Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo

The rebuttal includes expert witness testimony by Gundersen, and an"Intervenor's Rebuttal Statement of Position" legal filing by Lodge.

Lodge and Gundersen filed their rebuttal on behalf of an environmental coalition comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter.

Fermi 3 is a proposed new General Electric-Hitachi so-called "ESBWR" ("Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor"), targeted at the Lake Erie shoreline in Monroe County, Michigan, 8 miles as the crow flies (or the radioactivity blows) from Ontario, Canada.

NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearings are set for Halloween on not only this QA contention, but also an Eastern Fox Snake threatened species contention. In addition, Fermi 3's combined Construction and Operation License Application (COLA) cannot be finalized until NRC completes its court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement on its so-called [High-Level] Nuclear Waste Confidence Rule, a proceeding that could take years.

Arnie Gundersen has appeared frequently on major news media, including as a regular guest of anchor John King on CNN regarding the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe

Gundersen serves as the expert witness for the QA contention introduced by the environmental coalition opposing Fermi 3, namely: Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizen Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter.

Gundersen's testimony applies to non-proprietary documentation revealing DTE's QA breakdowns over the past several years, the repercussions of which continue today. Gundersen also prepared a non-public analysis of DTE's proprietary documents, as well, and states in his non-proprietary, publicly available testimony:

"...after reviewing much of the material that DTE had labeled proprietary, Fairewinds has found no basis for Detroit Edison to designate these documents as proprietary, other than to avoid embarrassment if its own mistakes were shared with the public.

In Fairewinds Associates, Inc’s opinion, Detroit Edison’s labeling non-proprietary material as proprietary is an abuse of the public’s right to know how mismanaged the 'Fermi 3 Licensing Project' is."

Gundersen's non-proprietary, publicly available testimony went on:

"The data Fairewinds reviewed shows that confusion and lack of organizational control reigned within Detroit Edison for years prior to the COLA [combined Construction and Operations License Application] submittal and to this day. These early QA problems are the root cause of the current site characterization issues that continue to plague the Fermi 3 Licensing Project...In my opinion, this extensive breakdown in nuclear Quality Assurance that endangered the geotechnical work in 2007 continues to plague the Fermi 3 Licensing Project today."

Gundersen is refering to significant problems DTE has encountered in the area of Soil Structures Analysis, which has potential seismic risk significance.

At the same time as he filed Gundersen's testimony, environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge of Toledo also submitted Intervenors' Initial Statement of Position on the QA contention.

DTE and NRC Staff, both advocating for approval of the COLA, also filed their own testimonies and statements of position by the April 30th deadline. DTE's Initial Statement of Position was accompanied by testimonies from Peter Smith, Stanley Stasek, Ronald Sacco, and Steven Thomas. NRC Staff's Initial Statement of Position was accompanied by testimonies from Adrian Muniz, Aida Rivera-Varona, and George Lipscomb. A formal hearing on the QA contention will be heard by the NRC ASLB later this year.

Also on April 30th, ironically enough, the Fermi 3 ASLB rejected several proposed intervention contentions the environmental coalition had submitted in response to NRC's Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed new reactor. See the website post below for more information on these now-rejected proposed contentions.

Despite this, the environmental coalition's contention in defense of Fermi 3's impacts on the threatened Eastern Fox Snake, and its critical habitat, proceeds towards a formal hearing before the ASLB later this year.

Environmental coalition attorney Terry Lodge

The coalition's reply re-asserted "no confidence" in DTE's ability to safely store Class B and C "low-level" radioactive wastes on-site at Fermi 3 into the indefinite future, due to the lack of sure access to a disposal facility. It also again emphasized the lack of documented need for the 1,550 Megawatts of electricity Fermi 3 would generate. And the coalition alleged that NRC has failed to fulfill its federal responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as by the illegal "segmentation" of the needed transmission line corridor from the rest of the Fermi 3 reactor construction and operation proposal.

This legal filing follows by a week upon the submission of public comments about NRC's Fermi 3 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). The comments, commissioned by Don't Waste Michigan and prepared by Jessie Pauline Collins, were endorsed by a broad coalition of individuals and environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear. The FEIS comments included satellite images of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie in 2012, and in 2011 to 2012, attributable in significant part to thermal electric power plants such as Detroit Edison's Monroe (coal burning) Power Plant, at 3,300 Megawatts-electric the second largest coal burner in the U.S. Fermi 3's thermal discharge into Lake Erie will worsen this already very serious ecological problem.

In the very near future, the environmental coalition intervening against the Fermi 3 combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) will submit additional filings on its contentions challenging the lack of adequate quality assurance (QA, regarding which nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates in Vermont serves as the coalition's expert witness) on the project, as well as its defense of the threatened Eastern Fox Snake and its critical wetlands habitat. The State of Michigan has stated that Fermi 3's construction would represent the largest impact on Great Lakes coastal wetlands in the history of state wetlands preservation law. 

An artist's rendition of the ESBWR targeted to be built at Fermi 3

On Feb. 19, 2013, the environmental coalition intervening in opposition to the construction and operation of Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor filed new and amended contentions in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Final Environmental Impact Statement about the proposal. The coalition issued a news release.

Documents related to environmental intervenors' filing of Feb. 19, 2013 in opposition to the General Electric-Hitachi so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (or ESBWR, see image, left) proposed to be constructed and operated at the Fermi nuclear power plant in Monroe County, Michigan, on the Lake Erie  shoreline, as well as documents reveal the major schedule delays afflicting the project:

Intervenors' Feb. 19, 2013 "MOTION FOR RESUBMISSION OF CONTENTIONS 3 AND 13, FOR RESUBMISSION OF CONTENTION 23 OR ITS ADMISSION AS A NEW CONTENTION, AND FOR ADMISSION OF NEW CONTENTIONS 26 AND 27";

Current Fermi 3 COLA Review Schedule (Feb. 15, 2013), showing 2 years and 10 month of delay;

Original Fermi 3 Schedule (June 30, 2009).

An Eastern Fox Snake, an endangered constrictor species indigenous to southeast Michigan

The coalition is comprised of Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club Michigan Chapter.

It contends that the nuclear utility, federal government, and State of Michigan are failing to protect the endangered Eastern Fox Snake species (see photo, left) from extinction due to habitat destruction caused by the construction and operation of a 1,550 Megawatt-electric General Electric Hiticahi so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR), as well as an associated 11-mile long, 300-foot wide transmission line corridor.

The State of Michigan has admitted the reactor construction will involve the largest impact on Great Lakes coastal wetlands in the history of state environmental protection law. Combined with the transmission line's destruction of more than 1,000 acres of undeveloped land, including forests and wetlands, the coalition contends the habitat loss could extirpate the endangered Eastern Fox Snake species in the region. More. 

Fermi 3, Don't Tread on Me!

Environmental coalition press release (Jan. 31, 2013)

Additional Background on Eastern Fox Snake and Other Contentions (Jan. 31, 2013)

Environmental interveners' response to DTE's Motion for Reconsideration of Eastern Fox Snake contention (November 29, 2012)

DTE's Motion for Reconsideration to ASLB on Eastern Fox Snake contention (November 19, 2012)

Environmental coalition's earlier defense of its Eastern Fox Snake contention (July 2, 2012)

Photo by Tom Clements, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA)

As Tom has described it: the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the chronically delayed Vogtle AP1000 reactor construction project near Waynesboro, Georgia sits stranded and seemingly unprotected in the port of Savannah. The special railroad car carrying the 300-ton vessel had unknown mechanical problems on December 15 on exiting the port.  The NRC has said that the vessel only got one-quarter mile before a sound was heard and the car stopped.  Plans by Westinghouse and Southern Company to move the vessel are unknown. It is also unknown if the railroad car can be repaired and used or if the railroad company which owns the line is concerned that the rail car might break down again on its line in an in accessible place.  Meanwhile, the apparently unguarded reactor might be subject to sabotage and sits in apparent violation of NRC quality assurance and "administrative control" regulations.

"Burning Money" image by Gene Case, Avenging Angels

The Forbes contributor concludes that "the nuclear renaissance may be largely over before it started," with not only the vast majority of proposed new reactors in the U.S. being cancelled, but even paid-off old reactors like Kewaunee in Wisconsin being permanently shutdown due to crushing economics -- such as the expense of major, vitally needed safety repairs at the 40-year old reactor.

Kelly-Detwiler cites the "takes too long," "costs too much," and "bet-the-farm" nature of nuclear power for the "failure to launch" of the nuclear relapse.

If the op-ed's title is meant to imply that so-called small modular reactors might still save the day for the retreating nuclear power industry, it must be pointed out that the supposed justification for giant-sized proposed new reactors (such as the AP1000, at 1,100 MWe; the ESBWR at 1,500 MWe; the EPR at 1,600 MWe; etc.) was "economies of scale." Since small modular reactors represent the opposite end of the spectrum, it stands to reason these would be even more expensive than their super-sized, failed siblings.

In a classic February 14, 1985 piece entitled “Nuclear Follies,” Forbes wrote: 

"The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.” More.