PSR WI petitions to intervene and requests hearing in opposition to NextEra Energy Point Beach's 80-year operating license application

Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, NRC file photo.Petition for Leave to Intervene and Request for an Adjudicatory Hearing, filed by attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, on behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility Wisconsin (PSR WI).

The NextEra Energy Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant Atomic Reactor Units 1 and 2 are located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, on the Lake Michigan shoreline (see photo, left). PSR WI, backed by experts, contends that Point Beach's negative impacts on Lake Michigan -- such as drawing in hundreds of millions of gallons daily for cooling, then discharging the wastewater super-heated back into the Lake -- has already resulted in significant ecosystem damage for 50 years; 30 more years of operations without cooling towers will only worsen the harm. Such harms include massive impacts on aquatic fauna.

Accompanying the petition and request were expert witness declarations:

Declaration of Arnold Gundersen, M.E., Nuclear Engineering, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, Inc.;

Declaration of Alvin Compaan, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Physics at University of Toledo, and President of Lucintech, Inc.;

Declaration of Mark Cooper, Ph.D., Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School, and Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America.

See PSR WI's press release, here.