Beyond Nuclear responds to NRC safety downgrade at Palisades: "shut it down before it melts down"

Don't Waste Michigan has long called for Palisades' shut down. Here, DWM board members Michael Keegan, Alice Hirt, and Kevin Kamps speak out at Palisades during the 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action CampIn response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) media release, "NRC CITES PALISADES FOR THREE VIOLATIONS; PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULED," Beyond Nuclear has issued a media release of its own.

It begins: "While we welcome the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's long overdue acknowledgement that safety risks are unacceptable at Palisades, and the agency's plans for enhanced inspections, we know all too well that not only the reactor's owner, Entergy Nuclear, but even the regulatory agency itself, needs to be watched at every turn, to keep them honest. The grassroots environmental movement of the Great Lakes will do all it can to shine a spotlight on the grave risks at Palisades. Too much is at stake: Lake Michigan, headwaters of the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream."

Read the full Beyond Nuclear media statement here. Palisades is located on the Lake Michigan shoreline, as shown by its steam rising next to the lake in the photo above. The united environmental movement of Michigan, and beyond, opposed Palisades' 20 year license extension, but NRC rubberstamped it anyway.

Update on February 15, 2012 by admin

Andrew Lersten covered this story in the St. Joe Herald-Palladium. He quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

Kevin Kamps of the anti-nuclear organization Beyond Nuclear said that while he applauds the NRC's downgrading of the plant, much more is needed. The organization's goal is to shut down all nuclear power plants.

"We've long been worried about Palisades," Kamps said Tuesday.

"We need to shut down Palisades before it melts down.

"I think it's fair to say the NRC is willing to work with the company to give it the benefit of the doubt - again and again." Kamps said the plant's former owner, Consumer Energy, in 2006 "listed all the major repairs that were needed at Palisades," and said Entergy is "deferring maintenance. They're postponing repairs. That's Entergy's reputation around the country, to buy reactors cheap and then run them into the ground."

The Kalamazoo Gazette also reported on this story, including an update.

Update on February 21, 2012 by admin

NRC issued a media release, as well as a Final Significance Determination, about both the "yellow finding" as well as the "white finding" at Palisades.