Markey Questions Palisades Nuclear Plant In Light of New Leak, On-going Safety Issues

U.S. Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA)U.S. Congressman Ed Markey (Democrat-Massachusetts, pictured left) issued an August 30th press release entitled "Markey Questions Palisades Nuclear Plant In Light of New Leak, On-going Safety Issues," containing a link to his letter to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Allison Macfarlane.

Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor is located in southwest MI, on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. NRC rubberstamped its license extension in January 2007, allowing it to operate not till 2011, but rather till 2031.

Markey serves as Ranking Member of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, and as a Senior Member of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. He has watch-dogged nuclear power issues in the U.S. for decades, including safety and security risks at the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor for many years running.

In his press release and letter, Congressman Markey questions the safety implications of Palisades' latest leak-related shutdown, on August 12th, involving primary reactor coolant water, leaking through-wall from a Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM). CRDMs are involved in the safety-critical control of the nuclear chain reaction in the atomic reactor's core. Palisades has been shutdown since the August 12th leak investigation began, but Congressman Markey notes that Palisades began reactor restart on August 30th. Palisades is now operating at full power.

Markey also questions NRC about an investigation, ordered by former NRC Chairman Jaczko, and allegedly interferred with by NRC Commissioner Ostendorff. Jaczko ordered an investigation into why he was kept in the dark about a leak of acidic and radioactive water into Palisades' control room, being caught in buckets, while he toured the atomic reactor on May 25th. Markey revealed the significance of that leak in June, after a tip off from courageous Palisades whistleblowers and their Washington, D.C.-based attorney, Billie Pirner Garde.

NRC will hold a public meeting in South Haven about Palisades' (lack of) safety culture, on Wed., 9/12 from 6-8:30 PM. Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, who hails from southwest Michigan, will speak on "The Radioactive Catastrophe Waiting to Happen at Palisades, and What You Can Do to Prevent It," in his hometown of Kalamazoo, on Thurs., 9/13 from 7:30-9 PM. Click here for more details on those two events, as well as for extensive background information regarding recently revealed, as well as very long term, safety, health, and environmental risks at Palisades.

Entergy Nuclear's Palisades "a disaster waiting to happen"

Don't Waste Michigan board members Michael Keegan of Monroe, Alice Hirt of Holland, and Kevin Kamps of Kalamazoo call for Palisades' shutdown at the August 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp. Palisades' cooling tower steam and Lake Michigan are visible in the background.The Detroit News has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps in an article about the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, Michigan, on the Lake Michigan shoreline. The article reports:

"...At a May appearance in East Lansing, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear — a group that espouses abandoning nuclear energy — described how Palisades earned its approval for the next 20 years.

'We resisted it,' he told a crowd at the Peace Education Center. 'In fact, the entire environmental movement in Michigan resisted the license extension for Palisades. But we were steamrolled by the nuclear industry, by the NRC.' …

In four decades, Palisades has been fined by the NRC numerous times, and unscheduled shutdowns are almost an annual occurrence. To those who would characterize that as run-of-the-mill problems, Beyond Nuclear's Kamps disagrees.

There are many factors lining up for major problems, he said.

The NRC's license renewal process has a 'premeditated outcome' and, as proof, he noted the agency's 73-for-73 track record on renewal requests. He also pointed to the length of time Palisades officials have taken over the years to address NRC-identified problems.

'Palisades is a disaster waiting to happen,' Kamps said."

FENOC weather seals severely cracked Davis-Besse shield building exterior -- 40 years too late

Painters work high off the ground to apply a protective weatherproof coating to Davis-Besse’s concrete Shield Building. Cracks were discovered in the fall that were blamed on the Blizzard of 1978. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGTAs reported by the Toledo Blade in an article entitled "Work crews apply waterproof coating to Davis-Besse: Project not silencing critics of plant," the only "corrective action" FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) plans to take, in response to severe cracking of its radiological containment "shield building," is to weather seal the exterior of the steel-reinforced concrete structure -- four decades too late. FENOC blames the cracking on the "brutal Blizzard of 1978,"which Beyond Nuclear has dubbed a snow job -- a charge repeated on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by long-time Davis-Besse watchdog, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), whose constituents live immediately downwind and downstream from the problem-plagued plant. 

The article quoted both Terry Lodge, Toledo-based attorney representing the environmental coalition (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Green Party of Ohio) battling against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension, as well as Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps:

"I'm not at all comforted that they discovered an error that never should have happened to the most expensive and safety-significant building on the site," Mr. Lodge said Thursday.

Added Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, "It's 40 years too late. Weather sealant will not fix the cracks that are there."

As reported by Fox 8 Cleveland, a FENOC spokesman outright lied: “The shield building meets all its design parameters, we have evaluated it for all its parameters, and it is fully operable,” said Jon Hook, the design engineer manager at the plant.

In fact, both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FENOC itself have acknowledged that Davis-Besse's severe shield building cracking violates the atomic reactor's design and licensing bases. At an August 9th public meeting in Oak Harbor, OH, an NRC spokesman, with an audible scoff, admitted that NRC has generously granted FENOC until December 2012 to merely come up with a "plan for a plan" to "restore conformance" -- that is, pencil whip the violations, making everything appear okay on paper.  

Hook also told the Toledo Blade the shield building "wasn't coated originally because 'there was no requirement that it be done...'." Why such a basic no brainer as weather sealant was not required -- on the shoreline of Lake Erie, which suffers severe winter weather -- has never been explained, neither by FENOC nor NRC. Further deepening the mystery is the fact that all other -- much less safety significant and expensive -- concrete structures on site were weather sealed. When asked to explain, FENOC spokeswoman Jennifer Young has simply said it was done for aesthetic reasons, as those other structures appeared "splotchy." 

WNWO also reported on this story.

Kucinich weighs in on NRC OIG investigation of Ostendorff

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today weighed in on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation into whether or not NRC Commissioner William C. Ostendorff interfered with another OIG investigation, into why former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko was kept in the dark about radioactive and acidic water leaks, being caught in buckets in the control room of Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, Michigan. The Huffington Post broke that story yesterday.

Here is the text of Rep. Kucinich's press release:

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today issued the following statement concerning an investigation by the Inspector General of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission examining the possibility that a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner undermined a probe of the Palisades [Nuclear] Power Plant in Michigan.

Yesterday, Congressman Kucinich requested the Inspector General investigate the agency’s public response to problems at Davis-Besse. Kucinich’s request came after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a hearing in Ohio to reassure the public about the safety of the plant. Official answers from NRC employees made at that hearing differed dramatically from what NRC engineers had previously told Kucinich and his staff.

“I can’t say the cases are related, but the similarities between these two investigations are troubling. In Michigan, an effort to determine why a radioactive leak was kept from the Chairman of NRC may have been undermined. In Ohio, we witnessed agency officials give public statements that varied dramatically from what engineers had told my staff. I cannot determine what caused this change in the answers of these Region III engineers, but I am concerned that it was in response to political pressure. I hope that the Inspector General is able to restore confidence in the NRC’s ability to provide effective oversight of our nation’s nuclear power plants,” said Kucinich.

Update on September 26, 2012 by admin

On August 15th, Huffington Post's Ryan Grim reported in more detail on the investigation into NRC Commissioner Ostendorff's interference into the Palisades enquiry.

Crack contention against Davis-Besse 20-year extension bolstered by NRC FOIA revelations

At the reactor's front game, "Homer Simpson and Humpty Dumpty act out" FENOC's "Blizzard of '78" snow job explanation for how/why/when Davis-Besse's concrete containment shield building cracked. The street theater was held in solidarity with the SAGE Alliance's day of action to shut down Vermont Yankee on March 24, 2012, and protested FENOC's Feb. 28th "root cause report."The environmental coalition challenging FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) proposed 20-year license extension at the problem-plagued Davis-Besse atomic reactor, near Toledo on the Lake Erie shore, has bolstered its contention on the severe shield building cracking by citingU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents revealed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by Beyond Nuclear. The coalition has issued a media release about its latest contention supplementation.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge filed this FOIA supplement, the coalition's fifth this year, since filing the original contention on January 10th, just five days after the environmental intervenors confronted NRC and FENOC about the cracking at a special public meeting at Camp Perry, OH. The others include: (1) a Feb. 27th filing, based on U.S. Rep. Kucinich's (D-OH) revelation that the shield building's outer rebar layer was no longer structurally functional, due to the cracking; (2) a June 4th filing, in response to FENOC's woefully inadequate Aging Management Plan (AMP) for the shield building's cracks; (3) a July 16th filing, in response to FENOC's revised root cause analysis report, which revealed that shield building cracking was first observed not in October 2011, but rather August 1976; (4) a July 23rd filing, based on revelations in FENOC contractor Performance Improvement International's revised root cause assessment report, which revealed 27 areas of skeptical NRC questioning about FENOC's "Blizzard of 1978" theory of shield building cracking (the environmental Intervenors also posted documents supportive of its fourth supplement). The environmental coalition also defended its crack contention, on February 14th, against challenges by NRC staff and FENOC.

Beyond Nuclear has prepared a report, entitled "What Humpty Dumpty Doesn't Want You to Know: Davis-Besse's Cracked Containment Snow Job," which summarizes the coalition's work in 2012 on Davis-Besse's dangerously degraded condition.