ASLB rejects our Palisades SG tube intervention

[Photo of typical steam generator (SG) tubes, looking from the top downward.]

On August 5, 2025, a three-administrative judge (or -hearing examiner) panel of the Atomic Safety (sic) and Licensing Board (ASLB) ruled against our environmental coalition’s intervention petition regarding severe steam generator (SG) tube degradation at the Palisades atomic reactor in Covert Township, on southwest Michigan’s Lake Michigan shore.

We filed this particular intervention petition and request for hearings on June 16, 2025, and we defended our petition and request against attacks by Holtec and NRC Staff on July 18, 2025.

Also related to the SGs were our press releases of July 29th (re: filing of emergency enforcement petition) and July 21st.

Our coalition includes: Beyond Nuclear; Don’t Waste Michigan; Michigan Safe Energy Future; Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago; and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania. Our co-counsel are Wally Taylor of Iowa, and Terry Lodge of Ohio. Our steam generator expert witness is nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen.

Despite the safety-significance of the SG tube degradation in the context of Holtec’s unprecedented scheme to restart Palisades from closed-for-good status, the ASLB panel shot down our contention, backed by our expert witness testimony, that mere sleeving of damaged tubes is inadequate to assure safety, and that the SGs have needed to be replaced entirely for nearly 20 years.

Although the SGs have been overdue for replacement in their entirety since 2006, Holtec’s 2022-2024 neglect of basic safety maintenance made the tube cracking problem dangerously worse. This rookie error, by a company that has never operated or built a reactor, to not implement wet layup on the SGs, has worsened yet another pathway to reactor core meltdown, among a number of others. (Wet layup involves filling the steam generators with ultra-pure water, as well as using anti-corrosion chemicals like hydrazine.)

In addition to the adverse ruling, the ASLB panel also hastily terminated the proceeding entirely, even though Holtec has not yet even responded to NRC Staff Requests for Additional Information on the sleeving scheme.

As it has with a growing number of earlier intervention attempts opposed to Palisades’ restart, our environmental coalition will appeal to the NRC Commissioners. All administrative remedies at NRC must be exhausted before we can appeal to federal court.