A coalition of watchdog groups followed through on their plan this week to file their objections to the sale of two nuclear plants in Michigan after their request to extend the filing deadline didn’t receive a response in time from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Beyond Nuclear, alongside Don’t Waste Michigan and Michigan Safe Energy Future, filed the intervention document with the NRC Wednesday night. The filing challenges Holtec International’s proposed takeover of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant from Entergy.
The Michigan attorney general and advocacy group Environmental Law and Policy Center also filed interventions Wednesday.
Beyond Nuclear’s 112-page filing took issue with whether Holtec has the money to safely and completely decommission the Palisades plant and to manage the independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) at the already-dismantled Big Rock site — a typical challenge decommissioning jobs face.
The watchdog groups argued in the filing that Holtec’s current cost predictions for decommissioning Palisades are based on “unreasonable assumptions” about the level of site contamination and the time it will take to clean up the sites. The company doesn’t have “the funding necessary to bankroll its own day-to-day operations, let alone procure additional financial assurance” in the event the site’s trust fund runs dry, the watchdogs contended.
The filings landed on the NRC’s desk in the last hour of the agency’s deadline for submissions. The watchdog groups asked the commission Tuesday to push the deadline to April 25, but the agency didn’t respond in time despite opposition to the request from Holtec and Entergy.
Entergy and Holtec agreed to the sale of the Palisades and Big Rock Point sites in August 2018, and they submitted their license transfer application in December. Holtec has said it will begin decommissioning Palisades in 2025. The company has said that they would be able to finish dismantling the site by 2041.
