ML21067A658
| ML21067A658 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades, Big Rock Point File:Consumers Energy icon.png |
| Issue date: | 03/06/2021 |
| From: | Lodge T Terry Jonathan Lodge |
| To: | |
| SECY/RAS | |
| References | |
| 86FR8225, NRC-2021-0036 | |
| Download: ML21067A658 (5) | |
Text
From: Terry Lodge To: Docket, Hearing Cc: Kevin Kamps; Thomas Keegan; Bette Pierman; B. Iris Potter; Kraig Schultz
Subject:
[External_Sender] Palisades Nuclear Power Plant (BN, MSEF and DWM Comments on License Transfer, Docket ID NRC-2021-0036)
Date: Saturday, March 06, 2021 10:39:46 AM Attachments: Comment letter COMPLET.pdf Law Office TERRY JONATHAN LODGE 316 N. Michigan Street, Suite 520 Phone (419) 205-7084 Toledo, Ohio 43604-5627 Fax (419) 932-6625 tjlodge50@yahoo.com March 6, 2021 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission c/o Secretary, NRC at Hearing.Docket@nrc.gov Also submitted to https://www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2021-0036-0001 RE: Palisades Nuclear Power Plant (BN, MSEF and DWM Comments on License Transfer, Docket ID NRC-2021-0036)
Dear Secretary of NRC:
Please add my comments to the administrative record of this license transfer proceeding.
I represent Beyond Nuclear, Michigan Safe Energy Future and Dont Waste Michigan, all of which filed a Petition to Intervene in this matter on February 24, 2021. Notwithstanding the provisions of 10 C.F.R. § 2.1305, all comments submitted through regulations.gov and to the NRC, together with responses from the NRC, Entergy or Holtec or their subsidiaries, must be included in the administrative record of this license transfer request for the reasons stated below.
The proposed license transfer requires Commission approval to go forward. As a determinative regulatory decision, the transfer is a major federal action under the National Environmental Policy Act. It is also a major federal action because Holtec proposes to undertake multiple activities which are different or a departure from previous Palisades Nuclear Power Plant decommissioning plans. The following proposed actions and policies are consequential and have never been subjected to NEPA as well scrutiny under the Atomic Energy Act:
termination of the spent fuel pool within 6 years of shutting down the reactor, without replacing it with a hot cell or dry transfer system, which exposes the NRC's Continued Storage Rule assumption that such a facility would be present throughout the period of onsite storage as a farce;
\ the notable lack of any arrangements specifically to address the unloading or remediation of defective VSC-24 Cask No. 4, which displayed troubling thermal characteristics in 1994 shortly after it was loaded. In a 1993 lawsuit over the utilitys ability to manage spent fuel onsite, a Consumers Energy officer falsely assured a federal court that plans existed ro unload all dry storage casks, a proposition now debunked by more than 26 years of inability to unload Cask No. 4; the planned plunder of the Decommissioning Trust Fund of $200,000,000 to cover the ineligible expenses of spent fuel management and site restoration; the anticipated repackaging of the spent fuel contained in VSC-24 dry storage casks into transport canisters, instead of repackaging that SNF, as well as the remaining Palisades
inventory, into DOE-approved uniform TAD canisters; failure of the Applicants to articulate a pathway by which the Department of Energy would take title and assume liability for removing all spent fuel away from Palisades; Applicants plan, disclosed for the first time ever in the December 2020 PSDAR, to dispose of radioactive steam generators via Great Lakes water transport, requiring construction of a dock and arrangements for loading and shipping; the planned transfer of the irradiated nuclear fuel casks from the older/western pad to the newer/eastern/inland pad at Palisades, an unprecedented undertaking where neither the original or newer pads comply with NRC seismic regulations; the planned transport of irradiated nuclear fuel on Lake Michigan, posing enormous risks in loading and shipment as well as risks of inadvertent nuclear criticality if a critical mass forms during accidental sinking and water infiltrates a damaged cask to serve as a neutron moderator, sparking a chain reaction in the fissile U-235 and Pu-239 present in the waste; and the lack of recognition and analysis of possible inadvertent criticality if a storage cask falls in the Lake as from an earthquake, or high Lake water level flooding of the dry casks themselves.
These significant and controversial proposed activities or policies compel compilation of supplemental detail and analysis under NEPA in a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The NRC is obligated to undertake a supplemental EIS when presented, as here, with substantial changes in the proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns or new and significant circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts after the EIS is assembled. 10 C.F.R. § 51.92(a)(1)-(2); see also 10 C.F.R. § 51.72(a)(1)-(2). New and significant information presents a seriously different picture of the environmental impact of the proposed project from what was previously envisioned. Hydro Res., Inc., 50 N.R.C. 3, 14 (1999). Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League v. Nuclear Regulatory Com'n, 716 F.3d 183, 197 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
Because Commission approval of the license transfer request is the sine qua non for decommissioning to occur, the approval is a major federal action and the NRCs regulation excusing the publication and response to public comments expressed at 10 C.F.R. § 2.1305 must give way to NEPA. Agencies must comply with NEPA to the fullest extent, unless there is a clear conflict of statutory authority. Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Comm. v. U.S.
Atomic Energy Comm., 449 F.2d 1109, 1115 (D.C. Cir. 1971) (emphasis in original). See also Limerick Ecology Action v. NRC, 869 F.2d 719, 729 (3rd Cir. 1989) (holding that the Atomic Energy Act does not preclude NEPA compliance).
A court challenge in the form of review of NEPA compliance is a distinct possibility, and so the NRC must include all public comments and all agency or corporate responses in the record of this license transfer.
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
/s/ Terry J. Lodge Counsel for Beyond Nuclear, Michigan Safe Energy Future, and Dont Waste Michigan
Law Office TERRY JONATHAN LODGE 316 N. Michigan Street, Suite 520 Phone (419) 205-7084 Toledo, Ohio 43604-5627 Fax (419) 932-6625 tjlodge50@yahoo.com March 6, 2021 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission c/o Secretary, NRC at Hearing.Docket@nrc.gov Also submitted to https://www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2021-0036-0001 RE: Palisades Nuclear Power Plant (BN, MSEF and DWM Comments on License Transfer, Docket ID NRC-2021-0036)
Dear Secretary of NRC:
Please add my comments to the administrative record of this license transfer proceeding.
I represent Beyond Nuclear, Michigan Safe Energy Future and Dont Waste Michigan, all of which filed a Petition to Intervene in this matter on February 24, 2021. Notwithstanding the provisions of 10 C.F.R. § 2.1305, all comments submitted through regulations.gov and to the NRC, together with responses from the NRC, Entergy or Holtec or their subsidiaries, must be included in the administrative record of this license transfer request for the reasons stated below.
The proposed license transfer requires Commission approval to go forward. As a determinative regulatory decision, the transfer is a major federal action under the National Environmental Policy Act. It is also a major federal action because Holtec proposes to undertake multiple activities which are different or a departure from previous Palisades Nuclear Power Plant decommissioning plans. The following proposed actions and policies are consequential and have never been subjected to NEPA as well scrutiny under the Atomic Energy Act:
! termination of the spent fuel pool within 6 years of shutting down the reactor, without replacing it with a hot cell or dry transfer system, which exposes the NRC's Continued Storage Rule assumption that such a facility would be present throughout the period of onsite storage as a farce;
\ ! the notable lack of any arrangements specifically to address the unloading or remediation of defective VSC-24 Cask No. 4, which displayed troubling thermal characteristics in 1994 shortly after it was loaded. In a 1993 lawsuit over the utilitys ability to manage spent fuel onsite, a Consumers Energy officer falsely assured a federal court that plans existed ro unload all dry storage casks, a proposition now debunked by more than 26 years of inability to unload Cask No. 4;
! the planned plunder of the Decommissioning Trust Fund of $200,000,000 to cover the ineligible expenses of spent fuel management and site restoration;
! the anticipated repackaging of the spent fuel contained in VSC-24 dry storage casks into transport canisters, instead of repackaging that SNF, as well as the remaining Palisades Page 1 of 3
inventory, into DOE-approved uniform TAD canisters;
! failure of the Applicants to articulate a pathway by which the Department of Energy would take title and assume liability for removing all spent fuel away from Palisades;
! Applicants plan, disclosed for the first time ever in the December 2020 PSDAR, to dispose of radioactive steam generators via Great Lakes water transport, requiring construction of a dock and arrangements for loading and shipping;
! the planned transfer of the irradiated nuclear fuel casks from the older/western pad to the newer/eastern/inland pad at Palisades, an unprecedented undertaking where neither the original or newer pads comply with NRC seismic regulations;
! the planned transport of irradiated nuclear fuel on Lake Michigan, posing enormous risks in loading and shipment as well as risks of inadvertent nuclear criticality if a critical mass forms during accidental sinking and water infiltrates a damaged cask to serve as a neutron moderator, sparking a chain reaction in the fissile U-235 and Pu-239 present in the waste;1 and
! the lack of recognition and analysis of possible inadvertent criticality if a storage cask falls in the Lake as from an earthquake, or high Lake water level flooding of the dry casks themselves.
These significant and controversial proposed activities or policies compel compilation of supplemental detail and analysis under NEPA in a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The NRC is obligated to undertake a supplemental EIS when presented, as here, with substantial changes in the proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns or new and significant circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts after the EIS is assembled. 10 C.F.R. § 51.92(a)(1)-(2); see also 10 C.F.R. § 51.72(a)(1)-(2). New and significant information presents a seriously different picture of the environmental impact of the proposed project from what was previously envisioned. Hydro Res., Inc., 50 N.R.C. 3, 14 (1999). Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League v. Nuclear Regulatory Com'n, 716 F.3d 183, 197 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
Because Commission approval of the license transfer request is the sine qua non for decommissioning to occur, the approval is a major federal action and the NRCs regulation excusing the publication and response to public comments expressed at 10 C.F.R. § 2.1305 must give way to NEPA. Agencies must comply with NEPA to the fullest extent, unless there is a clear conflict of statutory authority. Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Comm. v. U.S. Atomic Energy Comm., 449 F.2d 1109, 1115 (D.C. Cir. 1971) (emphasis in original). See also Limerick Ecology Action v. NRC, 869 F.2d 719, 729 (3rd Cir. 1989) (holding that the Atomic Energy Act does not preclude NEPA compliance).
A court challenge in the form of review of NEPA compliance is a distinct possibility, and so the NRC must include all public comments and all agency or corporate responses in the record of this license transfer.
1 https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/factsheets/mibargefactsheet92804.pdf Page 2 of 3
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
/s/ Terry J. Lodge Counsel for Beyond Nuclear, Michigan Safe Energy Future, and Dont Waste Michigan Page 3 of 3