Kevin Kamps, of the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, said long before he joined the anti-nuclear effort in 1992, grassroots activists were fighting against Palisades and Cook.
“I had mentors that opposed, at least Palisades, before construction even began,” he said. “Sandy Adams told me of her times gathering signatures on petitions and a local man, Maynard Koffman, started very early opposing the plant. You hear a lot of stories like that.”
Kamps said Mary Sinclair, who died in 2011, was a prominent anti-nuclear activist in the state who got her start opposing nuclear power when original owner Consumers Power announced its intention to build the Palisades plant.
Kamps said people like him still fight against nuclear power because of all the risks involved. He claims, for example, that Palisades has one of the most embrittled reactors in the country; Cook’s design is weak and small, making it uncertain that if an accident happened, whether the containment system would actually contain it; they both have very problematic dry cask storage systems; and they pose huge risks to Lake Michigan.
“What these risks represent is the ending of history in Southwest Michigan if areas have to be evacuated because of some sort of accident,” Kamps said. “It has only happened a handful of times, but it does happen. They’re playing nuclear Russian roulette. Energy can be created in much safer ways.”