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I am writing about a deep concern I have with contamination in Chippewa County. This letter is a follow-up to the same matter and a contact recently made with NMEAC. Your organization was referenced in their return email detailing recent podcasts on microplastics and other environmental problems. The issue here is the chemical trails, often referred to as climate engineering or geoengineering, left from high altitude aircraft overtop of my residence in the eastern Upper Peninsula and seen as well in neighboring skies. They are not contrails which when formed are narrow and dissipate quickly. The trails widen, are persistent and here have created an almost continuous cloud canopy for much of this winter.
The first occurrence I noticed was in fall when there were many aircraft leaving the trails, sometimes flying in formation, creating crossing patterns and more. Now seen less frequently since skies are most often overcast , but still are often seen during an occasional clear sky which usually does not last for the day. Stars at night are rarely seen.
The other anomaly is the physical characteristics of the snow. It is slippery, including during cold temperatures, and has a consistent graininess I think is very unusual; this pattern has continued through the winter.
I would very much to have the snow tested for contaminants including plastics; have contacted one laboratory but did not get a response, even though I may not have the financial resources to pay for the tests. This is something you may have an interest in pursuing since I believe the contamination of soils, plant life, wildlife and all else is ongoing and a threat to our ecosystem.
I have contacted representatives and others about this and from Senator John Demoose’s office it was relayed that others in our county notified their office with similar misgivings and concerns. Unfortunately the office staff informed me that they had contacted the state police who had determined that no hazard exists. Unfortunate to say the least.
If you are unaware of the topic and risks I would encourage you to visit “The Dimming” found on YouTube, a documentary put together by Geoengineeringwatch.org. What goes in my skies transpires in many other locales. Shasta County, California is working now to have all such contamination banned above all parts of the county.
Warm regards,
Terry Schaedig
www.northwindsforestry.com
906-298-8172 – home phone, not a cell
[email protected]
Northwinds Forestry LLC
I’d like to get this information to people attending the Climate Conference today. (Unfortunately, I cannot attend in person. But could perhaps do a zoom call link or call in, if necessary.)
Please call me asap for more information. (517) 256-5380
Keep it real!
I’m following up on my previous email about contributing a guest article to your website on helping business owners adopt sustainable practices.
If this aligns with your content goals, I’d love to share the article with you. Please let me know if you’re interested or if there’s a particular angle you’d like me to emphasize.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
All the best,
Brenda Kirby
https://greenstillmatters.com/
Reply with “New topics, please,” if you’re open to receiving an article but didn’t like the above suggestion. And just let me know if you don’t wish to hear from me again.
Please feel free to contact me using my email: [email protected] or phone 616-915-2403 to confirm your attendance or to get additional information
Michael Butkiewicz
14560 Lakeside Circle, Apt. 132
Sterling Heights, MI 48313
I’m hoping to inspire current and future business owners to make their businesses more sustainable.
My thinking, if you’re interested, is that I can put together a guest article for your website. The article will discuss the most feasible and profitable opportunities available to business owners looking to make a positive environmental impact. Essentially, it will teach readers how to find (and utilize) sustainability-boosting practices for their businesses.
What do you think? Any interest in sharing this content with your readers?
All the best,
Brenda Kirby
https://greenstillmatters.com/
Reply with “New topics, please,” if you’re open to receiving an article but didn’t like the above suggestion. And just let me know if you don’t wish to hear from me again.
This site has the wrong date for the 2024 election. It’s Nov. 5 not Nov. 6.
My name is Johnnie Jordan, and Nakia Jones my colleague are working for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Local Engagement and Administration (LEA) group in the CMS Chicago Office. CMS Chicago Regional office covers IL, IN, MI, MN, OH & WI. Most recently, I’ve been identified as the State Lead for Indiana in the CMS Region 5 office. As you may know, we administer the 3Ms: Medicare, Medicaid, {including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)} and the Health Insurance Marketplace.
My goal is to ensure you have a connection between CMS and me. Our team, LEA (Local Engagement Administration), is responsible for providing outreach, education, and training on the 3Ms and developing relationships with local stakeholders. We value your partnership and would love to speak with you about CMS Priorities or provide information for your organization’s newsletter.
I look forward to meeting with you and developing a solid partnership. My availability is flexible, and I’m open to in-person or virtual meetings.
Let’s get connected!
(773)577-0055
Warm regards,
Johnnie Jordan
Health Insurance Specialist-Outreach
CMS Chicago Local Engagement and Administration
Office of Program Operations and Local Engagement
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
John C. Kluczynski Federal Building
230 South Dearborn Street, Suite 3370F| Chicago, IL 60604
Office: (773)577-0055| Email [email protected]
According to Greenpeace, “what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.”
So if anybody gets any good ideas about even those little things to paste on a car window, that would be good to send to me and others because we could give them out at different things. For instance, I belong to the Michigan Mushroom hunting club and I see a lot of people interested in the outdoors in the mid Michigan area up to East and Missaukee County And Isabella County and places around our county now as our Chippewa water is really doing a nice job. In fact, I think I will tell the director and he can at least put it online in the website if I send him some samples and like we could get permission from the state club And they’re really are no clubs bios. I guess if you say Lansing is close that’s only an hours drive that’s the closest. We are south now one and getting over towards Saginaw Midland one county and we’re going north one county but we’re going west a couple counties with more units donated land.
Good we take photographs of the local signs in this message. You sent me with your permission so we don’t get into trouble. Or I probably could find some artist that would love to do that kind of work for us here in Central Michigan! I’ll have to really start meeting people like that at the Commission On Aging and I bet they do it, you that really loved to do artwork.
Thanks for all your ideas and I am 100% for this. And I’m also 100% of getting other kind of sprays and chemicals for our huge huge fields of corn, wheat, and soybeans and hay! I’ve been driving around here in several county areas and we have many fields more than 1 mile in size on all sides and no place to drive in between Rose anymore, it’s just all sprayed from Plains above, etc. or even from those big machines that spread water in the field, now the water can be tainted with chemicals. I’m sure.
Many blessings and thank you for doing this wonderful job and keep it up. I am keeping you in my prayer and I’m going to ask the Sisters of the precious blood who are housed in Dayton, Ohio, and who are my community to do that because I know there are huge counties of farms there like Mercer County, etc. etc. and I have worked in some counties where they cut down the last remains of beautiful trees.
Many blessings and thanks, Marie
Sister Marie Kopin CPPS, Dayton, Ohio
But currently living in MountPleasant Michigan
{Sierra Club Michigan Chapter has also put out an alert, as well as talking points, re: this important July 11th public comment meeting: https://www.sierraclub.org/michigan/blog/2024/07/raising-dead-palisades-nuclear-plant-public-meeting-july-11th
Holtec’s attempt to restart the closed Palisades atomic reactor is unprecedented — but the scheme has already led other nuclear reactor operating companies to recently float trial balloons as well, such as at Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania, and Duane Arnold in Iowa, both of which were — supposedly — closed for good a number of years ago. Any closed reactor that has not begun to be decommissioned, or has not been decommissioned very much, may join this zombie reactor nuclear nightmare parade. Let’s nip it in the bud at Palisades!
Holtec has also set the precedent of targeting even decommissioning nuclear power plant sites for “Small Nuclear Reactor” new builds. Palisades and Big Rock Point on the Lake Michigan shore are at the top of its target list, but Holtec is also explicitly targeting Oyster Creek, New Jersey. EnergySolutions has jumped on Holtec’s bandwagon, floating the trial balloon of “re-nuclearizing” (Steve Kent’s term) the closed and decommissioning Kewaunee nuclear power plant in Wisconsin, also on the Lake Michigan shore, by building one or more “SMRs” there. This nuclear nightmare of an idea could also spread further across the country.
We need your help! Thanks!}
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
On , the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), accompanied by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), will hold a . The location will be. In-person attendees will be given priority to deliver verbal comments. However, virtual/telephonic participation is another option for providing verbal comments for the official record during the four-hour session on July 11th.
Thursday, July 11, 2024, from 6 to 10pm Eastern Timepublic comment session regarding environmental scoping for the Palisades atomic reactor restart scheme Grand Upton Hall at the Mendel Center, 1100 Yore Ave. in Benton Harbor, Michigan
. Also see . And (NRC has a , including a link to its “POTENTIAL RESTART,” with associated documentation.)
See NRC’s June 27, 2024 press releaseNRC’s public meeting announcementhere is NRC’s .Federal Register NoticePalisades website section
But for those who cannot make it in-person, please consider attending and commenting virtually/telephonically. Given the stakes for the Great Lakes environment, as well as health and safety, this unprecedented, extremely high-risk, insanely expensive for the public, and unneeded Palisades zombie reactor restart must be resisted and blocked!
It is important that as many opponents to Palisades’ restart as possible attend in-person to provide verbal comments.
As provided in the NRC public meeting announcement, here is the for phoning in. (There is no Pass Code provided.)
Teleconference Bridge Number <(301) 576-2978> and Conference ID Number <482766168#>
And here is the URL
https://events.gcc.teams.microsoft.com/event/c5b523d6-e7c4-42a1-994f-41f1dd78afb5@e8d01475-c3b5-436a-a065-5def4c64f52e
as well as and for attending virtually via Webinar. Please note you have to register in advance via the link immediately above. Meeting Number <220 214 730 206>Password
Verbal public comments will very likely be limited by NRC to five minutes or even shorter, especially if there is a very large turn out and sign-up list of members of the public wishing to submit verbal comments.
Please see below for sample talking points you can use to prepare your own, as well as additional information. Thanks!
! Please spread the word to your networks, as by forwarding this email to them
Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Specialist
Beyond Nuclear
[email protected]
(240) 462-3216
https://beyondnuclear.org/
SAMPLE TALKNG POINTS
Here are talking points you can use to help prepare your own verbal comments — pick and choose from this list to fashion five-minute long, or shorter, public comments for verbal delivery on July 11th (feel free to use verbatim, or change into your own words):
REACTOR RISKS AND IMPACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
The Palisades zombie reactor restart is unprecedented, extremely high-risk, , and unneeded. NRC’s Environmental Assessment is nowhere near enough. A full-blown Environmental Impact Statement is called for regarding this major federal action — a very hard look is required. In fact, because the Palisades closed reactor restart precedent is now being applied elsewhere — Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Pennsylvania, Duane Arnold in Iowa, etc. — a Generic or Programmatic EIS is necessary. Along the same lines, a 30-day public comment period is insufficient. NRC should extend the public comment period to 180 days. Holtec’s rush to restart Palisades is no excuse for a short public comment period — in fact, the rush job itself could significantly increase the environmental risks and worsen the impacts.insanely expensive for taxpayers and ratepayers
The No Action Alternative is preferred. The nearly 60-year old (ground was broken in 1967) Palisades atomic reactor should remain closed for good, as it has been since May 20, 2022. Renewables like wind and solar power, efficiency, and storage are much more preferable alternatives. They can readily replace Palisades’ 800 Megawatts-electric (MWe), and do so much more cost-effectively, cleanly, safety, securely, promptly, and reliably than the zombie reactor restart scheme, and Holtec’s inextricably connected SMR-300 (so-called “Small Modular Reactors” of 300 MWe each) new builds scheme at Palisades, as well as at its sibling closed Lakeside reactor site, Big Rock Point near Charlevoix.
Concerns, usually framed as safety-related, are also most relevant to negative environmental impacts, including LARGE ones. A reactor core meltdown at the Palisades zombie reactor would have extremely LARGE negative environmental impacts, in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) lingo. Palisades has long had multiple high-risk pathways to meltdown. They include the single worst neutron-embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the country, and perhaps the world, at risk of through-wall fracture. They also include steam generators, and a reactor vessel closure head, or lid, that have needed replacement for two decades. and containment coating/sump strainer upgrades, also needed 20 years ago, have likewise been largely to entirely neglected. According to retired Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety director Dave Lochbaum, fire represents 50% of the risk of core meltdown at atomic reactors. And inadequate sump strainers mean that containment coating debris could clog emergency cooling water flow pathways, . All these admissions about safety-significant systems, structures, and components in need of replacement, or significant upgrade, were . Yet Entergy never fixed any of this, during its ownership tenure from 2007 to 2022 — because Now Holtec plans to continue to run Palisades into the ground, with at best inadequate monitoring and minimal repairs. In mid-2022, Holtec had paid some lip service to repairing tubes, or even entirely replacing the stream generators (at a cost of $510 million), in a , obtained from the State of Michigan via a Freedom of Information request submitted by Beyond Nuclear. But recently, Holtec spokesman Nick Culp revealed the company no longer plans to repair or replace the dangerously age-degraded steam generators. Fire protectionas former Entergy senior engineer Alan Blind, who worked for six years at Palisades, has explainedmade by Palisades’ initial owner, Consumers Energy, to the Michigan Public Service Commission, in spring 2006the industry-captured NRC, in full regulatory retreat, did not require it.secret bailout application to DOE
Palisades has also had the worst Operating Experience of any reactor in the U.S., regarding Control Rod Drive Mechanism seal leakage. The first leaks were in 1972, in the first year of full power operations. They have continued since. In fact, Entergy’s decision to close Palisades for good on May 20, 2022 was 11 days earlier than scheduled, because of the most recent CRDM seal leak. Palisades’ owners, now Holtec, have never determined the root cause, nor taken comprehensive corrective action, to solve this problem, instead relying on mere, short-lasting . Given their location very near the reactor core, replacement of CRDM seals exposes workers to significant doses of hazardous radiation, putting their health at risk. In just one episode a decade ago, on a month-long CRDM seal replacement job. Internationally, nuclear workers are limited to 2 Rem of exposure . CRDM seal leaks involve reactor core primary coolant water, so represent yet another pathway to meltdown.BAND-AID fixesnearly 200 workers — including women of child-bearing age — got on average 2.8 Rem of exposurefor an entire year
These risks have actually increased since permanent shutdown on May 20, 2022, due to lack of active maintenance by Holtec — which has no experience operating an atomic reactor — on safety-significant systems, structures, and components. This includes: lack of chemically-preservative “wet layup” on the steam generators, accelerating already severe corrosion; no testing of valves and pumps to ensure reliability; and no regular rotation of the turbine-generator shaft, which is thus bending under its own immense weight. The latter could lead to a mechanical explosion, hurling chunks of shrapnel weighing hundreds of pounds each outwards, including into the control room, where operators could be injured or killed, and safety/cooling systems could be rendered inoperable. Such a mechanical explosion of the bent turbine-generator shaft at Fermi Unit 2 in Monroe County, MI on Christmas Day, 1993, led to two million gallons of radioactive wastewater being dumped into Lake Erie’s biologically rich — but shallow, and fragile — Western Basin.
The extremely LARGE negative environmental impacts of a meltdown at the Palisades zombie reactor would include large-scale airborne fallout and water-borne outflow of hazardous radioactivity into Lake Michigan, as well as wind-driven/precipitation-delivered fallout onto land. Such airborne fallout from Chornobyl in 1986 severely contaminated not just the “breadbasket of Europe” (Ukraine), but also sheep farms in Scotland, Sámi reindeer herding grounds in the Scandinavian Arctic, Lake Constance bordering Bavaria, Germany, and elsewhere — not just hundreds, but even thousands of miles downwind. Radioactive fallout and wastewater discharges into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima Daiichi in Japan did not end in spring 2011 — the tritiated wastewater discharges will now continue for decades, intentionally, despite the risks to humans via Pacific fisheries. These are cautionary tales for Van Buren, as well as Berrien, Allegan, and Kalamazoo counties — a major agricultural breadbasket of Michigan, not to mention tourism/recreation Mecca. The late, great Maynard Kaufman, a Bangor farmer-author, co-founder of Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance, and watchdog on Palisades since before ground was even broken in 1967, warned about these impacts on Palisades-area agriculture for decades on end. And, as an expert witness for the environmental coalition opposed to Palisades’ restart — a decade ago, a Fukushima-scale radioactive disaster at Palisades would be catastrophic for Lake Michigan, and the rest of the Great Lakes downstream and downwind. The Great Lakes comprise 21% of the world’s surface fresh water, 84% of North America’s, and 95% of the U.S.A.’s. The Great Lakes serve as drinking water for more than 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Indigenous Nations. To put this all at risk with the unneeded Palisades zombie reactor restart is nuclear madness. The hazardous persistence of artificial radioactive pollutants that would escape into the environment due to a reactor core meltdown are nightmarish: Tritium (radioactive Hydrogen, which can go anywhere in the human anatomy, right down to the DNA molecule), 123 to 246 years of hazard; Cesium-137 (a muscle-seeker), around 300 to 600 years of hazard; Strontium-90 (a bone-seeker), around 300 to 600 years of hazard; Carbon-14 (which can also go anywhere in the human body, right down to the DNA molecule), 55,000 to 110,000 years of hazard; Plutonium-239, 240,000 to 480,000 years of hazard; Iodine-129, 157 to 314 million years of hazard; to name but a small number of the more than 200 hazardous artificial radioactive isotopes contained in irradiated nuclear fuel. Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds — warned
Risks at the zombie reactor, and their impacts on the environment, will be exacerbated by reactor risks at the SMR-300s Holtec also proposes building on the tiny, 432-acre Palisades site. In addition to having no experience operating atomic reactors, Holtec also lacks any experience building atomic reactors. The nearly 60-year old reactor will have worsening age-related degradation, breakdown phase risks, from August 2025 to 2051 (Holtec has announced application for a 2031 to 2051 license extension, amounting to 80 years of operations, twice the initial 40 years.) The so-called “Small Modular Reactors,” of 300 Megawatts-electric each, will have their own break-in phase risks. Chornobyl Unit 4 in Ukraine in 1986, Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania in 1979, and Fermi Unit 1 in Monroe County, Michigan in 1966, are examples of break-in phase reactor disasters. Three reactors operating on the tiny, 432-acre Palisades site would also represent a risk of multiple, domino-effect reactor core meltdowns, as happened at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan in March 2011.
SMR-300s are not “small.” They are 4.5 times larger than Big Rock Point’s previous reactor — , despite its relatively small, 67-MWe size. Fermi Unit 1, also a relatively small 67-MWe, partially melted down on October 5, 1966 — and "" As Holtec CEO Krishna Singh himself has pointed out, the two SMR-300s at Palisades would nearly double the nuclear mega-wattage on the 432-acre site (800 MWe + 600 MWe). This would represent a very concentrated amount of nuclear risk and radioactive environmental impact on the tiny site.one of the worst radioactive polluters in the entire countrywe almost lost Detroit.
But it doesn’t take an accident. Palisades’ so-called “routine releases” of hazardous radioactivity since 1971 have been significant. These include , but also . Palisades’ “routine” releases of radioactive and toxic chemical wastewater into Lake Michigan — including seasonal “batch releases” — are harmful to Lake Michigan, its fisheries and ecology. Lake Michigan serves as the drinking water supply for a very large number of shoreline communities, from South Haven, to Chicago, and beyond. Some 16 million people drink Lake Michigan water, not only in Michigan, but also Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Such discharges of artificial radioactive substances from Palisades into Lake Michigan do not dilute — they increase the concentration of such artificial radioactive hazards in the Lake, and in fact the radioactivity bio-accumulates, bio-concentrates, and bio-magnifies up the ecosystem and food chain, as via fisheries, harming animals at the top of the ecosystem/food chain, from predators to people. , any exposure to ionizing radiation, no matter how small, still carries a health risk, such as cancer causation; and such risks accumulate over a lifetime. Truth be told, such risks are not limited to cancer, but also include radiogenic birth defects, genetic damage, and a very long list of other health risks, maladies, and morbidities. Given that Lake Michigan water is also used for agricultural irrigation, hazardous radioactive contamination of the food supply can also occur via this exposure pathway.planned and permitted radiation releasesunplanned/unpermitted leaks and spillsAs the U.S. National Academies of Science have repeatedly confirmed for decades, citing the long-established “Linear, No Threshold” theory which forms the very foundation of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radioactivity reports
The environmental impacts at the nearly 60-year old zombie reactor cannot legally be segmented from the environmental impacts at the SMR-300 new builds. These are not only radiological but also physical. For example, the construction of two 300-MWe reactors on the tiny, 432-acre Palisades site would wreak further havoc with the fragile, endangered forested dunes ecosystem there. It would also threaten Indigenous cultural properties very likely located there, including sacred ancestral burial sites.
The Palisades zombie reactor restart will involve cumulative effects, on top of the 1971-2022 operational impacts on the environment thus far. This will include not only “routine releases” of hazardous radioactivity and toxic chemicals (planned/permitted, as well as unplanned/unpermitted leaks, spills, etc.) from 2025 to 2051 at the restarted zombie reactor (likely worse than in the past, given the nuclear power plant’s severe age-related degradation), but also “routine releases” from the SMR-300 new builds. The environmental impacts are not only cumulative, but also synergistic. As Rachel Carson warned in her iconic book in 1962, credited with helping launch the environmental protection movement, hazardous ionizing radioactivity and toxic chemicals have synergistic negative impacts on the environment — the harm from the synergistic hazardous exposures is greater than the sum of their parts.Silent Spring
Palisades’ location, in Covert Township, Michigan, raises serious Environmental Justice concerns. The Palisades Park Country Club resort community, over 125-years old, is located immediately south of the nuclear power plant, sharing property lines. There are reportedly elevated rates of cancer and thyroid pathology in that 200-cottage community. Covert Township itself has a large African American population, and also a high rate of low income households. Covert Twp. has a rich African American cultural history. The area is also Anishinaabe aki, specifically Pokagon Potawatomi traditional land. The Palisades zombie reactor restart, as well as the SMR new builds, put this all at risk, including from extremely LARGE environmental impacts.
Making all the risks and impacts LARGER and worse is the fact that, in addition to its inexperience (the company has never operated, nor constructed, an atomic reactor), it is also incompetent, corrupt, and even criminal. Newly revealed scandals swirl around Holtec on a frequent and continuing basis. As but the latest example, a long-serving, top Holtec advisory board member, George E. Norcross III, For more background info., see: was recently indicted by the State of New Jersey Attorney General on 13 racketeering felony charges.(2 pages, published March 27, 2024). Also see an earlier chronicling the company’s countless misdeeds.“” Holtec: Criminality, Corruption, Incompetence, and Inexperienceannotated bibliography, “Radioactive Skeletons in Holtec’s Closet,”
RADIOACTIVE WASTE RISKS AND IMPACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
The actual past and potential present and future environmental impacts resulting from the ongoing (1971 to the present, and counting) radioactive waste crisis at Palisades are also LARGE. More than 800 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel have accumulated on-site at Palisades. Around two-thirds is still stored in the wet indoor storage pool; one-third is stored in a growing number of outdoor dry casks, very near the Lake Michigan shore. As with operating reactor core meltdowns, catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity can also be released into the environment from radioactive waste disasters, such as a fire in the pool-stored waste, or a dry cask breach. As a matter of fact, under previous owner Consumers Energy, due to the near-drop of a 107-ton load into the pool: the floor could have been pierced, draining cooling water, leading to overheating and ignition of the zirconium metal cladding of the stored highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel. Since the pool is not located within a radiological containment structure, radioactivity releases from the hundreds of metric tons of densely packed fuel would be large-scale, and directly into the environment. that a radioactive waste pool fire could contaminate a large region of the United States downwind, leading to millions of nuclear evacuees, and trillions (with a T) of dollars in property damage. A near-miss waste pool fire at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 in March and April 2011, very narrowly , led the then-serving Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, to order an emergency contingency plan to evacuate 35 to 50 million people from northeastern Japan and metro Tokyo. He said it would have been the end of the Japanese state. The Palisades pool is more densely packed with irradiated nuclear fuel than was the pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4.Palisades narrowly averted catastrophe in October 2005Princeton University researchers reported in 2016 averted through sheer luck
Dry cask storage at Palisades has been controversial and risky from the start in 1993. The fourth cask to be loaded, in summer 1994, was quickly announced by then-owner Consumers Energy to be defective. Consumers Energy had assured the public that any problems with casks would be easily resolved by simply returning the highly radioactive waste to the indoor wet storage pool. NRC backed this up, including under oath in a federal court room in Grand Rapids, MI, when State “Eternal General” (Attorney General) Frank Kelley legally challenged the loading of the casks in the first place. (.) Although Consumers Energy initially assured the public it would live up to its previous promise, and promptly at that, 30 years have now passed, and the defective cask still sits fully loaded, 150 yards or less from the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Complications previously identified and warned about by environmental watch-dogs proved accurate. Grinding through welds on the lid, and removing pressure fit shims, would contribute to missing the 40-hour deadline for transferring the fuel from the defective dry cask back into the pool — convection air current cooling would be disrupted
- violating Technical Specifications related to fueland cask-overheating. Even then, lowering the thermally hot (up to 750-degree Fahrenheit) containerized fuel into the 100-degree F pool water would cause a thermal shock to fuel and container, exacerbating degradation. It would also cause a radioactive steam flash, most hazardous to nearby workers and local residents.By 1997, Dr. Mary Sinclair of Don’t Waste Michigan pointed out that perjury had likely been committedIn February 1994, Dr. Ross Landsman, dry cask storage inspector at NRC Region 3 in Chicago, that the original storage pad at Palisades for dry casks, just 150 yards or less from the water of Lake Michigan, violated NRC earthquake safety regulations. This was due to the pad “floating” on 55-feet of loose sand underneath, anchored to nothing. He warned that even a mild earthquake could part the beach, allowing the Lake to fill the void. One or more dry casks could be buried under sand, leading to overheating. Or, they could tumble into the Lake, submerging. Breaches of casks could then lead to radioactive releases into the Lake. Dr. Landsman, then retired from NRC and serving as an expert witness for the environmental coalition opposing Palisades, warned in 2006-2007 that the second pad at Palisades, located somewhat further inland from the Lake, . In Holtec’s own December 2020 Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, the company seemed to lend credence to Dr. Landsman’s warning about the nearer-Lake, older pad — Holtec proposed transferring all the dry casks to the newer pad, further inland. But given Dr. Landsman’s 2006-2007 warning about the newer pad, this could simply be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.warned the agencyalso violated NRC earthquake safety regulations
A breached, submerged cask could also lead to an inadvertent nuclear criticality in the highly radioactive waste. If the waste formed a critical mass during the disaster, infiltrating Lake water could serve as a neutron moderator, sparking a chain reaction. This would worsen radioactive releases into the Lake, and would make emergency response operations a potential suicide mission, given the fatal radiation emissions due to breach of radiation shielding, as well as containment. . The more waste Palisades generates, the more pressure Holtec will exert, and the more shipments there would be, involving barging highly radioactive wastes on Lake Michigan, bound for Another pathway to such a catastrophe is Holtec’s, and DOE’s, proposed barge shipments of highly radioactive waste, from Palisades to the Port of Muskegonthe company’s proposed dumpsite in New Mexico.
The closure-for-good of Palisades by Entergy on May 20, 2022 meant that no more radioactive waste would be generated there. But the proposed restart would mean that the highly radioactive waste inventory stored on-site at Palisades would grow by around 15 metric tons per year, from 2025 to 2051. Thus, the associated LARGE impacts on the environment would also grow. Holtec’s proposed SMR-300 new builds at Palisades (and also at Big Rock Point), due to loss of economy of scale, would each generate more highly radioactive waste, per unit of electricity generated, than the zombie reactor. Drs. Allison Macfarlane, and Rodnew Ewing, President Obama’s NRC chair and U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board chair, respectively, reported recently that, depending on their specific design, SMRs will generate 2 to 30 times the radioactive waste, as compared to current reactors, per unit of electricity generated. But similar things can be said regarding thermal wastewater discharges, cost per unit of electricity generated, etc. Thus, Holtec’s SMR new build schemes would exacerbate its zombie reactor restart scheme.
CLIMATE DESTABILIZATION
Exacerbating the LARGE and worsening nuclear risks for and radioactive impacts to the environment described above is the issue of . In 2020, Lake Michigan had historic high water levels. This meant that the Lakeside dry cask storage was significantly closer than the often cited 150 yards to the waters of Lake Michigan. Whether it is tornadoes, hurricanes (like the deadly White Hurricane (blizzard) of 1913 on Lake Huron, the natural disaster causing the largest loss of life on the Great Lakes and its shores in history), floods, Lakeside erosion of fragile sand dunes and beaches, wildfires, etc., the list of extreme weather threats to the reactor(s) and radioactive wastes at Palisades is already long, and growing with worsening climate destabilization. Institutions such as (GAO, Congress’s investigative arm), and , have excoriated NRC for neglecting climate risks, and have questioned the U.S. nuclear power industry’s ability to operate reactors (and on-site radioactive waste storage, for that matter) safely, during ever more extreme weather conditions. NRC cannot be allowed to ignore such climate risks in the context of the Palisades zombie reactor restart and SMR new build schemes, nor their inevitable potential for extremely LARGE negative impacts on the environment.extreme weather and natural disasters due to climate chaosthe Government Accountability Office a Yale University scholar
CURRENT DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS: JULY 29, 2024
Please note that the July 11th hybrid public meeting (priority for in-person comments in Benton Harbor, but also open to comments virtually via Webinar/tele-conference) is meant for verbally-delivered public comments. However, the public comment period is currently open till its July 29 deadline (although we are requesting a deadline extension, per above). Here are the ways comments can be submitted in writing by the deadline:
Comments can also be submitted via email to <>, or via the website <> (include [email protected]://www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2024-0076-0001Docket ID NRC-2024-0076 in website comments). Comments can also be submitted by traditional mail to: Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555- 0001.
The same person or organization can submit any number of written public comments, of any length. It is not limited.Except by the deadline, which we are trying to get extended, per above.
For more ideas for preparing verbal comments, check out our environmental coalition’s extensive and comprehensive public comments to NRC in opposition to Palisades’ 2011-2031 (60 years of operations) license extension:
May 18, 2006: . This coalition represents well over 200,000 residents of Michigan alone, in opposition to the dangerous extension of operations and waste generation at Palisades from 2011 to 2031. Group comments, submitted by a coalition of organizations including NIRS and numerous grassroots groups in Michigan and other U.S. states and Canadian provinces around the Great Lakes Basin, regarding NRC’s draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Palisades 20 year license extension
May 18, 2006: . Executive summary of coalition comments to NRC regarding its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Palisades 20 year license extension
Although from 18 long years ago, most of our points have never been adequately addressed, if addressed at all! In fact, our concerns have grown deeper. Thus, they are still very relevant.
For additional background information on Palisades, the zombie reactor restart scheme, and the SMR new build schemes, see the following posts:
https://beyondnuclear.org/background-info-on-holtecs-zombie-reactor-restart-and-small-modular-reactor-new-build-schemes-on-the-lake-michigan-shore/
https://beyondnuclear.org/newest-nuke-nightmares-at-palisades-2022-present/
https://podcast.rogerrapoport.com/episodes
On March 27, 2024,
Beyond Nuclear published three new backgrounders: “” (13 pages); “” (3 pages); “” (2 pages). A People’s History of the Palisades Atomic ReactorNuclear Nightmares: Palisades’ ‘Zombie’ Reactor Restart and SMR New Build SchemesHoltec: Criminality, Corruption, Incompetence, and Inexperience
Beyond Nuclear has also published: ; and a major exposé based on Freedom of Information Act revelations regarding a breakdown of the $15.7 billion, and counting, in bailouts at Palisades and Big Rock PointHoltec’s ‘nuclear white elephant’ secret plans to build SMRs at all its decommissioning sites, as well as to re-nuclearize Palisades, using many billions of dollars of federal and state taxpayer, as well as ratepayer, bailouts.
https://www.sierraclub.org/michigan/blog/2024/05/reopening-palisades-nuclear-power-plant-creates-many-risks
https://www.sierraclub.org/michigan/blog/2024/02/should-palisades-nuclear-plant-be-brought-back-life
http://archives.nirs.us/reactorwatch/licensing/palisades.htm
—
Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Specialist
Beyond Nuclear
7304 Carroll Avenue, #182
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Cell: (240) 462-3216
[email protected]
www.beyondnuclear.org
Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.
Hi!!! Hope this finds you well. I am reaching out to see if Michigan Climate Action Network has any interest in having a Nonprofit booth/table at the 2024 Earthwork Harvest Gathering? This year’s event is held at the festival farm in Lake City, Michigan on September 20-22.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Wendy Johnson
I’d appreciate a rapid response to the above questions. Many thanks! — Peter Kobs
I’m the chair of Washtenaw Climate Reality, the local chapter of the Climate Reality Project. We are holding a virtual Climate Action Party on Monday, October 2 at 7 PM. We will be sending messages to Michigan state legislators and to media oiutlets encouraging them to support the bills that are part of the Michigan Clean Energy Future package. We would love to have the MiCAN as a sponsoring party to the event. We would just need your OK and a copy of your logo and we would add it to the invitation. More importantly, though, we would like for the event to be publicized among MiCAN’s followers in whatever way you typically publicize these kinds of things. I will link you to the event below:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-action-party-rise-up-michigan-tickets-725482817637?aff=oddtdtcreator
I hope this event is one you’d be happy to co-sponsor, and I hope we’ll see a lot of your followers at the party on Monday!
Thank you,
David Gurk
Chair, Washtenaw Climate Reality
https://ferndalemi.gov/resources/community-plans
https://ferndalemi.gov/resources/sustainability-initiatives
Additionally, we are hosting a farm tour that will spotlight some small farm experimentation in cover crop use next Friday Sept 22nd 6-8pm in Northern Charlevoix County, please share and encourage folks to register. https://www.crosshatch.org/events/2023/buckwheat-bees-bacon-and-barley
Thanks,
Daniel
Farmer Perspectives on Carbon Smart Agriculture – Hosted by Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology
https://www.crosshatch.org/events/2023/9/27/farmer-perspectives-on-carbon-smart-agriculture
Wednesday, September 27, 2023 5:00 PM 6:00 PM
The Alluvion 414 East Eighth Street Traverse City, MI, 49686 United States
Register for Free – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/farmer-perspectives-on-carbon-smart-agriculture-tickets-719396453157?aff=oddtdtcreator
Local farmers are supporting one another to navigate the complexity, isolation, and analysis paralysis regarding what to do in the face of climate change-related weather and economic shocks. We invite you to join us to continue learning and discussing community and individual climate change adaptation strategies related to agricultural activities.
Following a brief presentation, we will discuss promising practices and support resources for climate-smart farming and land management from backyard to business scale.
Additionally, Please note and share:
Crosshatch is accepting enrollment for the 2023 – 2024 Carbon Farming and Forestry Cohort (to begin in Fall 2023) https://www.crosshatch.org/carbon-farming. Please register by October 12th if you are seeking an opportunity to connect with other farmers, foresters, and land stewards for support in making decisions and taking action in the context of climate change-related complexity, isolation, and analysis paralysis. REGISTER HERE – https://forms.gle/1xssi3bEcEZ4JBrG6
To qualify, you must manage land for agricultural purposes (including forestry and conservation) in one of the following counties: Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Manistee, Misaukee, Otsego and Wexford.