Entergy & NRC Watchers needed at NRC meeting on Palisades' CRDM through-wall leakage

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced a public meeting, to be held on Monday, October 1st from 1-2 PM Central time (2-3 PM Eastern time) at its Lisle, IL Region 3 office near Chicago, regarding the through-wall leakage of radioactive and acidic primary coolant water from the Palisades atomic reactor's Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM).

If you can attend the meeting in person, please do. However, NRC is making Webinar and even call-in participation possible, for those unable to attend in person. Contact NRC Region 3 Staffer Swetha Shah by Saturday, September 29th for more information on how to participate at (630) 829-9608 or Swetha.Shah@nrc.gov.

You can also "reserve a seat" at the Webinar by signing up at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/977718426. Again, do so by Sat., Sept. 29th.

NRC will then send a confirmation email, giving additional information about the option to "Use Telephone" if you prefer, rather than Webinar. Call-in numbers and access codes will be provided.

See NRC's Meeting Notice as well as Public Meeting Scheduled for more information. Do so by going to the NRC's Public Meeting Schedule and scrolling down chronologically to the October 1st Palisades CRDM meeting for the links. On Sept. 26th, NRC Region 3 issued a press release about next Monday's meeting.

Palisades (pictured, above left), located in Covert, Michigan, near South Haven, on the southeastern shoreline of Lake Michigan in southwestern Michigan, is considered by NRC one of the four worst-run atomic reactors in the U.S., after experiencing an accident of "substantial significance to safety" a year ago, on Sept. 25, 2011. As documented by David Lochbaum of Union of Concerned Scientists in 2010, Palisades -- unique in the U.S. nuclear industry -- has suffered 40 years of chronic CRDM seal leaks.

Beyond Nuclear has helped organize and rally concerned local residents and environmental groups after Palisades experienced five euphemistically dubbed "unplanned shutdowns" (accidents) in 2011 alone, followed by numerous leaks in 2012, as well as a complete collapse of "safety culture" that was covered up by Entergy and NRC, until it was outed by alarmed, courageous Palisades whistleblowers.

For more information, see Beyond Nuclear's recent posts about Palisades, including U.S. Rep. Ed Markey's revelations about "the crisis in the control room" at Palisades, as well as about the CRDM through-wall leak revealed a month ago.

Beyond Nuclear has prepared a full listing of posts about Palisades, just this year alone.

Update on September 26, 2012 by admin

Palisades has sprung yet another in a long line of leaks, this time in a service water pump, according to a Preliminary Notification of Occurrence just posted at NRC's website. The Holland Sentinel has reported on this leak, while focusing on emergency preparedness exercises being carried out in Allegan and other area counties.

Entergy Watch building bridges between communities in the shadows

From left, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, and VYDA/VCAN's Chris Williams and Jeanette Baer, being "frog marched" in handcuffs into the waiting Wyndham County, VT sheriff's "paddy wagon" for the ride to Brattleboro City Jail. They were arrested on 3/22/12, along with 165 others, during a non-violent civil disobedience action at Entergy's Vernon, VT HQ, to protest the first day of the disputed Vermont Yankee 20 year license extension. Solidarity actions were held at Entergy national HQ in New Orleans, and Entergy Northeast regional HQ in White Plains, NY.Not only do Entergy Nuclear watchdogs continue their resistance to individual of the "dirty dozen" atomic reactors owned/operated by Entergy Nuclear of New Orleans -- from flotillas on the Connecticut River and non-violent civil disobedience actions at Vermont Yankee, to speaking truth to power at Palisades in Michigan -- but bridges are being built between states. For example, Chris Williams of Vermont Citizen Action Network (VCAN) and Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance (VYDA) is traveling to Kalamazoo, Michigan on Thursday, October 11th for a presentation at Western Michigan University, as well as meetings with the media and concerned citizens. Chris will be speaking about the rogue corporation Entergy Nuclear, helping to educate Michiganders -- who live in the shadow of the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor -- about Entergy's bad behavior in Vermont. The goal of the visit, co-sponsored by Beyond Nuclear, is to help take steps to build an anti-nuclear movement in Michigan, as powerful as the one in Vermont. Stay tuned to Beyond Nuclear and Entergy Watch allies across the country for more to come!

Flotilla protests Vermont Yankee's discharges into Connecticut River

Marlboro residents Rose Watson and Laura Berkowitz share their boat with an unnamed protester during Saturday's Safe and Green flotilla. More than 100 anti-nuclear activists gathered along the Connecticut River to tell the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to stop dumping the reactor's thermal discharge into the river. (Josh Stilts/Reformer)The resistance against Vermont Yankee's extended operations continues with a passion. As reported by the Brattleboro Reformer, last Saturday, over 100 demonstrators took to the Connecticut River, by canoe, kayak, sail and fishing boat, and other watercraft, to protest thermal, toxic chemical, and radioactive discharges from Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee atomic reactor into the biologically productive, and fragile, ecosystem (see photo, left).

Not only is Vermont Yankee leaking radioactive water from degraded underground pipes into the area groundwater, which then flows into the Connecticut, but it also "routinely" discharges heat, radioactivity, and toxic chemicals into the river with an expired "zombie permit" from the U.S. federal government. 

NRC "supplemental inspection" begins at Palisades

The scorched control room panel involved in the Sept. 25, 2011 accident at Palisades which NRC concluded was of "substantial significance to safety"As reported by the Associated Press, an eight member "supplemental inspection team" from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) began two weeks of work today at Entergy Nuclear's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, Michigan on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Last Valentine's Day, NRC lowered Palisades' safety status to among the four worst-run reactors in the U.S. This came after a September 25, 2011 near-electrocution, caused by short cuts on safety, that plunged half the control room into a power outage, instantly throwing 22 safety related plant systems into chaos (see photo, left).

It took control room operators hours to bring the reactor under control, all the while straining age-degraded systems, structures, and components to the breaking point. This included the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in the U.S. If subjected to emergency core cooling system (ECCS) water, the RPV could fracture like a hot glass under cold water, due to "pressurized thermal shock." Such a fracture would lead to a loss of coolant accident in the core, very likely leading to a meltdown. If the containment structures then failed, a catastrophic radioactivity release would result. Frighteningly, the electrical fault inadvernently activated the ECCS. Fortunately, the ECCS failed to inject cooling water, which would have tested NRC's decades of repeated weakenings of PTS safety standards, which has allowed Palisades to keep operating as its RPV embrittlement has worsened. Of course, the failure of the ECCS to work, when ordered to (even inadvertently) raises its own red flags -- the ECCS is one of the last lines of defense against nuclear fuel overheating in the core that can also lead to meltdown.

NRC allowed Entergy to tell it when it was ready for this special inspection. Entergy took over seven months to prepare itself.

SAMA contention defended, resistance to Davis-Besse license extension continues

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge speaks at a press conference on August 9th at Oak Harbor High School, prior to an NRC public meeting, addressing Davis-Besse's severely cracked shield building.On Sept. 14th, environmental coalition attorney, Toledo-based Terry Lodge (photo, left), filed a rebuttal against FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Motion for Summary Dismissal (MSD) of an intervention contention challenging the Davis-Besse atomic reactor's Severe Accident Mitigation Alernatives (SAMA) analyses.

FENOC applied for a 20 year license extension in August 2010, which the environmental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Green Party of Ohio) challenged in December 2010. One of the contentions the coalition successfully filed involved SAMA. On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe (April 26, 2011), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) granted the environmental intervenors a hearing on the SAMA contention. 

The coalition is deeply indebted to Pilgrim Watch in Massachusetts, as well as the New England Coalition, for their groundbreaking SAMA challenges against the Pilgrim and Seabrook, NH license extensions, respectively. Their work laid the groundwork for ours.

FENOC appealed the ASLB's ruling to the five member NRC Commission, which earlier this year largely ruled in FENOC's favor, overruling the ASLB and dismissing several aspects of the SAMA hearing request. However, some aspects survived. Those are what FENOC would now like to nix entirely.

However, FENOC recently admitted that it had made five major errors in its original SAMA analyses, including getting wind directions 180 degrees wrong; undervaluing Ohio farmland and urban property values; and underestimating the amount of hazardous radioactivity that could escape into the environment during a meltdown at Davis-Besse, as well as the land area that could become contaminated.

The heart of the environmental coalition's defense of its contention involves the severe cracking of Davis-Besse's outer concrete, steel reinforced shield building, as well as significant corrosion of its inner steel containment vessel. The Intervenors charge that FENOC's SAMA analyses are fatally flawed, for they ignore the questionable structural integrity of Davis-Besse's containment structures, which could fail under even small loads, such as mild earthquakes, or meltdown conditions (high temperatures and pressures, which the shield building was never even designed to withstand when brand new, let alone severely cracked).

The ASLB has indicated it will hold oral argument pre-hearings in the vicinity of Davis-Besse in early November, at which the environmental coalition will defend not only its SAMA contention, but also its shield building cracking contention.