UCS Issue Brief: "Palisades' Leaking SIRWT"

David Lochbaum (photo left), Director of the Nuclear Safety Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) -- who presented in west MI about the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor at April 11th events sponsored by Beyond Nuclear -- has penned an Issue Brief on Entergy's latest leak: "Palisades' Leaking SIRWT."

In June 2012, U.S. Representative Ed Markey, based on revelations provided by courageous Palisades whistleblowers and their attorney Billie Pirner Garde, made public the "crisis in the control room" at Palisades: the leakage of water from the Safety Injection Refueling Water Tank (SIRWT), down the walls and through the ceiling of the control room, precariously near safety-critical electrical circuitry and equipment.

Both Entergy, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) itself, had kept the leak quiet for over a year at that point. Entergy and NRC staff had even kept NRC's Chairman, Greg Jaczko, in the dark about the leak, when he toured Palisades on May 25, 2012, before holding a press conference and meeting with two dozen concerned local residents and environmental group representatives, including Beyond Nuclear.

Once the crisis in the control room came to light, NRC Chairman Jaczko ordered an investigation as to why he had been kept in the dark, even by his own agency staff. NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff strongly opposed the investigation, even to the point of yelling at the chief NRC investigator, who happened to be a woman. (In 2011, Ostendorff, along with three other NRC Commissioners, had urged the White House to fire Jaczko, supposedly for allegedly yelling at female staffpersons -- an allegation with little to no substantiation). Ostendorff is still under investigation himself, for that outburst.

In late March and early April, 2013, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, along with grassroots environmental allies, learned from NRC admissions that the SIRWT into and around the control room continued, at a rate of 0.5 to 1 gallon per day -- two years after the SIRWT leaks had begun. But last weekend, the leakage rate shot up to 90 gallons in a single day. 79 gallons of radioactive water spilled into Lake Michigan.