Public Comments re: Docket ID NRC-2021-0036-0001, submitted by a coalition of 41 organizations from 18 U.S. states and 1 Canadian province, as well 23 individuals
Public Comments re: Docket ID NRC-2021-0036-0001
Submitted via email to <Hearing.Docket@nrc.gov>, as well as to <rulemaking.comments@nrc.gov>
Dear NRC Secretary, Hearing Docket Officials, and Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff,
Please accept our comments which are intended to protect the irreplaceable Great Lakes (21% of the Earth's surface fresh water, and 84% of North America's) against radioactive risks at the Palisades atomic reactor, and Big Rock Point nuclear power plant site, both located on West Michigan's Lake Michigan shoreline. We oppose the transfer of licenses and ownership, from current owner Entergy Nuclear to proposed new owner Holtec International, for the Palisades and Big Rock Point sites, located in Covert Township, Van Buren County, near South Haven, and in Hayes Township, Charlevoix County, near Charlevoix and Petoskey, respectively.
INTRODUCTION
Of course Palisades should shut for good, by May 31, 2022 at the latest. For health, environment, safety, and security's sake, it should have been shut not years, but decades ago. So we welcome the fact that after May 31, 2022, a reactor core meltdown can no longer happen at Palisades. We also celebrate the fact that no more high-level radioactive waste will be generated.
At Big Rock Point, we similarly celebrated the fact that the risk of a meltdown, and yet more high-level radioactive waste generation, ended long ago, in August 1997, when the reactor shut down for good.
However, the radioactive risks will continue, even after reactor shutdown, at both sites. There is significant contamination of the entire Palisades site, with hazardous radioactivity and toxic chemicals. There is also a vast amount of high-level radioactive waste stored on-site, where it will almost certainly remain not for years, but for decades to come. Thus, the decommissioning (facility dismantlement and radiological cleanup) phase at Palisades still portends very significant radioactive (as well as other hazardous) risks.
At Big Rock Point, previous owner Consumers Energy, and its contractor British Nuclear Fuels, Ltd., declared in 2006 that decommissioning had been completed. NRC then approved the supposed completion of decommissioning, as well as the release of the site for unrestricted use. A broad environmental coalition, including Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Don't Waste Michigan, and Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes have protested the companies' announcement, and the NRC decision, due to lingering hazardous radioactive contamination of the soil, groundwater, and Lake Michigan sediments, which pose an ongoing risk not only on-site, but to the flora, fauna, ecosystem, food chain, and drinking water supply downstream, as well. (We incorporate by reference, in its entirety, the 2006 report entitled "Say Yes to Michigan, Say No to the Plutonium State Park," as relevant public comments in this proceeding. It posted online here, as well as attached.)
And of course the seven dry casks of irradiated nuclear fuel, and one dry cask of highly radioactive "Greater-Than-Class-C low-level" waste, stored on-site at Big Rock Point, remain a deep concern.
It is unacceptable to put crooked -- even criminal -- and untrustworthy companies like Holtec and SNC-Lavalin in charge of radiological clean up at Palisades, and high-level radioactive waste management at Palisades and Big Rock Point. They will do as little radiological clean up at Palisades, and will take as many shortcuts on high-level radioactive waste management at both sites, as the complicit NRC will allow. They will then put the lion's share of the Palisades Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund (NDTF) in their pockets, as pure profit. The radioactive risks -- lingering contamination, irradiated nuclear fuel -- left behind at Palisades, and Big Rock Point, after that will continue to haunt the public forevermore into the future. This is entirely unacceptable. The Palisades NDTF should be used for comprehensive and complete radiological cleanup, as it was intended to be from the beginning, a half-century ago.
For these reasons, Palisades', and Big Rock Point's, licenses should not be transferred to Holtec and its decommissioning partner SNC-Lavalin.
THE STATE OF MICHIGAN'S INTERVENTION IN THIS PROCEEDING
We applaud and thank State of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for her office's intervention in this proceeding.
We incorporate by reference in its entirety the letter and background information package sent by Beyond Nuclear to A.G. Nessel, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a large number of other Michigan officials, the state's U.S. congressional delegation, as well as Indigenous Nations' leaders, on December 7, 2020, concerning Holtec's proposed takeover of Palisades and Big Rock Point.
PROCESS COMMENTS ON THIS PROCEEDING
First and foremost, 30 days is far from enough time for the public to prepare meaningful comments on this complex license transfer application. The risks of tritium contamination on the Palisades site will persist for more than a century. The risks of cesium-137 contamination on the Palisades site will persist for several centuries. The risks of plutonium-239 contamination on the Big Rock Point site will persist for 240,000 years. The risks associated with the highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, currently stored on-site at both sites, will persist for a million years, or longer, into the future (Nuclear Energy Institute versus U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, case filed 2002, ruling issued July 9, 2004). Thus, an additional 60 days for the submission of public comments is a reasonable request, especially considering the ongoing burdens concerned citizens are facing due to the ongoing, deadly Covid-19 pandemic. Exacerbating the public's need for more time to comment is the fact that NRC has been posting many hundreds, perhaps even more than a thousand, documents in its Palisades docket, that are 25-years old, or older. These documents could well contain relevant information, such as re: past radioactive and/or toxic chemical spills on the site, contamination that must be cleaned up during the decommissioning phase. 60 additional days of public comment opportunity on the proposed license transfer will give not only the concerned public more time to analyze the newly posted documents for relevance, but will give Holtec more time to reconsider whether it really even wants to take over this contaminated site.
Along the same lines, why has NRC not held a single call-in/webinar (given the pandemic, in-person meetings are not allowed in Michigan, per the governor's wise orders) public comment meeting on this matter? One should still be held. Adequate public notice should be provided. And the meeting itself should be of sufficient length that all public commenters be allowed to speak at length, without arbitrarily short time limits. An NRC public comment meeting on Feb. 17, 2021, re: the Point Beach, WI nuclear power plant's application to operate for 80 years had 46 members of the public attend via webinar, and another 63 attend by phone. The number of public participants may have been even higher, as NRC provided these figures at the end of the meeting, at which point some members of the public may well have already disconnected, such as after having given their verbal comments. Similar public participation would be expected on a call-in/webinar comment session in this proceeding. After all, such citizen concern and public participation has been part and parcel of the Palisades and Big Rock Point sagas in Michigan for decades.
SUBSTANCE COMMENTS ON THIS PROPOSAL
In addition, we make the following technical, environmental, public health, safety, and security-related comments:
(1.) On May 18, 2006, as part of its resistance to the 20-year license extension at Palisades, a coalition of 25 local grassroots, multi-state regional, and even national groups, representing 200,000 Michigander members and supporters alone, submitted broad comments to NRC on its related Draft Environmental Impact Statement. See the comments'
executive summary, here; see the
complete comments, here. The comments addressed a comprehensive array of concerns, including re:
(a.) security;
(c.) hazardous radioactive discharges to the environment, a risk to the food chain and drinking water supply downwind and downstream;
(d.) ever worsening global warming;
(e.) revenues (lack thereof) for the host municipalities, like Covert Township;
(f.) ratepayers (and/or taxpayers) left holding the bag;
(g.) threatened, endangered, or candidate species put at risk from radioactivity and/or toxic chemical releases, whether acute due to accident, or chronic due to leakage of contamination;
(h.) Indigenous Nations' interests, such as protection of burial sites, and other cultural properties, protection of treaty rights, etc.;
(i.) embrittled and aged safety significant systems, structures, and components;
(j.) emergency preparedness in surrounding communities;
(k.) Environmental Justice;
(l.) compliance with Canadian-U.S. International Joint Commission commitments, including Boundary Waters Treaty obligations.
None of Palisades' various owners/operators (Consumers Energy, Nuclear Management Corp., Entergy), nor NRC, have ever adequately addressed any of these concerns, if they've addressed them at all. Many, to most, to all, remain relevant, even post-reactor shutdown, during the decommissioning phase.
(As but one example, re: embrittled and aged safety significant systems, structures, and components, above, Palisades, and the Point Beach Unit 2 reactor across Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, are close to tied for the worst neutron embrittled reactor pressure vessels (RPV) in the U.S., vulnerable to pressurized thermal shock catastrophic failure; Palisades' RPV therefore contains vital physical data that should be comprehensively analyzed ("autopsied"), for lessons learned to be applied to Point Beach Unit 2's application for 80 years of operations; Palisades also has age-degraded steam generators, and an age-degraded lid; each safety significant system, structure, and component should be carefully studied, to provide data for science-based safety regulatory decisions at other reactors of similar age and design to Palisades, rather than buried as "low" level radioactive waste in leaking ditches, as at Waste Control Specialists, Texas, their irreplaceable safety significant data lost forever).
Therefore, we re-submit
our coalition comments from May 18, 2006, 15 long years later, and demand that the current owner Entergy, the prospective new owner Holtec, and the supposed, derelict "safety regulator" NRC, address our concerns, and implement our recommended mitigations. If not, Holtec's proposed takeover of the Palisades and Big Rock Point sites should not be approved. The 2006 comments are
linked here (they are too large to attach to this email, but they are also already on file at NRC). We incorporate them by reference, in their entirety, as comments in this proceeding.
As public comments, we endorse the concerns and contentions raised in the interventions, including:
(a.) Changes in land use, effects of historical site events, and inadequacies of the 2006 (20-Year License Extension) Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement all comprise new information which necessitates additional National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) supplementation -- specific areas of concern include: historic high Lake Michigan water levels;
(b.) radioactive steam generator storage, handling, transport, and disposition, including potential for barging on Lake Michigan and risk of accidental sinking causing drinking water disasters;
(c.) historic cooling towers overflow, and consequent spread of radioactive contamination from the flooded RadWaste Building;
(d.) needed characterization of historic tritium spillage, leakage, and releases across the site, and implications for Lake Michigan and inland aquifer drinking water supplies over time;
(e.) earthquake safety regulation non-compliant dry cask storage concrete storage pads;
(f.) discrepancies re: the estimated number of casks needed to store highly radioactive Greater-Than-Class-C "low" level radioactive wastes, such as radioactively activated reactor pressure vessel internals;
(g.) dry cask storage repackaging dilemmas, such as due to failed or failing casks and/or canisters, transfers needed for transportability and/or compliance with repository disposal requirements, etc. (a current lack of cask-to-cask transfer capability, to be exacerbated once the wet indoor storage pool is dismantled during decommissioning);
(h.) the defective fourth cask to be loaded in summer 1994, never unloaded in 27 years and counting, despite the Palisades owner's pledge, under oath in federal court, that problem casks would be unloaded and replaced;
(i.) unconsidered high burnup irradiated nuclear fuel implications (more radioactive, thermally hotter, more brittle);
(j.) Holtec International and SNC-Lavalin, as well as their subsidiary corporations, Holtec Decommissioning International, LLC (“HDI”) and Comprehensive Decommissioning International, LLC (“CDI”) individually and collectively lack the requisite corporate character, corporate culture and corporate ethics to be licensed, or allowed by contractual privity, to undertake any aspect of the decommissioning of Palisades Nuclear Plant and the management, transportation and disposal of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel from Palisades and Big Rock Point (see "
Holtec & SNC-Lavalin Company Profiles," by Nancy Vann, Safe Energy Rights Group; see also
Holtec and
SNC-Lavalin "Radioactive Skeletons in the Closet" annotated bibliographies by Beyond Nuclear);
(k.) Applicants' request for the NRC to grant an exemption to use Nuclear Decommissioning Trust funds for irradiated nuclear fuel management and site restoration activities is contrary to law and regulation, would present an undue risk to the public health and safety, and is not consistent with the common defense and security -- as ELPC has noted, no other source of funding is presented in the License Transfer Application;
(l.) as ELPC has argued, the Application and PSDAR are deficient under Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 50.75(b)(1) and (e)(1)(i), because they improperly assume a 2% rate of return for the Nuclear Decommissioning Trust fund;
(m.) as ELPC has contended, the Application is deficient because Holtec offers only the Decommissioning Trust Fund to support Its financial qualifications;
(n.) and similarly, as the MI AG has argued, Holtec fails to show financial qualification to qualify for a license transfer, by failing to provide adequate decommissioning financial assurance and/or adequate funding for spent nuclear fuel management, in violation of 10 C.F.R. §§ 50.33(f) and (k)(1), 50.40(b), 50.54(bb), 50.75(b)(1) and (e)(1)(i), 50.80(b)(1)(i),50.82(a)(8)(vii), and 72.30(b) because Holtec’s PSDAR and decommissioning cost estimate underestimate license termination and spent fuel management costs;
(o.) and as the MI AG has contended, the PSDAR impermissibly assumes Holtec will receive a regulatory exemption authorizing the use of decommissioning trust monies for site restoration and spent fuel management. Since Holtec has yet to receive such an exemption and has shown no other source of funding for site restoration and spent fuel management, it fails to satisfy NRC regulations at 10 C.F.R. §§ 50.54(bb) and 72.30(b).
(3.) We also object to Holtec's reliance on, and assumption of, its proposed irradiated nuclear fuel Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) scheme, targeting the majority minority (Hispanic, Indigenous) State of New Mexico. Not only is Holtec's CISF proposal a major violation of Environmental Justice (flying in the face of the Biden administration's stated energy and environmental policies), it also violates the Obama/Biden administration's 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future Final Report's recommendation that CISFs, just like permanent geologic repositories, must meet "consent-based siting." Non-consent to Holtec's CISF has been clearly and repeatedly expressed by: the All Pueblo Council of Governors; the Navajo Nation; New Mexico's governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham; the State Land Commissioner, Stephanie Garcia Richard; most of New Mexico's U.S. congressional delegation, including Deb Haaland, nominated by President Biden to become his Interior Secretary; many New Mexico state legislators; numerous New Mexican industry associations and small businesses; a large number of New Mexican environmental, environmental justice, and nuclear watchdog organizations; and a growing groundswell of New Mexico residents. Similarly, we object to Holtec's reliance on, and assumption of, the Yucca Mountain highly radioactive waste dump-site scheme, targeting Western Shoshone land in Nevada. The Western Shoshone, the State of Nevada, its U.S. congressional delegation, and more than a thousand environmental groups in Nevada and across the country, as along Yucca-bound high-level radioactive waste/Mobile Chernobyl transport routes, have clearly expressed non-consent with the environmentally unjust Yucca dump scheme, which violates the U.S.-Western Shoshone "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, the highest law of the land, equal in stature to the U.S. Constitution itself.
Sincerely,
Organizations (in alphabetical order, by group name):
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear, 7304 Carroll Avenue, #182, Takoma Park, Maryland 20912, Cell: (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.org, www.beyondnuclear.org
Gwen L. DuBois MD, MPH, President, Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Baltimore, MD
Chance Hunt, Chairperson, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination,
chance@caccmi.org, Lake Station, Michigan
Deb Katz, Executive Director, Citizens Awareness Network, Shelburne Falls, MA, www.nukebusters.org
Barbara Warren RN, MS, Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, Cuddebackville, NY 12729, warrenba@msn.com
Jessie Pauline Collins, Co-chair, Citizens' Resistance At Fermi Two, P.O. Box 401356, Redford MI 48240
, shutdownfermi@gmail.comCoalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes, Michael J. Keegan, Chairperson, 811 Harrison Street, Monroe, Michigan 48161
, mkeeganj@comcast.netJoni Arends, Co-founder and Executive Director, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety , P. O. Box 31147, Santa Fe, NM 87594
Stephen Brittle, President, Don't Waste Arizona, Phoenix, AZ
Don't Waste Michigan, Alice Hirt, Co-Chair, 6677 Summitview, Holland, Michigan 49423
, alicehirt@gmail.comKathryn Barnes, Don’t Waste Michigan-Sherwood Chapter
Bianca Sopoci-Belknap (she/her/hers), Co-Director, Earth Care, 6600 Valentine Way Building A , Oghá P'o'oge, unceded Tewa Territory (Santa Fe, NM) 87507 , (505) 699-1025
Mary Beth Brangan, Co-Director, Ecological Options Network, Bolinas, CA 94924
Richard Denton, MD Emeritus, Chair, Friends for Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, RDentonMD@protonmail.com, 01 249 360 5324 cell
Tanya Keefe, Chairperson, Great Lakes Environmental Alliance, tkeefe@greatlakesenvironmentalalliance.org, Port Huron, Michigan
Peggy Maze Johnson, Board Member, Heart of America NW, Seattle, WA
William Freese, Director, Huron Environmental Activists League (H.E.A.L), 183 Bear Point Road, Alpena, MI 49707
L.A. Alliance for Survival, Jerry Rubin, Director, Santa Monica, CA
Terry Miller, Chairman, Lone Tree Council, P.O. Box 1251, Bay City, MI 48706
Judy Treichel, Executive Director, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Las Vegas, NV
George Crocker, Executive Director, North American Water Office, Lake Elmo, MN , p. 651-770-3861,
nawo.orgAlice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York, NY
Tim Judson, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD
, timj@nirs.org, 301 270 6477
Joanne Steele, Nuclear Watch South, Board President, Atlanta, Georgia
Sheila Parks, EdD, Founder, On Behalf of Planet Earth, Watertown, MA
Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Future, Tryon NC and Washington DC
Nancy Vann, President, Safe Energy Rights Group (SEnRG), 201 Union Avenue, Peekskill, NY 10566
Gary Headrick, San Clemente Green, Co-founder, San Clemente, California 92673
Elizabeth Padilla, Save Andrews County, Andrews, TX
Maureen K. Headington, President, Stand Up/Save Lives Campaign, 6760 County Line Lane, Burr Ridge, IL 60527, 630-323-6891
, moeteam@comcast.netKaren Hadden, Executive Director, Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Austin, TX
Debra Stoleroff, Steering Committee chairperson, Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, Montpelier, Vermont
Lynda Schneekloth, Chair, Western New York Environmental Alliance Buffalo, NY
Laura Dewey, Coordinator, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Detroit Branch, 1891 Lancaster, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI 48236
, wilpfdetroit@att.net
Artemisio Romero y Carver, Steering Committee Member, YUCCA (Youth United for Climate Crisis Action), Northern NM, Tewa and Diné territories
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Individuals:
Dr. Ross Landsman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) dry cask storage inspector (retired), Chicago, IL
Priscilla and Larry Massie (members of the Michigan Sierra Club), 7219 Atlantic Avenue, South Haven, Michigan 49090
Stephen Kent, 231 Zipfeldburg Road, Rhinebeck, NY 12572
Nancy Vann, Peekskill, NY 10566
Karen Chadwick, 4220 Leisure Lane E434, Kalamazoo, MI 49006
Dr. David Peterson, Plainwell, MI
Shawn McComb, Kalamazoo, MI
Earl Hall, 546 North Clarendon, Kalamazoo, MI 49006
Jan Boudart , Chicago IL 60626
George Theodoru, 7146 Leawood St., Portage, MI 49024
Barbara Antonoplos, Atlanta, Georgia
Wade and Sandy Adams, Kalamazoo, MI
Dave Staiger, 3111 Chestnut Hills Dr., Kalamazoo, MI
Sandy McComb, South Haven MI
Dale Anderson, Kalamazoo, MI
Marty Brown, member, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, CA
Ineka Way, 1938 Oakland Drive, Kalamazoo, MI 49008
Michael L. Buza, Swartz Creek, Michigan
Ethyl Rivera, Member of Citizens Resistance Against Fermi 2, White Lake, Michigan
Edward McArdle, 5936 King James Lane, Waterford, MI 48327
Kay Cumbow, Brown City, Michigan
Bruce Campbell, Los Angeles, CA