The Nuclear Materials Events Database contains records of all non-commercial power reactor incidents and events, including medical events, involving the use of radioactive byproduct material. Regulated licensees and Agreement States report the information to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Included in this data is the basic record of each event, records of abnormal occurrences (event that could be a risk to the public), information about the radioactive material involved, type of the event, etc.

There are nine categories of events, as well as one "other" category that serves as a catch-all. The category/event types are: Equipment problems involving licensed material; overexposures to licensed material; fuel cycle facility events; loss of control events; leaking sealed sources involving licensed material; medical events involving licensed material; non-power reactor events; release or contamination events involving licensed material; and transportation events.

The database has 12 relational tables with entries from 1990 through March 2009. Some events occurring before 1990 appear in this data, but the most consistent reporting is for records from 1990 and later.

---

• Story No. 18334: National Journal examines the nuclear industry's vulnerability to terrorism. The report quotes nuclear power's critics who say that "a terrorist attack on the one of the nation's 103 commercial reactors might trigger a meltdown within minutes." However, industry officials call such fears exaggerated. The story predicts that the increasing demand for electricity and the good safety record of the nuclear industry will bring need for new nuclear plants after the immediate threat of terrorist strikes has eased.
• Story No. 21518: Cusac's investigation looks into fire safety protections at several U.S. nuclear plants, as well as the Bush administration's decision to make fire safety a lax issue. The article points out the fact that this decrease in fire protection comes at the point when Al Qaeda's interests are in targeting unidentified nuclear power plants. From the IRE questionnaire: "This article discovered that the reason the Bush Administration was making such a move was because many plants were already in violation of the law and because the nuclear industry threatened widespread rebellion if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tried to enforce the law."
• Story No. 22256: A Primetime investigative team examined security at nuclear research reactors at universities across the country and discovered shockingly lax security at numerous locations. Their findings contradicted assurances of a "heightened state of security awareness" from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. After the report aired several members of Congress called for investigations of the state of security at nuclear reactors.
• Story No. 9004: Plain Dealer (Cleveland) reports on undisclosed cases of overexposure to radiation at hospitals and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's failure to regulate hospitals' radiation use.

• Tipsheet No. 178: A thorough description of how to cover nuclear utilities with depth, including how to deal with and assess whistle-blowers and how to get information from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; includes several pages of sources from lawyers who represent whistle-blowers to officials from various regions of the NRC.
• Tipsheet No. 1341: This tipsheet is an excellent first-step advisory for environmental reporters who are looking for stories on the nuclear industry cleanup.
• Tipsheet No. 1855: Threats from weapons of mass destruction are more pronounced than ever. Eisler describes some of the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He also includes a hefty list of government, NGO, and academia sources on the subjects.