Comments made by Michigan Safe Energy Future's Iris Potter at the Palisades [Decommissioning] Community Advisory Panel

Iris Potter of the Michigan Safe Energy Future-Kalamazoo Chapter and Palisades Shutdown Campaign made the following comments at the PCAP at Lake Michigan College in South Haven, MI on April 13, 2022:

Good Eve. PCAP members: 

I’m Iris Potter with Michigan Safe Energy Future-Kalamazoo. I love Lake Michigan with all my heart and its land habitat. But, I am very concerned about Decommissioning with all its moving parts and how it will affect all of it including our health. 

Regarding Holtec’s Safety

Program, there are issues that the Panel and the Public should know. 

-There was a near drop of a fully-loaded Holtec UMAX dry cask due to the bad design of the storage system at the San Onofre plant as well as gouging of the exteriors of the casks containers which will accelerate corrosion and ultimate container failure.

 -Regarding the NJ “Oyster Creek Update”  there was a dousing and dosing of a worker due to Holtec's rush job during irradiated nuclear fuel transfer from indoor wet storage pool to dry cask storage. It is one thing to accelerate a timeline but this is dangerous material. There is also no mention of your contingency plan in the event of a cask problem which was to rush a spare transport cask from the NJ HQ’s to Oyster Creek as an emergency interim place to transfer the irradiated nuclear fuel from the problem cask into it. 

Question: Palisades is pretty far from HQs so what is the contingency plan? 

Question: How long would a transport cask serve as interim emergency storage and there is over heat like in a Holtec cask in TX, for one, where water is put in regularly to keep it cool.  

Holtec casks are thin-walled by design and: 

Vulnerable to short-term cracking 

Cannot be inspected inside or out

Cannot be repaired  

Cannot be monitored or maintained to prevent leaks

Vulnerable to explosions

And they rust. 

Each canister has as much highly radioactive cesium as was released from Cherynobl at the 1986 explosion. 

The new casks are heavier, hold more waste, more heat, more radioactivity with high burn-up fuel and greater potential for catastrophes. 

Also, Holtec plans to move the 13 1800 Ton old casks from above the beach at Palisades where they have been for about 29 years back inland closer to Van Buren State Park boundaries and Palisades Park Community. This is concerning due to the unknown gamma ray and neutron dose emissions from these degraded casks and the newer ones, especially since one old has had weld issues since early on. Both the beach and inland do not meet earthquake safety standards but this has been passed off too. Plus, the beach gets closer all the time with high waters and extreme storms now. 

Question: What kind of testing has been done to learn how much these old casks are degraded? 

We continue to advocate for Hardened Onsite Storage or HOSS but the NRC continues to approve the minimal thin wall casks. We deserve the best at this old plant but it is because of money. So, no accelerated rush job here, please. 

Question: What is the air, land and water protocol for radiation monitoring to be? And, we do encourage independent monitoring. 

Questions:  Due to risk concerns, will PCAP be meeting more than 4 times annually as the Chairman can request so the public can be more fully engaged and informed? If undecided, I request it. 

Also, there is one less Public Comment slot at this 3rd meeting and Question, why is that? I request that a last Public Comment slot be re-instated nearer the end of meetings so the public can ask final questions. 

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Thank you all, 

Iris Potter,

Michigan Safe Energy Future-Kalamazoo