Nuclear reactor accidents in the United States ordered during the late 1960s raised new safety questions and created fears of a severe reactor accident that would send large quantities of radiation into the environment. In the early 1970s, a highly contentious debate over the performance of emergency core cooling systems in nuclear plants, designed to prevent a core meltdown that could lead to the "China syndrome", received coverage in the popular media and technical journals. In 1976, four nuclear engineers —three from GE and one from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission— resigned, stating that nuclear power was not as safe as their superiors were claiming. They testified to
Boiling water reactor safety systems or isolation signal. When an isolation signal is given to a group, both the inboard and outboard valves stroke closed. Tests of isolation logic must be performed regularly and is a part of each plant's technical specifications. The timing of these valves to stroke closed is a component of each plant's safety analysis and failure to close in the analyzed time is a reportable event. Examples of isolation groups include the main steamlines, the reactor water cleanup system, the reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC) system, shutdown cooling, and the residual heat removal system. For pipes which inject water into the