Groups Concerned for Safety and Security After Consumers Energy Announces Sale of Palisades Nuclear Plant to Entergy

Covert, Michigan—Consumers Energy Company today announced it intends to sell its Palisades nuclear power plant to Entergy Nuclear, based in New Orleans, the second largest nuclear utility in the country, with a dozen nuclear reactors in its fleet. But a coalition of environmental and public interest organizations has watch-dogged, researched and chronicled the problems at Palisades for three decades. This growing coalition has for the past few years fought against the proposed 20 year license extension. The groups have documented how the sale represents a threat to public health and safety, environmental protection, and security against terrorist attack.

“Entergy is noted for its unsafe practices across the country,” said Kevin Kamps of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), a national watchdog group on the nuclear power industry based in Washington, D.C. “Entergy has refused to close its Indian Point nuclear power plant just 25 miles upwind from Manhattan, despite the fact that it is perhaps the single most potentially catastrophic terrorist target in the U.S, and despite leaking radioactive wastes into groundwater next to the Hudson River.”
The 9/11 Commission reported that Mohammad Atta, a ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had himself scouted out Entergy’s Indian Point reactors, and had advocated for attacking them.
“Palisades itself is a radioactive bull’s eye on the Great Lakes, a sitting duck for catastrophic terrorist attack, and for that reason alone should be shut down rather than allowed to operate till 2031,” said Kamps of NIRS.

“The reactor itself, the high-level radioactive waste storage pool, and the outdoor waste silos sitting in plain view on the beach are all wide open to a variety of terrorist attacks, and very little has been done about it,” said Alice Hirt of Don’t Waste Michigan in Holland. “Given Entergy’s track record, we are not optimistic anything would change for the better if Entergy became owner of Palisades.”
“We call upon all decision-makers to require significant safety and security upgrades before this sale is allowed to go through,” said Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes in Monroe. “There are serious safety and security concerns with Palisades’ current operations, let alone allowing Entergy to run the plant into the ground over the next 25 years.”

Grassroots groups such as Citizens Awareness Network and the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution have opposed Entergy’s plans to not only run the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant for 20 additional years, but also at 120% of its original design.
“Entergy is clearly willing to gamble with the lives, health and safety of communities living downwind and downstream of its other reactors, and we fear they will take short cuts on safety and push
the dangerously deteriorated Palisades reactor past its limits in order to boost the company’s profit margin,” said Chris Williams of Citizens Awareness Network of Vermont, a leading watchdog on Entergy’s Vermont Yankee reactor.

“We are very concerned that Entergy – which declared bankruptcy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has still not turned all the lights back on in New Orleans nearly a year after that disaster – would now be entrusted with operations at the dangerously deteriorated Palisades nuclear power plant,” said Kamps of NIRS.

Three dozen grassroots Michigan and Great Lakes environmental groups – including Michigan Environmental Council, itself a coalition representing 72 organizations with a combined membership of over 200,000 Michigan residents – has opposed the Palisades license extension in various proceedings before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

“The NRC’s 20 year license extension is obviously a rubberstamp,” said Hirt of Don’t Waste Michigan’s Holland chapter, an intervener in the licensing proceeding. “Otherwise, why would Entergy pay $380 million for a reactor that only has five more years of operations left on its license?”
Just yesterday, the NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) met in Washington, D.C. regarding the twenty year license extension proposed for Palisades. The ACRS asked critical questions of Consumers Energy regarding the condition of the plant during such extended operations. Concerned citizen groups asked critical questions about the risks of current operations given the deteriorated condition of the plant.

“Would you buy a used car without first opening the hood to look at the engine?” asked Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, referring to Consumers Energy’s request to defer inspections on the reactor’s internal components until after the license extension is granted. “Buyer beware,” Keegan cautioned Entergy, “for we will remain vigilant and require that worn out parts at Palisades be replaced, no matter what the cost in dollars and cents.” Keegan also vowed to challenge Palisades’ numerous requests to NRC for relief from safety regulations.
The single biggest danger that opponents have pointed to at Palisades is embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel, risking a fracture like a hot glass under cold water in an emergency, and release of catastrophic amounts of radioactivity into the environment.

“NRC has weakened its embrittlement rules a number of times previously, and appears poised to do so again, all to accommodate Palisades, one of the most embrittled reactors in the country,” said Hirt of Don’t Waste Michigan.

“Conservatively speaking, tens of thousands could be killed or injured, and a hundred billion dollars in property damage caused, if Palisades’ embrittled reactor fractures,” said Kamps of NIRS. “This would be a ‘beyond maximum credible accident,’ something NRC and industry have no contingency plans for, a potential Chernobyl catastrophe on the Great Lakes.”
Kamps pointed out to the ACRS that Consumers Energy itself admitted in May at a presentation to the Michigan Public Service Commission that costly repairs and replacements for the reactor vessel head, steam generators, and containment sumps are a major reason that the plant is up for sale.

Palisades plans to replace its degraded reactor pressure vessel lid a year from now, and barge the radioactive waste up the Lake Michigan shoreline to Muskegon, where it will be loaded onto a train for shipment to a licensed radioactive waste dump.
“Palisades wants to blaze a trail, so that even the high-level radioactive waste can be barged up the Lake Michigan shoreline,” said Kamps, referring to U.S. Department of Energy documents confirming the plan. “This proposal risks a radioactive disaster in Lake Michigan, should one of those waste barges sink due to accident or attack.”

“We need to be cautious that Consumers Energy not pocket tens to hundreds of millions of dollars of ratepayer money that was supposed to be set aside for the eventual clean up of the radioactive contamination of the Palisades site, as well as the long-term management of the high-level radioactive wastes stored there,” said Kamps. “The Michigan Public Service Commission cannot allow such robbery of ratepayer funds.”

“We have documented the many problems, and brought to regulators’ attention that Palisades should be shut down for good at the end of its 40 year license,” said Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes. “Now we face the nuclear nightmare of Entergy running this risky reactor into the ground for an additional 20 years. This we will not tolerate.”

See http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/licensing/palisades.htm for more information.