Groups File Appeal Against Michigan Nuclear Power Plant

June 28, 2007 - 3:25 p.m.

COVERT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - Two nuclear energy watchdog groups have filed an appeal with a federal appeals court in Washington that says the high-level radioactive waste dry cask storage pads at the Palisades Nuclear Plant violate earthquake-safety regulations established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The 3-foot-thick concrete pads rest upon loose sand amid the dunes of the Lake Michigan shoreline in western Van Buren County's Covert Township, about 55 miles southwest of Grand Rapids. Some containers of spent, irradiated nuclear fuel sit 150 yards from the water, the organizations said Thursday in a joint written statement.

Palisades' two pads now hold more than 30 concrete-and-steel casks, each of which weighs about 150 tons when fully loaded with nuclear fuel rod assemblies.

The groups — Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Don't Waste Michigan — want the plant closed and turned to the federal courts for relief after exhausting all administrative remedies at the NRC, they said. They are represented in court by Terry Lodge, an attorney whose practice is in Toledo, Ohio.

"Underwater submersion could lead to inadvertent nuclear chain reactions in the fissile materials still present in the wastes," said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear-waste specialist at NIRS. "Burial under sand could cause the wastes to dangerously overheat. Either way, a disastrous radioactivity release could result."

A telephone message seeking comment on the appeal was left at the office of Palisades spokesman Mark Savage.

In April, Entergy, a New Orleans-based utility holding company, completed its $380 million purchase of the plant from Consumers Energy Co., a subsidiary of Jackson-based CMS Energy Corp. Under the terms of the sales agreement, Entergy will sell 100 percent of the 798-megawatt plant's output to Consumers for 15 years.

Palisades has been producing power commercially since December 1971