Emergency Enforcement Petition at Palisades
| [Update: Kraig Schultz of Michigan Safe Energy Future made an audio recording of the one hour thirteen minute long meeting described below. Here is his link to the audio recording:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xn76QP7-eIpUjWv8z8xYebRmEXivb3Se/view Schultz also read a prepared statement during the meeting. Here is the text of his prepared statement: “My Name is Kraig Schultz. I am a member of Michigan Safe Energy Future. I live 50 miles from Palisades and have been actively involved in monitoring the activities of the Palisades Plant and the NRC’s oversight of the plant for the last 10 years. On the basis of the PSDAR submitted by Holtec to the NRC, the NRC approved the transfer of ownership of Palisades and the Decommissioning Trust Fund (DTF). But, Holtec consciously began drawing money from the trust fund while pursuing plans to reopen the plant. This deception and lack of accountability blatantly demonstrates why Decommissioning Trust Funds must be controlled by an independent third party who holds the Decommissioning company accountable to perform work and releases funds only as work is completed per the PSDAR. The NRC must establish better rules to ensure for-profit companies don’t raid trust funds and leave contaminated sites for future generations to clean up without funding. Again, we strongly urge the NRC to pause and consider if Holtec as a corporation has sufficient corporate values and competence to be entrusted with a license to control Nuclear facilities. Their blatant profiteering and deception related to decommissioning has made a mockery of the NRC and the public trust. We need safety in-depth, and we rely on the NRC to enforce regulations and require nuclear operators to have sufficient safety culture, technical competence and financial responsibility.”] NEWS ADVISORY FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR For immediate release Contact: Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216, [email protected] |
Environmental Coalition Presses Emergency Enforcement Petitionre: Holtec’s Illegal Expendituresof Palisades Decommissioning Trust Fund Money |
Public Meeting with NRC 2.206 Petition Review Board,Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 11am to 12pm ET |
| WASHINGTON, D.C. and COVERT TWP., MI, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2024, 11AM TO 12PM EASTERN TIME–As posted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULE: MEETING DETAILS, as well as complementary second post, an NRC Petition Review Board (PRB) will meet with legal counsel and representatives from an environmental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future) regarding alleged illegal expenditures of ratepayer-funded Decommissioning Trust Fund (DTF) money at the Palisades nuclear power plant on Lake Michigan’s shoreline in Van Buren County, Michigan. The coalition’s legal counsel are Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
As reported, Holtec has recently been cited by NRC for misuse of DTF money at each of the nuclear power plants in its decommissioning fleet: Indian Point, New York; Pilgrim, Massachusetts; Oyster Creek, New Jersey (explicitly targeted by Holtec for “Small Modular Reactor” (SMR) deployment); and Palisades, Michigan (no longer to be decommissioned, but rather restarted by Holtec; it, and its Big Rock Point sibling nuclear site in Michigan’s northwest Lower Peninsula, are also targeted by Holtec for so-called SMR new builds.) The teleconference meeting can be attended, in listen-only mode, by members of the public, as well as news media reporters, at the following webinar coordinates provided by NRC: Webinar Webinar Meeting Number: 213664850471 Webinar Password: 92gY2w NRC has also provided the following telephone conference call-in numbers (also listen-only mode): Teleconference Bridge Number: (301) 576-2978 Passcode: 422789700# Although NRC has limited its 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 2.206 PRB scope of consideration to the environmental coalition’s allegations of illegal expenditures of ratepayer-funded Decommissioning Trust Funds at Palisades nuclear power plant, it stems from a much broader environmental coalition intervention petition filed with NRC on December 6, 2023, seeking to block Holtec’s attepmts to restart the permanently closed more than half-century old Palisades reactor. NRC has thus far rebuffed the environmental coalition’s intervention attempts. However, the coalition will continue to attempt to intervene at every opportunity. The coalition also goes into this 2.206 process with its eyes wide open. By one count of emergency enforcement petition attempts, only one-half of one-percent prevailed. One description of NRC’s 2.206 process is a black hole, from which petitioners are never heard from again, by design. For the latest Beyond Nuclear postings (in backwards chronological order, newest to oldest) about the resistance to the “zombie” reactor restart at Palisades, as well as Holtec schemes to construct and operate so-called “Small Modular Reactors” at Palisades, and its sibling (closed and decommissioned) Big Rock Point nuclear power plant site in Hayes Township, near Charlevoix, on Michigan’s Lake Michigan shore, see: https://beyondnuclear.org/newest-nuke-nightmares-at-palisades-2022-present/ -30- |
| Beyond Nuclear is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear. Beyond Nuclear: 7304 Carroll Avenue, #182, Takoma Park, MD 20912. [email protected]. www.beyondnuclear.org. |
[Image credit: Gene Case, Avenging Angels. The image graced the cover of The Nation magazine in 2003, accompanying an article by Christian Parenti about the George W. Bush administration’s ill fated “Nuclear Renaissance” (Relapse!).]
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