NRC to Hold Virtual Meeting to Discuss 2019 Performance of Palisades Nuclear Power Plant [5:30-7pm Eastern, Thurs., Aug. 13 -- advance registration required]
As stated by NRC: The session will run from 5:30-7 p.m., Eastern Time [Thurs., Aug. 13th]. Online registration is required to participate. Following registration, a confirmation email will be sent with details on how to join the meeting. To hear the presentation, those interested must register to obtain the phone call-in number.
NRC has also stated: Interested members of the public must register at the website address [see lik above] to see the visual portion of the presentation. In addition, interested members of the public must call in via telephone at 800-369-3153 and enter passcode 8409690 in order to listen to the presentation because the video application will have no sound. After registering, a confirmation email will be sent with details for joining the webinar, and the telephone number and passcode for the audio portion. This is a virtual public meeting where participants will be able to see the presentation on a computer screen and listen to the presenters through their phone. There is also the option to join via phone only by calling in to the number provided in the registration confirmation.
And as stated in an action alert by Beyond Nuclear sent out to Palisades watch-dogs, and concerned residents, in the area:
Please see the NRC press release below. Then below that is the previous email, cut and pasted in, re: this meeting, that I sent out in response to NRC's first announcement of the August 13th meeting. It gives ideas for subject matter that you could bring up during the Q&A/public comment time after the NRC dog and pony show concludes. For example, the 2019 performance of Palisades (the only thing NRC is going to consider "in scope" for the meeting, in the agency's Byzantine arbitrariness and capriciousness, designed to block public knowledge and discussion), in its relation to major ongoing, and worsening with time, safety risks, dating back in some cases not years but decades, could be a way to thread NRC's arbitrary and capricious needle.
As but one example, Palisades has long had the worst neutron embrittled reactor pressure vessel of any U.S. pressurized water reactor (PWR) -- and perhaps any PWR in the world -- at risk of through-wall breach due to pressurized thermal shock (PTS). If this were to occur, a reactor core meltdown would ensue. Despite this, NRC has taken recent steps to further weaken embrittlement safety standards, to not require actual physical data collection and analysis to examine PTS risks, etc., all in order to accommodate ongoing operations at severely age-degraded reactors like Palisades.
Note that you have to pre-register with NRC in advance, in order to take part in the meeting.
Please help watch-dog this meeting if you can. Please spread the word. Thanks.
---Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear & Don't Waste Michigan
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: opa administrators <opa@nrc.gov>
Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 10:44 AM
Subject: NRC to Hold Virtual Meeting to Discuss 2019 Performance of Palisades Nuclear Power Plant
To: Kevin Kamps <kevin@beyondnuclear.org>
Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: III-20-012 August 6, 2020
Contact: Viktoria Mitlyng, 630-829-9662 Prema Chandrathil, 630-829-9663
NRC to Hold Virtual Meeting to Discuss 2019 Performance of Palisades Nuclear Power Plant
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will discuss the 2019 safety performance of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan during a virtual meeting scheduled for Aug. 13.
The Palisades plant is in Covert, Mich., operated by Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc.
The session will run from 5:30-7 p.m., Eastern Time. Online registration is required to participate. Following registration, a confirmation email will be sent with details on how to join the meeting. To hear the presentation, those interested must register to obtain the phone call-in number.
NRC staff responsible for plant inspection and oversight will participate, including the resident inspectors based full-time at the site.
Palisades operated safely during 2019. At the conclusion of the year, all inspection findings and performance indicators were green, or of very low safety significance. As a result, the plant in 2020 will receive the normal level of oversight, which entails thousands of hours of inspection each year.
The NRC Reactor Oversight Process uses color-coded inspection findings and indicators to measure plant performance. The colors start at green and increase to white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Inspection findings or performance indicators with more than very low safety significance trigger increased NRC oversight.
Inspections are performed by two NRC resident inspectors assigned to the plant and specialist inspectors from the Region III Office in Lisle, Ill.
The annual assessment letter for Palisades, as well as the meeting notice, are available on the NRC website. Current performance information is available and updated on a quarterly basis.
[Link to press release attachment on NRC email, as this list does not support attachments: <http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28334903/1597163194367/8+6+20+NRC+press+release+20-012.iii.pdf?token=gRBLWMcHC0e3M%2BJ2qkSd8W0HLcc%3D>]
PREVIOUS EMAIL I SENT AROUND AUGUST 3RD, WITH IDEAS FOR SUBJECT MATTER YOU COULD BRING UP DURING THE Q&A/PUBLIC COMMENT TIME AFTER THE NRC DOG AND PONY SHOW CONCLUDES:
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Here is a link to the NRC letter posted online:
http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28332220/1596514192077/8+13+20+2019+Palisades+EOC+Licensee+Letter.pdf?token=rxCk0qPrVYWiZ3LsG5h78db%2FlrY%3D
The end of year review webinar will be on Thursday, August 13, 2020, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT.
Here is an NRC staff point of contact: April Nguyen, Acting Chief, Branch 2, Division of Reactor Projects, E-mail: April.Nguyen@nrc.gov, Phone: (630) 829-9587
Here is the link to the Meeting Info.:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/view?AccessionNumber=ML20212L557
Here is the Public Participation section of the NRC's Meeting Info.:
[Public Participation: This is a Category 3 Meeting. The webinar will begin with a presentation by NRC staff on the NRC’s assessment of performance for the site during 2019. Following the presentation, members of the public will have the opportunity to ask questions specific to the safety performance and the NRC’s role in ensuring safe plant operations. The NRC staff will provide guidance during the webinar on the methods available to ask a question. Alternatively, questions may be submitted in advance to April.Nguyen@nrc.gov.
Interested members of the public must register at the website address below to see the visual portion of the presentation. In addition, interested members of the public must call in via telephone at 800-369-3153 and enter passcode 8409690 in order to listen to the presentation because the video application will have no sound. After registering, a confirmation email will be sent with details for joining the webinar, and the telephone number and passcode for the audio portion. This is a virtual public meeting where participants will be able to see the presentation on a computer screen and listen to the presenters through their phone. There is also the option to join via phone only by calling in to the number provided in the registration confirmation. In order to participate, please register for the webinar no later than one business day prior to the August 13, 2020, meeting at: https://usnrc.webex.com/usnrc/onstage/g.php?MTID=e5fc172c3c9fe44dda34b17004da678aa System Requirements for Attendees for the webinar: https://help.webex.com/en-us/1vek5r/Webex-Meetings-SystemRequirements-and-Cross-Platform-Information#Webex-Meetings-SuiteSystem-RequirementsIf you have any questions or should need assistance concerning registration for the meeting, please call or email the meeting contact.]
Here is another Meeting Details posting by NRC:
https://www.nrc.gov/pmns/mtg?do=details&Code=20200913
Please take part if you can, to watch-dog Palisades and NRC. Please spread the word.
Thanks.
---Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear & Don't Waste Michigan
P.S. Palisades is scheduled for a refueling outage beginning late August. NRC will consider this out of scope, as the meeting is supposedly a review of Palisades' 2019 performance (eight months after 2019 ended!). But at the Cook end of year review, I pushed the envelope on refueling outages and Covid-19 risks, and they did entertain the question to some extent, although their answer left a lot to be desired.
The refueling outage will bring 1,000+ refueling outage workers, of unknown Covid-19 infection status, into Van Buren County in late August, representing a serious risk of Covid-19 not only at the Palisades nuclear power plant itself, but also in the host counties where the workers will be staying for a month or longer.
See the press release about our coalition's June 19th letter to Gov. Whitmer, warning not only about the risk of Covid-19 spread, but also about the safety shortcuts and regulatory retreat taking place under the cover of Covid-19:
See the letter to Gov. Whitmer, here:
See the associated briefing paper, here:
Here is a cut and paste of the Palisades section from the briefing paper:
Concerns re: Palisades Atomic Reactor in Covert Township, Van Buren County, on the Lake Michigan Shore
As revealed in a Nuclear Energy Institute document (see page 5 of 5 on PDF counter), Palisades is scheduled for a refueling outage set to begin in late August, 2020. The large, out-of-county and even out-of-state, itinerant workforce, that would come in to perform refueling outage tasks would run the risk of spreading coronavirus in Van Buren County, and beyond in southwest Michigan, at around the same time that a second major wave is feared to potentially commence state-wide, and nationally.
Palisades is already infamous for its long list of safety and security problems. One example is its badly embrittled reactor pressure vessel, the worst at any reactor in the U.S. and perhaps in the entire world, at risk of a pressurized thermal shock through-wall breach, which would cause a reactor core meltdown. Another example is its degraded steam generators, which were supposed to have been replaced many long years ago, but never were. Yet another example is its deteriorated reactor lid, also overdue for replacement by not years, but more than a decade. A steam generator tube cascading failure, or a lid breach, are also pathways to reactor core meltdown. Palisades is set to shut down for good in October 2022. In fact, Entergy had previously announced permanent shutdown by October 2018, but reneged.
Thus, this refueling outage would very likely, and thankfully, be Palisades' last. So why not power down the reactor to cold shutdown, and wait to see how Michigan is faring with the pandemic? As stated above, with reduced demand, and Michigan's glut of electricity supply, Palisades' generation likely will not even be needed any time soon, if ever. Why not avoid the pandemic risks of a refueling outage, and the radiological risks of long ignored and neglected major safety repairs and replacements, by simply shutting down Palisades for good, rather than refueling one last time? The wisdom of this precaution is enhanced by the worsening, historic Lake Michigan high water levels, which threaten the Palisades atomic reactor facilities proper, including the highly controversial, long troubled, shoreline irradiated nuclear fuel dry cask storage for highly radioactive wastes. The recent Midland flooding serves as a cautionary tale that the risks of flooding at Palisades cannot be ignored.
As with the Fermi 2 CRAC-II figures cited above, Palisades's CRAC-II figures are also sobering. Estimated casualties from a reactor meltdown at Palisades include: 1,000 peak early fatalities (acute radiation poisoning deaths), 7,000 peak early radiation injuries, and 10,000 peak cancer deaths (latent cancer fatalities). Of course, these casualty estimates are low, considering that the population around Palisades has soared since 1982. And property damages reported as $52.6 billion in Year 1982 dollar figures would now surmount $141 billion in Year 2019 dollar figures.
Security concerns associated with worker fatigue
Another concern at Palisades that deserves emphasis is the risk that owner/operator Entergy could yet seek fatigue rule exemptions regarding security guards. As mentioned above, DTE has sought, and gotten NRC approval for, lifting fatigue rules for security guards at its Fermi 2 reactor, which is already bad enough. But Entergy, including at Palisades, has long had security guard fatigue and other problems, going back not years, but decades. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) published a report on the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks entitled "Nuclear Power Plant Security: Voices from Inside the Fences." It focused on Entergy's overwork of security guards at its Indian Point nuclear power plant near New York City (Unit 2 thankfully shut down for good on April 30, 2020).
But Palisades (owned by Consumers Energy till 2007, and by Entergy since then) was also infamous for its security guard force fatigue at the time, after a security guard suffered a nervous breakdown on the job while heavily armed. Fortunately, no one was physically harmed, including the security guard.
POGO identified NRC's permissive authorization to nuclear utilities like Entergy, to work security guards 72 hours per week, week after week, to their breaking point, as a major contributing factor to the problems.
Also on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Palisades was the subject of an exposé in the New York Times, regarding a significant security breach. In 2007, after Entergy took ownership, yet another major security breach at Palisades was revealed in a cover article in Esquire Magazine. And just several years ago, Palisades security guards were implicated in a document falsification scandal, regarding visual fire watch inspections, as reported by News Channel TV-3 in Kalamazoo. The common thread to all these security failures and violations has been security guard force fatigue and overwork. But now, instead of 72-hour work weeks, NRC is allowing 86-hour work weeks for security guards and other safety-significant workers.
This includes control room operators. As revealed in a March 11, 2013 article in the Japan Times, about a nuclear power plant in Illinois ("Toxic management erodes safety at 'world's safest' nuclear plant: Echoes of Fukushima at Exelon's flagship Byron Station in Illinois," by Dreux Richard), excessive fatigue and other stresses on control room operators can lead to stress-related ailments, that can prove fatal; in addition, two control room operators there even committed suicide (a tragedy that has similarly since been seen with an overwhelmed American emergency room physician in the context of COVID-19). Both on the security and safety fronts, as well as regarding environmental protection, such nuclear worker fatigue-induced mistakes and violations raise the specter of radiological harm to communities downwind and downstream from Michigan's operating atomic reactors.
And as our coalition warned NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, in a face-to-face meeting in June 2014 in Benton Harbor, Palisades' location, immediately adjacent to Van Buren State Park (and along a state-designated kayak and canoe water trail, and a location already very popular with sail and power boaters), as well as Cook's location very near Warren Dunes State Park, introduces the added risk of fatigued security guards interacting with beachgoers, swimmers, and boaters. These Michiganders and out-of-state visitors are often not warned, as by adequate or any signage or other notice, about the Michigan state law, enacted several years ago, giving nuclear power plant security guards indemnity for wounding or even killing innocent, unwitting "trespassers," mistaken as dangerous terrorists. (In fact, the Republican Michigan State legislator who introduced the bill admitted, as reported by Lindsey Smith on Michigan Radio, that the legislation was meant to deter non-violent anti-nuclear and environmental protests at Michigan's atomic reactors; troublingly, they should think twice before holding such protests, he was quoted as warning in the interview.)
Palisades' sister atomic reactor, Big Rock Point in Charlevoix County, Michigan, on the Lake Michigan shoreline, is also of concern during this time of coronavirus global pandemic. The eight dry casks containing highly radioactive waste (seven casks holding irradiated nuclear fuel, one holding so-called Greater Than Class C "low" level radioactive waste) must be monitored and maintained at all times, to prevent incidents or accidents, such as overheating, leaks, etc. Security is an ongoing concern as well, which is why Big Rock Point's dry casks should be hardened.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: nrc_mail_r3 resource <nrc_mail_r3.resource@nrc.gov>
Date: Mon, Aug 3, 2020 at 10:02 PM
Subject: PUBLIC WEBINAR TO DISCUSS NRC 2019 END-OF-CYCLE PLANT PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF THE PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT
To: Kevin Kamps <kevin@beyondnuclear.org>
SUBJECT: PUBLIC WEBINAR TO DISCUSS NRC 2019 END-OF-CYCLE PLANT PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF the Palisades nuclear plant
ADAMS Accession Number ML20212L546
August 13, 2020