Coalition of local residents and environmental groups confronts Congress, NRC, and Entergy at Palisades' front entrance

When Rep. Upton and NRC Commissioner Svinicki refused to meet with the coalition, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps helped organize a vigil at Palisades' front entrance. He dressed as the Little Dutch Boy. His sign reads "Have Finger--Will Plug Radioactive Leak," and "Wooden Shoe Rather Use Wind Power?!" Palisades' latest leak happened amidst west Michigan's Dutch American annual tulip time festivals. Photo credit Lindsey Smith / Michigan Radio.While U.S. Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, toured Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor, a coalition of concerned local residents and environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, vigiled and protested at the front entrance.

Upton and Svinicki were visiting the atomic reactor in the aftermath of a 82.1-gallon spill of radioactive water into Lake Michigan. The leak came from the Safety Injection Refueling Water (SIRW) storage tank, which has been leaking for over two years. Although the investigation continues, it appears that a crack in a weld on a tank floor nozzle is at least partly to blame this time around. For the first year, the leak had been kept quiet by Entergy and NRC staff. Even the Chairman of NRC, Greg Jaczko, was not told about it, even during his tour of the troubled plant on May 25, 2012. A few weeks later, based on whistleblower revelations, U.S. Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) made public that the leakage was into the control room, and that safety culture among the workforce had collapsed at Palisades: 74% of the workforce,including management, felt that reporting safety problems would solve nothing, while inviting intimidation and harassment -- and so do not report safety problems! Beyond Nuclear has posted extensive media coverage from the vigil at its Nuclear Reactor Safety website page.

NEW! Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda

In response to some of the myths about nuclear energy advanced in the documentary, Pandora's Promise - but in larger part in response to the pro-nuclear propaganda in circulation generally - Beyond Nuclear is today releasing: 

Pandora's False Promises: Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda.

This report, in the form of handy bullet points but fully referenced throughout, is designed to serve as a central source for many of the facts about nuclear power that are either ignored, obscured or mis-represented by the nuclear deniers.

The different sections cover, among many topics: climate change; the health impacts of Chernobyl and Fukushima; Germany's nuclear exit and France's dependence on it; the flaws and impracticabilities of the "new" reactor designs; and various misleading arguments made by the pro-nuclear propagandists, from base load energy to bananas.

In addition, we have published a two-page summary and a press release.

Please feel free to download, print and circulate these documents widely. Please also consider using these materials when the film is screened in your area.

If you would prefer us to send printed copies, we are happy to do so at cost. Simply send a request by email to: info@beyondnuclear. org. Or call: 301.270.2209.

Landfill fire near buried nuclear waste raises alarm in Missouri

A North St. Louis County landfill is smouldering, and close by sits at least 8,700 tons of nuclear weapons wastes. West Lake Landfill is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site that's home to some of the oldest radioactive wastes in the world.  Rolling Stone Magazine has just published an in-depth look at this disaster waiting to happen. Beyond Nuclear board member, Kay Drey, (pictured) has been advocating for more than three decades to get the radioactive wastes removed from the floodplain of the Missouri River.

Writes Steven Hsieh: "Today, West Lake's radioactive waste – all 143,000 cubic yards of it – sits on the outskirts of a former quarry with practically none of the standard safety features found in most municipal landfills. No clay liner blocks toxic leachate – or "garbage juice" – from seeping into area groundwater. No cap keeps toxic gas from dispersing into the air. This unprotected waste sits on a floodplain 1.5 miles away from the Missouri River. Eight miles downstream is a drinking water reservoir that serves 300,000 St. Louisans. Worst of all: The materials dumped in this populous metropolitan area will continue to pose a hazard for hundreds of thousands of years." Read the full article. And watch an interview with Kay Drey by the Missouri Coalition for the Environement.

UCS Issue Brief: "Palisades' Leaking SIRWT"

David Lochbaum (photo left), Director of the Nuclear Safety Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) -- who presented in west MI about the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor at April 11th events sponsored by Beyond Nuclear -- has penned an Issue Brief on Entergy's latest leak: "Palisades' Leaking SIRWT."

In June 2012, U.S. Representative Ed Markey, based on revelations provided by courageous Palisades whistleblowers and their attorney Billie Pirner Garde, made public the "crisis in the control room" at Palisades: the leakage of water from the Safety Injection Refueling Water Tank (SIRWT), down the walls and through the ceiling of the control room, precariously near safety-critical electrical circuitry and equipment.

Both Entergy, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) itself, had kept the leak quiet for over a year at that point. Entergy and NRC staff had even kept NRC's Chairman, Greg Jaczko, in the dark about the leak, when he toured Palisades on May 25, 2012, before holding a press conference and meeting with two dozen concerned local residents and environmental group representatives, including Beyond Nuclear.

Once the crisis in the control room came to light, NRC Chairman Jaczko ordered an investigation as to why he had been kept in the dark, even by his own agency staff. NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff strongly opposed the investigation, even to the point of yelling at the chief NRC investigator, who happened to be a woman. (In 2011, Ostendorff, along with three other NRC Commissioners, had urged the White House to fire Jaczko, supposedly for allegedly yelling at female staffpersons -- an allegation with little to no substantiation). Ostendorff is still under investigation himself, for that outburst.

In late March and early April, 2013, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, along with grassroots environmental allies, learned from NRC admissions that the SIRWT into and around the control room continued, at a rate of 0.5 to 1 gallon per day -- two years after the SIRWT leaks had begun. But last weekend, the leakage rate shot up to 90 gallons in a single day. 79 gallons of radioactive water spilled into Lake Michigan. 

"Worst Week Since Fukushima: 4 Major Setbacks in 3 Days Are Latest Stumbles for U.S. Nuclear Power Industry"

Former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford, and energy economist Mark Cooper, both of the Vermont Law School, as well as Dan Hirsch of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, held a telephone press conference yesterday on the subject of "WORST WEEK SINCE FUKUSHIMA: 4 MAJOR SETBACKS IN 3 DAYS ARE LATEST STUMBLES FOR U.S. NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY." An audio recording of the news conference has been posted online.

The four setbacks in three days include: 1) the cancellation of two proposed new reactors at South Texas Project, because they violate U.S. law against foreign ownership of nuclear power plants; 2) Southern California Edison's threat that if NRC does not allow it to restart operations at its crippled San Onofre nuclear power plant, it will permanently shutdown both reactors there; 3) Duke Energy's cancellation of two proposed new atomic reactors at its Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in North Carolina; and 4) Florida's amendment to its previously highly permissive "advance cost recovery" or "Construction Work in Progress" law, via which ratepayers have been gouged to pay for proposed new reactors, when there is no guarantee the proposed new reactors will ever actually get built or generate electricity.

Peter Bradford also added the May 7th shutdown of Dominion's Kewaunee atomic reactor in WI -- despite the 20 years of operating license still left to it -- as another example of the "worst week since Fukushima" for the U.S. nuclear power industry.