An environmental coalition issued a media release on January 12, 2012, announcing numerous filings in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Fermi 3. The environmental coalition has opposed Detroit Edison's proposal to build a General Electric-Hitachi so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR) since the nuclear utility's combined Construction and Operations License Application (COLA) to NRC in 2008. In 2009, the coalition, comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, intervened and won standing, as well as the admission of several contentions, before an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB). One of those contentions concerns thermal and toxic chemical discharges from Fermi 3 which would worsen harmful algae blooms already running rampant in Lake Erie's shallow, fragile, and biologically productive Western Basin (see photo above left).
The January 11th filings included: the environmental coalition's comments and contentions; comments by CACC; comments by the Council of the Three Fires, representing the Walpole Island First Nation; comments by Lake Erie Waterkeeper; comments by Beyond Nuclear Launch Partner Keith Gunter; comments by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Michigan Environmental Council; and comments by expert witness Joe Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project. Mangano's comment focus on the health risks already threatening populations surrounding the Fermi nuclear power plant, due to radiation releases from Fermi 1 (which suffered a "We Almost Lost Detroit" partial core meltdown in 1966) and Fermi 2 (the largest Fukushima Daiichi twin in the world), to which Fermi 3's radiation health risks would have to be added.