Dr. Marvin Resnikoff of RWMA

Resnikoff points out that much of the highly-radioactive solids such as rocks and soils pulled up during drilling, and contaminated muds and sands are cheaply disposed of in municipal landfills in Ohio, irrespective of actual radioactivity content, for 1/100th of the cost of disposal of comparable low-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation in the nation's three facilities for that purpose. In Ohio, he stated, "It is evident that environmental concerns are trumped by the economics beneficial to the unconventional shale drilling industry." Similarly, Dr. Resnikoff identified evidence that the Patriot water treatment facility in Warren, Ohio, which delivers pretreated water to the Warren public water treatment plant, is likely sending radium-laden water into the Mahoning River watershed. "On a daily basis, Patriot does not test for gamma emitting radionuclides and for radium-226," he observed. 

"Dr. Resnikoff's work illustrates that Ohioans, from common citizens to truck drivers to landfill workers, are daily being exposed to radiation exposure or poisoning because the Governor, General Assembly and even a large conservancy district, the MWCD, are sacrificing public protections to prop up frackers' profitability," asserted Terry Lodge, attorney for SEOSOW. "Under the guise of 'austerity,' the state government is destroying protective regulations for everyone, while creating a business environment where those who threaten public health and the environment pay little to nothing. And even huge corporate welfare breaks aren't saving this dirty, low-productivity con game."

Lodge also serves as the attorney for environmental coalitions, including Beyond Nuclear, opposing the proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor in southeast MI, as well as the 20-year license extension, and the proposed steam generator replacement, at Davis-Besse in northwest OH.

Fracking was exempted from such federal laws as the Safe Drinking Water Act by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the same law which automatically subsidized nuclear power to the tune of $13 billion, while additionally leading to the approval of $22.5 billion in nuclear loan guarantees thus far.

On May 22nd, Beyond Nuclear joined with 67 other groups to chastise Environmental Defense Fund for joining into a greenwashing alliance with the fracking industry.

MI Radio image showing location of chronically leaking SIRWT above Palisades' control room

Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps stated: “When I raised the SIRWT [Safety Injection Refueling Water Tank] leak into the control room at Entergy’s public open house in South Haven on May 14^th, and on an NRC [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission] Webinar May 23^rd, I was told by company and agency spokespeople that that issue was a thing of the past, that an installed moisture barrier had taken care of the problem. But as William Faulkner famously said, ‘The past is never dead. It's not even past.’ If Palisades can’t even prevent basic leakage through the ceiling of the control room, which has now been going on for over two years, what does that say about its reactor and radioactive waste safeguards? Entergy’s use of buckets, tarps, and ineffective sealant against this leak into the safety-critical control room begs the question, is it prepared to prevent large-scale radioactivity releases into the environment from a long list of severely age-degraded, critical safety systems, structures, and components?”

The leak, which was detected on June 3rd, was made known to the public in an NRC document released on June 6th.

Update on June 12, 2013 by admin

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Lindsey Smith at Michigan Radio has reported on this story, including the fact that the sand bed region, an integral componet of the SIRWT structure, was never put in place 40 years ago. Blueprints at Palisades were never updated to document this fact. Thus Entergy's and NRC's assumption, that ongoing leaks from the SIRWT even after repairs had been made last summer were coming from the sand bed region, were erroneous and based upon a fantom architectural feature that in fact did not even exist.

Update on June 13, 2013 by admin

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WSJM has also reported on this story:

"A new leak at Palisades has led Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the discovery of a design flaw at the nuclear plant. Consumers Energy did not put the water tank, which is now being repaired, on a grout ring as the original blueprints indicated, and the NRC says Palisades and Entergy are working to fix that with new fiberboard and reinforced concrete..."

Entergy is aiming to restart Palisades by late spring/early summer.

Update on June 13, 2013 by admin

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Entergy has provided this explanation for the 45-year-old construction error recently discovered at Palisades:

[Entergy] Communications Specialist Lindsay Rose issued a statement, saying, "The discovery of a lack of sandbed refers to Palisades Safety Injection Refueling Water (SIRW) tank, not the control room. We are currently undergoing work in the SIRW tank to replace the tank’s aluminum flooring and sub-flooring. When we removed the pre-existing aluminum floor plates, the condition of the subflooring was not as we had expected. It became apparent that the sand subflooring had not been installed many years ago as we had thought. We have subsequently installed fiberboard subflooring that has asphalt embedded to provide a more robust and reliable system to support the aluminum floor...".

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.

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.

In 2010, tremendous controversy was generated throughout the Great Lakes, in both the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Europe, when Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Kincardine, Ontario proposed shipping 64 radioactive steam generators, by boat, to Sweden. Bruce wanted to "recycle" the radioactive steam generators' outer shells into the metal recycling steam. Bruce CEO, Duncan Hawthorne, admitted at Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings in Sept. 2010 that there were no emergency plans in place if one of the shipments sank. 

Dr. Edwards documented the radiological hazards contained in the steam generators. TheGreat Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative documented that the breach of a single steam generator, and release of even a fraction of its radioactive contaminants, could cause a federal radiological emergency in Canada, leading to the shutdown of nearby drinking water intakes. The Great Lakes are the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations.

The Bruce shipping plan was stopped dead in its tracks, thanks in large part to a resolution,signed by scores of Quebec municipalities representing hundreds of thousands of residents along the St. Lawrence leg of the route, as well as pledges by Mohawk First Nations to not allow the shipment to pass through their territory.

As Dr. Edwards writes, when steam generator tubes rupture, the radioactivity in the primary coolant is allowed to be released into the environment.

Image by J. DeStafano, 2012

"This is very good news for the people of Southern California," said [a] statement from Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica. "We have long said that these reactors are too dangerous to operate and now Edison has agreed. The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and wind."

And as FOE senior advisor S. David Freeman pointed out on a FOE press conference, San Onofre's closures means that the harmful impacts on aquatic life in the Pacific Ocean from reactor operations (such as thermal, radiological, and toxic chemical) now ends. 

Beyond Nuclear has compiled comprehensive media coverage on, and other reactions to, the San Onofre 2 & 3 closures at its Nuclear Retreat page.

Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates, Inc

Today, the coalition issued a media release, pointing out the similarities between their intervention at Davis-Besse, and the Friends of the Earth (FOE) intervention at San Onofre, CA. Earlier today, Southern California Edison threw in the towel, and announced the permanent shutdown of San Onofre Units 2 & 3, due to the fatal degradation of their replacement steam generators. Gundersen (pictured, above left) serves as FOE's expert witness at San Onofre.

On Dec. 27, 2010, an overlapping environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, intervened against Davis-Besse's 20-year license extension. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in that proceeding has rejected all of the coalition's contentions, except for its Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision contention. That one has led to an inevitable two-year delay in NRC's finalization of the license extension, until the agency completes its court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement on the risks of long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste at on-site pools and dry casks.

"Great Lakes United and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) released today the Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map, providing a detailed regional, binational view of nuclear facilities in the Great Lakes Region. As the map shows, with the exception of Lake Superior, each of the Great Lakes has numerous nuclear sites related to nuclear power generation, most of which are located within one kilometre of the Lakes. This raises concerns about the cumulative impacts of radioactive releases over the years from so many sites. It also shows the numerous places where a serious nuclear accident could occur in the region.

This map marks the first comprehensive update of this information in 15 years and highlights the lack of information about radioactive releases from these facilities. In 1998, the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Task Force on Inventory of Radionuclides released an assessment of nuclear facilities around the basin. At the time, the Task Force concluded that releases from nuclear facilities were substantial, but that the extent of knowledge about the releases and their impacts was “limited”.   http://www.ijc.org/files/publications/C131.pdf

The map includes all aspects of nuclear power production in the Great Lakes region, including the 38 operating nuclear power plants, 12 closed plants, and four new plants proposed in Canada. It also includes the facilities that process uranium ore and manufacture the pellets, as well as tailings sites from uranium mining and milling, and facilities that store, and dispose of radioactive waste. Every site on the map is a radioactive waste site, whether operating or not.

The Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map provides a critical resource for communities concerned about the potential for radioactive waste releases into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Additionally, it shows the sites under consideration by the Canadian Government for storing Canada’s nuclear fuel waste. Most of the proposed sites lie within the Great Lakes basin. With the potential for new disposal sites within easy access of the Great Lakes, communities are concerned that nuclear waste could be brought in via ships, creating substantial risks of spills along Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River shipping lanes and during loading and unloading near shore.

The Citizens’ Clearinghouse on Waste Management contributed funding to this project."

The map updates work from 1990-1991 published by Irene Kock and Dave Martin of Nuclear Awareness Project.

Beyond Nuclear has also compiled a listing of major U.S. municipalities downstream of the proposed Bruce DUD on the Great Lakes shorelines of MI, OH, PA, and NY, as well as a listing of major municipalities in upstate New York directly across Lake Ontario from the nuclear power plants (Pickering, Darlington) and uranium processing facility (Port Hope) east of Toronto.

Kay Drey, Beyond Nuclear board member and long-time watchdog on West Lake landfill

Kay is a long-time watchdog on the West Lake landfill, a radioactive waste dump in the Missouri River floodplain near St. Louis.Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. processed Belgian Congo uranium during the secret Manhattan Project race to develop the atomic bomb in the 1940s. Those radioactive wastes were then dumped at the West Lake landfill in 1973. EPA wants to abandon them in place. Kay has long worked to have them removed from the Missouri River floodplain, not far upstream from St. Louis drinking water supply intakes.

Now the Associated Press/New York Times and St. Louis Magazine have reported on "the possibility of a slow-moving disaster right before our eyes," in the words of Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. The former article focuses on the health risks to nearby communities if the fire reaches the radioactive waste dump, while the latter article focuses on the health damage that the radioactive wastes may have already inflicted, especially in local children downstream.

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Photo credit: USEC/U.S. Department of Energy

Part I, entitled "Countdown to Nuclear Ruin at Paducah," was published May 22nd, and warned that there were just 9 days left to avert a "dirty shutdown" in the many miles of enrichment cells. If the uranium laden gas solidifies within the system, it will make eventual decommissioning and clean up astronomically expensive for taxpayers, and radiologically risky for workers.

Part II, "Slow Cooker at Paducah Comes to a Boil,"  was published May 28th, with only three days left to avert dirty shutdown.

Paducah has operated since the 1950s. Sea reports that Paducah, which employs the highly energy intensive gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment process, has the single biggest electric meter in the country, electrified by two dirty coal plants. It is also one of the single biggest emitters of ozone layer destroying CFC-114, which also happens to be a very potent greenhouse gas.

In September 1999, Joby Warrick of the Washington Post broke the story that post-reprocessing uranium from Hanford Nuclear Reservation, containing fission products and transuranics, had been secretively run through Paducah. Local residents, such as Ron Lamb, had already been long protesting Technetium-99 in his drinking well water, however. Paducah whistleblower Al Puckett helped expose a secret dumping ground for radioactive and hazardous wastes on site. Such revelations help to explain the high cancer rate amongst Paducah workers and area residents.

As Sea reports, USEC is still seeking a $2 billion federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration for its proposed American Centrifuge Plant at Portsmouth, Ohio. Newly confirmed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has deep ties to USEC, both during his time in the Clinton DOE, as well as afterwards, as a paid private consultant.

Entergy's Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest MI

Such unintentional leaks -- which have included tritium leaks into groundwater -- increase the radiological burden already borne by the public and environment in the downwind and downstream area, due to "permitted," intentional, "routine radiation releases" from Palisades (note that the photo of the water discharge pathway in Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet was taken at Palisades itself!).

Entergy and NRC spokespersons' repeated claims of no safety significance to the public flies in the face of decades of findings, as by the National Academy of Science (most recently in 2005), that any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how small, carries a health risk of cancer, and that these health risks accumulate over a lifetime.

U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) made public the serious nature of this particular leaking tank in June 2012. His information came from very courageous Palisades whistleblowers, and their attorney, Billie Pirner Garde. The leak, from the 300,000 gallon Safety Injection Refueling Water (SIRW) storage tank located directly above the control, began in mid-2011, and was flowing through the ceiling, and being captured in buckets in the safety critical control room, full of electrical circuitry and equipment that cannot get wet. The leak was concealed not only from the public and media, but even from the NRC's own Chairman, Greg Jaczko, as he toured Palisades on May 25, 2012. NRC later granted Entergy an exemption in 2012 to allow continued operations despite the degraded condition of the SIRW storage tank. 

In recent weeks, Beyond Nuclear learned from NRC officials that the now two-year-old leak has continued at a 0.5 to 1 gallon per day rate. But Saturday's leakage rate, which forced the reactor to shut down, was at 90 gallons per day, as documented in NRC's event notification report. Palisades' SIRW storage tank, just like the rest of the plant, is 46 years old, and obviously showing severe signs of "breakdown phase" age-degration, of increasing risk. 

The Detroit Free Press, Enformable Nuclear News, Kalamazoo Gazette, Michigan Radio, WSJM Radio, WKZO Radio,WWMT TV-3 Kalamazoo, Detroit News,  and WOOD TV-8 Grand Rapids have reported on this story.

Beyond Nuclear issued a media statement, challenging flippant Entergy and NRC claims that this leak carries "absolutely" no risk to human health and safety. NRC's Region 3 spokeswoman has been exposed making false claims regarding radioactivity leaks more than once at Midwestern reactors in just the past year, prompting the demand for an investigation by a member of Congress. Last year, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) demanded an NRC investigation into Mytling's downplaying of a reactor leak at the troubled Davis-Besse atomic reactor near Toledo. In addition, Chicago watchdog group Nuclear Energy Information Service, via a Freedom of Information Act Request to the State of Illinois Dept. of Nuclear Safety, documented that Mytling's flip assurance -- that a radioactive steam leak at the Byron atomic reactor, in Jan. 2012, must have contained exceedingly low levels of hazardous radioactive tritium, as radiation monitors had not detected any -- was baseless and misleading, as no real-time tritium monitoring capability existed at the plant. Similar questions must now be asked of Mytling's questionable assurances that radioactivity levels in the water leaked into Lake Michigan were below detectable levels. Are there radiation monitors in place to verify such flip assurances?