Security guards sue Entergy for overtime pay at Palisades

NRC file photo of Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest Michigan.As reported by Jim Hayden at the Holland Sentinel, nearly two dozen security guards and security department supervisors at the Palisades atomic reactor in Covert, MI (photo, left) have launched a legal action against Entergy Nuclear. They are demanding back overtime pay due them, but Entergy refuses to pay. Vermont Yankee atomic reactor security guards previously prevailed in a similar lawsuit against Entergy.

Although the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) claims the "chilled work environment" in Palisades' security guard department has been resolved, security guards themselves seem to think otherwise -- including their feeling that as soon as NRC enhanced oversight ends, Entergy will return to harassing guards who "make waves" (that is, do their jobs, and call attention to problems).

"Nuclear power plant’s security changes mixed one year after ‘unusual’ death"

Cooper atomic reactor is shown here during a historic flood in the 1990s.As reported by Joe Jordan at Nebraska Watchdog, security protocols have changed little, if at all, at the Cooper nuclear power plant (photo, left) in Nebraska, a full year after a worker was found dead on the "critical refueling floor," 17 hours after he was last seen. 66-year old Ronald Nurney died of a heart attack, although it is unclear how long he suffered. None of the many cameras in the area detected his distress, and no one thought to look for him, despite his long absence.

As reported, 'Nurney’s widow, Donna, told Nebraska Watchdog she didn’t understand “how anybody in a nuclear power plant can go missing for that long and nobody look for him.”'

For their part, Cooper's owner, Nebraska Public Power District, its operator, Entergy Nuclear, and its supposed regulator, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have not seen fit to change security procedures, a full year later.

The Cooper atomic reactor is identical in design, and vintage, to the Fukushima Daiichi Units that melted down and exploded in Japan beginning on March 11, 2011.