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E-M:/ Palisades Plant relicensing intervention

Thread-Topic: Speak out against Palisades nuclear plant 20 yr. license extension in South Haven on Thurs., Nov. 3, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Thread-Index: AcXaaMF/wCzY1cV/QxWnTWHy3am28g==
From: "Kevin Kamps" <kevin@nirs.org>
To: "Kevin Kamps" <kevin@nirs.org>

Dear Friends and Colleagues in Michigan,
 
The bad news is that Consumers Energy has applied for permission to operate Palisades nuclear power plant for an additional 20 years.
 
The good news is that our broad coalition of concerned citizens and organizations (see listing below) has won standing before a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel of three administrative judges. We will defend our contentions (concerning the risk of the brittle reactor vessel rupturing, causing a catastrophic radiation release; outdoor dry cask waste storage on the Lake Michigan shoreline violating NRC safety regulations; radiation risks to the local drinking water supply; and environmental justice violations against Palisades? Native, Latin, and African American neighbors) on Thurs., Nov. 3 beginning at 9 a.m. at the Conference Room of the Ramada Inn Lighthouse and Conference Center, 1555 Phoenix Road, South Haven, Michigan. Unfortunately, this industry-friendly NRC process is largely legalistic and rigged against us. Attend if you can to support the intervention proceeding.
 
But more importantly, the judges will accept public comments from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the same location. Please attend and express your personal opposition to the dangerous Palisades 20 year license extension!  Each speaker will be permitted approximately 5 minutes time. This is our hard-won opportunity to sound the alarm to the media and larger community, to launch a larger campaign against Palisades. Please see our concise ?talking points? backgrounder below which highlights the key issues, to help you compose your own comments to deliver on Nov. 3.
 
Contact me at 240.462.3216 if you have any questions!
 
Please spread the word to your friends, family, and neighbors! We need to pack the hearing on Nov. 3 with voices calling for the permanent shutdown of the Palisades reactor and a transition to safe, clean, reliable and affordable energy efficiency and renewable energy sources!
 
 
Sincerely,
 
Kevin Kamps,
Nuclear Waste Specialist
Nuclear Information & Resource Service
1424 16th Street, N.W., Suite 404
Washington, D.C. 20036
202.328.0002 ext. 14
kevin@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
 
Opponents to Palisades Nuclear Power Plant
20 Year License Extension
Cite Brittle Reactor
as Catastrophic Risk
 
Operating the 35 year old Palisades nuclear power plant for 25 more years
risks rupture of the highly embrittled reactor vessel
and catastrophic radiation release into the Great Lakes Basin
 
                 The owner (Jackson, Michigan-based Consumers Energy Company, a subsidiary of CMS) and operator (Hudson, Wisconsin-based Nuclear Management Company, LLC) of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert (just seven miles south of South Haven, on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwestern Michigan) has applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a 20 year extension to its original 40 year license.
 
But concerned citizens fear 20 more years risks a catastrophic accident. Palisades is perhaps the most embrittled reactor vessel in the United States. Neutron radiation from the nuclear chain reaction in the reactor core has seriously impacted the metal?s ductility.  If, during an emergency, cooling water is pumped into the thermally hot and highly pressurized reactor core, the ?pressurized thermal shock? (PTS) could rupture the brittle reactor vessel like a hot glass under cold water,  releasing  catastrophic amounts of radioactivity into the air and waters of Lake Michigan, the source of drinking water (and so much more) to tens of millions of people downstream.
Given the severe risks stemming from Palisades? embrittlement, a growing coalition opposes the 20 year license extension.
 
                Palisades also has a serious waste problem. Electricity is but a fleeting byproduct from the reactor. The actual product is forever deadly high-level radioactive waste. Palisades? indoor waste storage pool was full in 1993. Ever since, the overflowing waste has been stored in outdoor concrete/steel silos on sand dunes just 150 yards from Lake Michigan. The pads under these casks are in violation of earthquake regulations. A quake could send the waste into the Lake. Thus Palisades has no safe place to store its wastes. A first step towards solving this growing waste problem at Palisades is to stop making it in the first place, as by preventing the 20 year license extension.
 
                The Palisades reactor presents many additional problems. The NRC allows it to emit harmful radioactivity and toxic chemicals into the air and water on a daily basis, as a part of ?routine? operations. This threatens to contaminate the recently installed drinking water supply intake for the City of South Haven built offshore from Van Buren State Park, immediately downstream from the Palisades reactor.
 
Also, Palisades has troubling environmental justice problems. Palisades is located in a predominantly African American and low income township and participates in the industry-wide targeting of Native American lands out west for high-level radioactive waste dumps, such as the proposed national dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada on Western Shohsone Indian lands.
 
Aside from embrittlement, the Palisades reactor suffers widespread age-related deterioration and degradation, threatening equipment failures that could exacerbate the embrittlement problem, or lead to a major accident even if the reactor vessel itself never ruptured.
 
                For all these reasons, a coalition of concerned citizens and organizations is actively opposing this dangerous 20 year license extension at the Palisades reactor.  On August 8th, dozens of local residents officially intervened before the NRC against the license extension and requested a formal adjudicatory hearing on the matter.
 
                Concerned individuals and organizations are urged to add their names to this growing coalition effort. To add your individual and/or group name to those opposing the 20 year license extension at Palisades nuclear power plant, and to learn more ways you and your group can help, please contact Kevin Kamps (a board member of Don?t Waste Michigan) at Nuclear Information and Resource Service at 202.328.0002 ext. 14 or kevin@nirs.org.
 
List of organizations opposing 20 year license extension at Palisades nuclear power plant:
 
Grant Smith, Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Indianapolis, Indiana
Philip Lane Tanton, Director, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Mattawan, Michigan
Ziggy Kleinau, Citizens for Renewable Energy (CFRE), Lion?s Head, Ontario
Cyndi Roper, Clean Water Action, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Michael Keegan, Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, Monroe, Michigan
Alice Hirt, Don?t Waste Michigan, Holland, Michigan
John Jackson, Great Lakes United, Buffalo, New York
James Clift, Michigan Environmental Council (MEC), Lansing, Michigan
Chuck Jordan, Green Party of Van Buren County, Bangor, Michigan
Sylvia Inwood, Chair, Green Party of Michigan, Detroit, Michigan
Maynard Kaufman, Michigan Land Trustees, Bangor, Michigan
David Kraft, Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), Evanston, Illinois
Keith Gunter, Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Campaign, Livonia, Michigan
Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), Washington, D.C.
Mike Shriberg, Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM), Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thomas Leonard, West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Grand Rapids, Michigan

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Alex J. Sagady & Associates        http://www.sagady.com

Environmental Enforcement, Permit/Technical Review, Public Policy,
Evidence Review and Litigation Investigation on Air, Water and
Waste/Community Environmental and Resource Protection
Prospectus at:  http://www.sagady.com/sagady.pdf

PO Box 39,  East Lansing, MI  48826-0039 
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