What you can do to help shutdown Palisades before it melts down
U.S. Sens. Levin and StabenowThere are many actions you can take to help shutdown Palisades before it melts down.
For example, you can contact U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow (see photo, left), both Michigan Democrats, and senior Democratic Party leaders (committee chairs) in the U.S. Senate. Their full contact information is listed below. Read on for ideas on what you can say to them.
Urge them to do all they can to force Palisades' shutdown, for safety's sake.
Urge them to work together to request an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) into the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) regulatory rollbacks on safety standards, enabling the age-degraded Palisades atomic reactor to keep operating. Specifically, urge them to launch a GAO investigation on Palisades' embrittled reactor pressure vessel, at risk of rupturing due to pressurized thermal shock if the emergency core cooling system is ever activated. This would lead to a loss of coolant accident, reactor core meltdown, and catastrophic radioactivity release, potentially killing and injuring tens of thousands, and causing over $100 billion in property damage downwind and downstream.
Palisades has the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the U.S., as admitted by senior staff at a Feb. 29, 2012 public meeting in South Haven. Michael Keegan of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes documented that Palisades had violated NRC safety standards just 10 years into its operations, by 1981. In June 2011, the Associated Press pointed to reactor pressure vessel embrittlement as the top example of NRC weakening safety standards in order to enable dangerously degraded atomic reactors to keep operating.
A coalition of dozens of Michigan environmental groups asked for this GAO investigation from Sens. Levin and Stabenow in spring 2006 -- yes, 7 years ago. Concerned citizens and environmental group representatives again asked them to do this in early 2012. Yet they never have.
You could also urge Sen. Stabenow to hold hearings in the Senate Agriculture Committee, which she chairs, regarding the risks to Michigan's agricultural economy from a catastrophic radioactivity release at Palisades.
You could also urge Sen. Stabenow to call for hearings on the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which she serves, to look at the risks to Lake Michigan -- source of drinking water for tens of millions -- if Palisades were to unleash a Fukushima-like catastrophe on its shoreline.
Here are the two Senators' contact information:
U.S. SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW:
Click on this link for Sen. Stabenow's Webform, where you can send her an email.
Washington, D.C. Office
Senate Hart Office Building #133, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510; phone (202) 224-4822; Fax (202) 228-0325.
Flint/Saginaw Bay Office
432 N. Saginaw St, Suite 301, Flint, MI 48502; Phone: (810) 720-4172
243 W.Congress Suite 550, Detroit, MI 48226; Phone: (313) 961-4330
221 W. Lake Lansing Road, Suite 100, East Lansing, MI 48823; Phone: (517) 203-1760
3280 E. Beltline Court NE, Suite 400, Grand Rapids, MI 49525; Phone: (616) 975-0052
Northern Michigan Office
3335 S. Airport Road West, Suite 6B, Traverse City, MI 49684; Phone: (231) 929-1031
1901 W. Ridge, Marquette, MI 49855; Phone: (906) 228-8756
U.S. SENATOR CARL LEVIN:
Click on this link for the Webform where you can send him an email.
Washington, D.C. Office
269 Russell Office Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510-2202; Phone (202) 224-6221; Fax (202) 224-1388; TTY (202) 224-2816
Detroit Office
Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building; 477 Michigan Avenue, Suite 1860; Detroit, MI 48226-2576; Phone (313) 226-6020; Fax (313) 226-6948; TTY (800) 851-0030
Escanaba Office
524 Ludington Street, Suite LL-103, Escanaba, MI 49829-3949; Phone (906) 789-0052; Fax (906) 789-0015
Grand Rapids Office
Gerald R. Ford Federal Building, Suite 720, 110 Michigan Street, NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503-2313; Phone (616) 456-2531; Fax (616) 456-5147
Lansing Office
124 W. Allegan Street, Suite 1810, Lansing, MI 48933-1716; Phone (517) 377-1508; Fax (517) 377-1506
Traverse City Office
107 Cass Street, Suite E, Traverse City, MI 49684-2602; Phone (231) 947-9569; Fax (231) 947-9518
Saginaw Office
515 N. Washington Avenue, Suite 402, Saginaw, MI 48607-1370; Phone (989) 754-2494; Fax (989) 754-2920
Warren Office
30500 Van Dyke Avenue, Suite 206, Warren, MI 48093-2109; Phone (586) 573-9145; Fax (586) 573-8260
If you live in west Michigan, you could join in the activities of the grassroots groups working for Palisades' shutdown.
For the Michigan Safe Energy Future--Shoreline Chapter, contact Bette Pierman at bette49022@yahoo.com or (269) 369-3993. The Shoreline Chapter meets monthly on the first Saturday of each month at 1 PM Eastern at the South Haven Memorial Library.
For the Michigan Safe Energy Future--Kalamazoo Chapter, contact Iris Potter at b.irispotter@gmail.com or (269) 271-4342.
June 9, 2013