Beyond Nuclear Appeals to U.S. Supreme Court in Opposition to Fermi 3 Proposed New Atomic Reactor
February 26, 2018 Environmental Coalition’s Decade-Long Resistance Challenges U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Rule that Undermines National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to Aid New Reactor Construction
Link to Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court
July 2015 Backgrounder on the issues: Beyond Nuclear appeals scandalous NRC rule that has long undermined NEPA, paving way for new atomic reactor construction
A bi-national environmental coalition has resisted the Fermi Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 from the very beginning. Fermi 3 is a General Electric-Hitachi design, dubbed the ESBWR (so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor"). This U.S. Supreme Court appeal caps a decade of resistance to Fermi 3. Detroit Edison (DTE) announced the proposed new reactor in February 2007, as part of the Bush/Cheney “Nuclear Renaissance.” DTE applied to NRC for a combined construction and operation license in September 2008. The bi-national environmental coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, legally intervened in March 2009. The coalition, with Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge as its legal counsel, ultimately submitted some three-dozen technical contentions to the NRC’s ASLB (Atomic Safety and Licensing Board). Oral hearings were held in downtown Monroe, MI at Halloween, 2013, including on issues of Quality Assurance (QA) violations; Fairewinds Associates, Inc. nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen served as the coalition's expert witness on QA (see Fairewinds Energy Education's website, where Arnie also serves as Chief Engineer). When the NRC approved DTE’s Fermi 3 license in May 2015, the coalition immediately appealed to the federal courts.
Additional coalition partners and allies resisting Fermi 3 include the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3, of which Beyond Nuclear is a member group, and Citizens Resistance at Fermi Two (CRAFT).
Please note that Fermi 3 would be built on the very spot where Fermi 1 had a partial core meltdown on October 5, 1966. Beyond Nuclear and its allies have fought hard to prevent the white washing of this infamous "We Almost Lost Detroit" history, including by submitting legal filings in the Fermi 3 license proceeding.
This appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court not only culminates this decade of resistance. It carries on a tradition of anti-nuclear resistance at Fermi dating back nearly six decades, to when the United Auto Workers appealed its case against Fermi Unit 1 to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Media coverage:
Windsor Star (Ontario, Canada); Washington Examiner (Washington, D.C.); Toledo Blade;
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Sputnik International also covered this story, on its "Loud and Clear" radio show, as well as on its website.
Here is "Loud and Clear's" write up re: the interview:
The anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear took its fight to the Supreme Court on Monday with a rare petition asking the justices to require federal regulators to change rules that exclude nuclear power plants' transmission lines from environmental review. The petition marks the first time the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to allow expedited construction of a new power plant is being challenged in the Supreme Court. Kevin Kamps, the Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, joins the show.
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Friday, March 2, 2018, Monroe Evening News, front page:
Anti-nuclear group takes case to Supreme Court
BY DANIELLE PORTTEUS
An anti-nuclear group filed an appeal this week to the nation’s highest court regarding an alleged violation of an environmental act for the proposed Fermi 3 nuclear power plant.
Beyond Nuclear, represented by Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, filed an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court regarding the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s violation of the National Environmental Policy Act ( NEPA) at the proposed Fermi 3 plant in Newport.
“For over six years, the environmental coalition opposing Fermi 3 has protested the NRC’s exclusion of the 29-mile long, 300- foot- wide transmission line corridor from its NEPA- required environmental impact statement,” Beyond Nuclear said in a statement. “(The) 10.8 miles of that transmission corridor would pass through previously undisturbed ecosystems, including forested wetlands, very likely critical habitat for numerous endangered and threatened plant and animal species.”
Viktoria Mitlyng, senior affairs officer, said the NRC is aware of the petition.
“The agency will respond as necessary through its normal legal processes,” she said. “ The NRC conducted a thorough review of the environmental and safety aspects of the Combined Operating License application for Fermi 3 before issuing the license in May, 2015.”
The petition was filed Monday and questions the November ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals. It alleges the NRC violated the recognition of the NEPA.
It also questions whether the NRC violated its duty to “obey” the environmental act when it denied “admission of public intervenors’ contention because of an arbitrarily short deadline” and simultaneously rejected its own Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel’s recommended adjudication of the matter.
“This is the first time the NRC’s 2007 Limited Work Authorization rule change has been challenged,” said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, a national nuclear power watchdog. “LWA allowed ground to be broken and major excavation and construction to begin in a great big hurry, at proposed new reactors at Vogtle in Georgia, and Summer in South Carolina. We are striving to prevent such high- speed bulldozing, in violation of NEPA, at Fermi 3.”
Michael Keegan of Don’t Waste Michigan said NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield shepherded the LWA rule change into regulations. He called it one of the “worst revolving door scandals in NRC history.”
“After this favor to the nuclear industry, Merrifield then immediately went to work for the Shaw Group, which specialized in new reactor construction, taking a senior vice president position with an annual salary topping a million dollars,” Keegan said in a statement.
NEPA is one of the top environmental protection laws in the country, Lodge said.
“The NRC cannot be allowed to excuse itself from obeying this half- century old, hard won law,” he said.
Lodge cited a number of endangered and threatened species likely inhabiting the corridor including the Indiana bat, mussels such as the Snuffbox, Northern Riffleshell and Purple Lilliput, the Eastern Massasauga and Eastern Fox snakes and Eastern Prairie fringed orchid among others.
The appeal, officials said, caps a decade of resistance to Fermi 3.
John Austerberry, manager of nuclear communications for DTE Energy,said the company has no immediate plans to build a second nuclear power plant.
“The six-year licensingprocess was rigorous and extensive and thoroughly addressed all relevant aspects of environmentalimpact as well as thetechnical and safety aspects
of the potential new generation facility,” Austerberry said.
“The company has no immediate plans to build a new nuclear power plant, but is maintaining the license as a long-term planning option,” he said