of there in time. as long as this thing doesn’t get worse, that’s the big concern, is if there’s a big explosion if they lose containment, and then followed by an explosion ala chernobyl where the uncontained nuclear material, then in a nonnuclear explosion gets dispersed into the atmosphere, into the water, into the air, then it’s a whole different can of worms and before that happens they’ve got to get those people to safety because then they would get massive doses of radiation all at once, and that’s what the medical team tell us would be extremely dang us.

>> two very quick questions. is there any way to anticipate the frequency with which the wind instead of blowing off of china, across the sea of japan and east as your graphics are showing it now, could either blow from the north to the south towards tokyo, or blow back west towards china?

>> we don’t see in the foreseeable future any threat to tokyo by a significant north winds. the winds are going light and variable this weekend but we do not think they will be strong enough to move any kind of nuclear radioactive material a significant distance from the plant, and that’s why they have that zone around the plant.

>> listen, an insightful conversation for us. we thank you, both of you. bryan norcross and barry scanlan, whit associates on emergency issues with the clinton administration at fema? ?