Michigan State Senate passes resolution critical of proposed Canadian radioactive waste dump targeted at Great Lakes shore

MI State Senator HopwoodMichigan State Senator Hoon-Yung Hopgood has issued a press release announcing this environmental victory. Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps testified at the MI State Senate Energy and Technology hearing yesterday, alongside Sen. Hopgood's constituent Ed McArdle of Melvindale, MI (and the Sierra Club South East MI Group's Conservation chair). They rebutted pro-dump testimony by proponent Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) chief of government and regulatory affairs, Kevin Powers. OPG wants to bury all of Ontario's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive waste (L&ILRW), from 20 reactors, in a "Deep Geologic Repository" (DGR) within 440 yards of the waters of Lake Huron. The proposed DGR would be located at the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (one of the largest in the world, with a total of 9 reactors), just 50 miles to the east of Michigan, across Lake Huron.

Here is a link to Sen. Hopgood's press release, released May 22nd. The resolution passed by an 8 to 0 unanimous, bipartisan vote in committee, and a 26 to 0 unanimous, bipartisan vote before the full Senate.

Michigan State Representative Roberts is expected to introduce a similar resolution for consideration in the Michigan House of Representatives next week.

The Joint Review Panel, conducting the Canadian federal Environmental Assessement of OPG's proposed L&ILRW DGR, has announced that May 24th closes the public comment period regarding the sufficiency of documentation prior to moving into the full blown hearings. Kevin serves on Great Lakes United's (GLU) team in opposition to the DUD (critics' tongue-in-cheek acronym for the DGR). Kevin has been a member of the GLU Nuclear-Free/Green Energy Task Force for over a decade.

Kevin emphasized during his testimony yesterday that the L&ILRW DUD could easily lead to a national Canadian high-level radioactive waste DUD in the same vicinity. Numerous municipalities, largely populated by Bruce Nuclear workers, have "volunteered" to be considered for this dubious distinction. Opposition is growing to these proposed DUDs, both locally, and regionally throughout the Great Lakes basin.

UCS charges NRC with "enabling unsafe and illegal operations" for non-enforcement of reactor coolant pressure boundary leakage

David Lochbaum (photo, left), the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), has written the five U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioners, and others at the agency responsible for enforcement of safety regulations. His letter is entitled "NRC's Enabling Unsafe and Illegal Operations." He criticizes the NRC for its routine "forgiveness" granted to nuclear utilities when safety-significant pressure boundary leakage occurs. Not only does NRC not revoke or suspend reactor operating licenses, it also does not issue fines, and often just treats the mishaps as non-cited violations, or as if no violation has even occurred. This is in direct contradiction of NRC safety regulations regarding such serious reactor risks.

Lochbaum describes a case of pressure boundary leakage at Entergy's problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in southwest Michigan last summer. Whereas NRC regulations required reactor shutdown within six hours of discovery of the leakage, Entergy actually operated the reactor for a month. Despite dispatching a Special Inspection Team, NRC later reported "no findings of significance were identified." Lochbaum points out that NRC could fine Entergy $140,000 per day for the violation, or around $4 million all told, for this month-long pressure boundary leak. Yet NRC has fined Entergy not one penny.

Lochbaum included this near-miss in his annual report on nuclear safety at U.S. reactors. As he documents, Palisades has had three near-misses in two years, vying for the most of any reactor in the country.

Environmental coalition challenges "experimental" steam generator replacement at Davis-Besse

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Associates, IncAn environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Ohio Sierra Club, has petitioned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) for hearings to intervene against the planned steam generator replacement at FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company's (FENOC) Davis-Besse atomic reactor on the Lake Erie shoreline just east of Toledo.

Toledo attorney Terry Lodge represents the coalition; Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc (photo, left) serves as the coalition's expert witness. Gundersen has identified 9 differences between the degraded old and replacement new steam generators, any one of which should have triggered an NRC license amendment proceeding.

The coalition contends that FENOC's shortcut on safety -- its circumvention of an NRC license amendment proceeding -- risks repeating the same sort of dangerous mistakes made at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California. In January, 2012 a steam generator tube rupture at San Onofre released radioactivity to the environment, and led to the discovery of widespread tube degradation in replacement steam generators just a year or two old. San Onofre Units 2 and 3 remain shutdown, nearly a year and a half later. Friends of the Earth (FOE) recently won a favorable ruling by an NRC ASLB at San Onofre, granting FOE a license amendment intervention hearing. Arnie Gundersen also serves as FOE's expert witness in the San Onofre proceeding.

The coalition's intervention petition is posted here. 

Arnie Gundersen's expert testimony is posted here.

Arnie Gundersen's curriculum vitae is posted here.

The coalition has issued a press release.

Lingering death for fast reactor as Monju suspended

"Japan’s nuclear watchdog will indefinitely suspend the use of the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor over the operator’s disregard for safety that continued even after the Fukushima nuclear crisis raised concerns across the nation," writes Hideki Muroya in the Asahi Shimbun. "The Nuclear Regulation Authority's order will deal a further blow to Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling program, which has long been plagued by technical problems and scandals.

"In the latest case, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, operator of Monju, was found to have skipped inspections of nearly 10,000 pieces of equipment since 2010, including crucial devices in the safety and emergency systems at the plant, based in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.

"The company also violated its own safety regulations, according to the NRA.

"'Even when the reactor is offline, things stand in such a state,' an NRA official said after an on-site inspection of the reactor in February. “We cannot possibly approve a restart.” Read more. (Picture shows a still from video footage inside Monju during the 1995 sodium fire).

Write letters of support to nuclear resisters

The Nuclear Resisters are encouraging the anti-nuclear and anti-war community to write letters of support to imprisoned activists around the world, including Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli, currently imprisoned and awaiting sentencing for their breach of security at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. Please visit the Nuclear Resisters special webpage to write to imprisoned activists. Boertje-Obed, Rice and Walli will not be sentenced until mid-September. Even the Bush-appointed judge opined that "It is preposterous that Congress would pass a law that would not distinguish between peace protestors and terrorists." However, because the three were convicted of sabotage, which is considered under law as "an act of violence" against the United States, some thought the judge faced no other legal choice but to remand them in custody for now. Activists maintained a vigil outside the courthouse during the trial (Pictured. Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa).