[decomm_wkg] For Immediate Release 10:00 AM : PUBLIC PERILS AT PALISADES: AN UPDATE

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News from Don’t Waste Michigan
For Immediate Release, Wednesday, October 14, 2026
 
Contacts: Michael J. Keegan, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, mkeeganj@comcast.net, text (734) 770-1441;
Kevin Kamps, Don't Waste Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI, kevin.kamps@proton.me, (269) 217-6326;
(Interviews with Arnie Gundersen, expert witness, and Terry J. Lodge attorney can be arranged through contacts above)
 

PUBLIC PERILS AT PALISADES

AN UPDATE ON THE TIPPED HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE FUEL ASSEMBLY 
STUCK IN THE REACTOR CORE AT THE PALISADES ATOMIC REACTOR

 
COVERT TOWNSHIP, VAN BUREN COUNTY, MICHIGAN and ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, Wednesday, October 14, 2026-- Last Thursday afternoon, October 8th, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.) closed a public comment opportunity, before most of the public had even learned about it. Despite this, more than 20 commentators, including nuclear engineering experts, met the deadline, making various criticisms of Holtec International's License Amendment Request (LAR) proposals to retrieve the tipped or tilted, highly radioactive fuel assembly that has been stuck in the Palisades atomic reactor core on the Lake Michigan shore in southwest Michigan since August 30th. (background information below.)
 
Then on Friday, October 9th, NRC posted an additional Holtec response (ML26281A333) to the agency's latest Request for Additional Information (RAI), all of which came after the rushed, very short, little noticed public comment period had already ended.
 
Later that day, Alan Blind, a retired nuclear engineer with more than four decades of experience, including in a senior position at the Palisades atomic reactor for many years under previous owner/operator Entergy, asked leave of NRC to comment, despite the expired deadline, on Holtec's latest answers. Blind summarized: 
My supplemental comment raises three principal concerns:
  1. The NRC's second RAI identifies a potential new mechanical failure mechanism involving the forced straightening of an already damaged and plastically deformed fuel assembly during closure of the Fuel Transfer Canister (FTC). This operation is fundamentally different from routine fuel handling and the established spent-fuel container loading operations described in Palisades FSAR [Final Safety Analysis Report] Chapter 9.
  2. Holtec acknowledges that FTC lid installation may impose axial tension and compression on damaged fuel assembly components, potentially distorting spacer-grid cells. However, its conclusion that the assembly can straighten without fuel-cladding failure relies on a fuel-vendor assessment for which no supporting engineering calculations, structural analyses, or acceptance criteria are provided in the publicly docketed response.
  3. These newly identified failure mechanisms raise substantial questions concerning the adequacy of the preliminary NSHC [No Significant Hazards Consideration] determination, particularly under 10 CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] 50.92(c)(2). They also reinforce the need for the NRC to discontinue exigent processing and conduct a complete license amendment review with adequate time for independent engineering evaluation and meaningful public participation. [Emphases added]
 
“When you make the mistake of rushing and forcing something, you can break it,” said Kevin Kamps, executive director of Don't Waste Michigan, 35 miles downwind of Palisades. "You certainly do not want to break irradiated nuclear fuel rods!", Kamps added.
 
“Holtec’s proposed newly fabricated apparatus is an experiment, and a risky retrieval operation.  This includes, forcing the bent and damaged fuel assembly into the Fuel Transfer Canister, in hopes the pressure of closing the lid will straighten it back out, could further damage the rods, or even rupture them," said Kamps. "Fuel pellets could then fall to the bottom of the canister, reactor cavity, reactor core, or indoor wet storage pool, depending on when and where the failure occurs, increasing the release of airborne hazardous radioactive gases and particles, worsening doses to workers and neighbors, and increasing inadvertent criticality -- and all future handling, storage, and containment -- risks associated with this highly radioactive nuclear fuel assembly,” Kamps added.
 
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with 55 years of experience who serves as an expert witness for Don't Waste Michigan and Michigan Safe Energy Future, also submitted comments on the latest Holtec response today. Gundersen closes his comments with this observation: "Rather than relying on the unsupported and unsupportable 'expectations' of Holtec, an extensive public airing of the analysis is required through public participation in the proposed changes to the Palisades license. Both the NRC and Holtec acknowledge that there is no radioactive 'emergency' requiring the immediate removal of the damaged assembly. While Holtec has obvious financial incentives to move quickly, the NRC’s role is to protect the public and not Holtec’s bottom line."  Gundersen asserts "If the NRC grants this license amendment request on an emergency basis, it will in fact create an emergency when now there isn’t one." 
(Gundersen and Blind Comments available at <https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/HOLTEC.html>)
 
As of this release no additional documents have been placed into NRC's ADAMS public docket.  Last evening NRC Office of Public Relation's Maureen Conley responded to several questions on fuel load status with:  "We continue to review the public comments and Holtec’s license amendment request."  This was a non answer to request for status of the fuel loading. 
"The Peril at Palisades" continues to be Holtec's proposed highly radioactive fuel assembly retrieval operation will involve suspending it out of water in the plant atmosphere for up to 133 hours. This will be a highly radioactive undertaking, at risk of overheating, if the 133 hour deadline for re-submersion under water in the indoor wet storage pool is missed.   The NRC has not disclosed that status.
 
"This tipped fuel assembly stuck in the core is not the first serious mishap at Palisades involving the handling or transfer of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel. In 2005, a two-day dangle of a 107-ton, fully loaded highly radioactive waste container above the indoor wet storage pool was a close call with catastrophe," added Don't Waste Michigan's Kamps.  (citations below)
 
Don't Waste Michigan is also concerned that needed inspections and repairs on spent fuel cranes at Palisades may have been scheduled but there is no record they have been performed.   Relevant document review  by Don't Waste Michigan of the NRC's Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) yielded no documents indicating that such inspections and repairs have occurred.
 
"As no root cause analysis nor corrective actions have yet to be publicly identified by Holtec or NRC, we are left to wonder if an uninspected and disrepaired crane or similar device contributed to this fuel assembly tipping incident, and whether Holtec's proposed retrieval operation is safe and sound," said Don't Waste Michigan's Kamps.
 
--- End of Update - Background Follows ---
 
BACKGROUND INFORMATION - PREVIOUS PRESS STATEMENT - ADDITIONAL QUOTES
 
Recent Tipped Fuel Assembly Incident
 
 
At or around the end of August, 2026 the Palisades nuclear plant experienced an unparalleled fuel load SNAFU. The highly irradiated fuel is in a very precarious position tipped and tilted at a 30 degree angle, wedged between the reactor floor and reactor shroud. Fuel loading has been halted at Palisades for six weeks, and still counting. Holtec has offered up a hastily concocted and unprecedented retrieval plan, and the NRC appears anxious to green light the unscrutinized License Amendment Request (See: ML26273A469,  ML26275A214, and ML26281A333 ).
 
Because Holtec has declared the fuel loading SNAFU (of their own making) an 'Exigent Emergency', the NRC offered the Public a mere 44 hours to comment, and then trickled out a Public Notice. In spite of this very short mostly unnoticed Public Notice more than comments were submitted (see several of these comments, posted at http://Dontwastemichigan.org/holtec.html ).  
 
"The Peril at Palisades" is that Holtec's proposed highly radioactive fuel assembly retrieval operation will involve suspending it out of water in the plant atmosphere for up to 133 hours. This will be a highly radioactive undertaking, at risk of overheating, if the 133 hour deadline for re-submersion under water in the indoor wet storage pool is missed. This has never been done anywhere, and Holtec has never operated a nuclear power plant. These are first-of-a-kind, FOAK as the nuclear industry now calls it. 
 
Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer and expert witness for Don't Waste Michigan, stated: "It is clear that they want approval to remove the tilted fuel bundle because they want to expedite the refueling. Yet they provide no root cause analysis as to how the event happened in order to assure that it cannot happen again. Nor have they evaluated any damage within the reactor that the tipped fuel bundle may have caused. They clearly acknowledge that they do not want public input or a hearing."
 
Terry J. Lodge, counsel for the environmental coalition opposed to Holtec's unprecedented Palisades restart, said: "This is not a bona fide emergency. Holtec’s economic 'emergency' is not a public emergency.  Holtec’s desire to avoid public embarrassment at being forced to reveal the actual details of how the fuel bundle problem occurred in the first place is also not an emergency. Holtec persists in its ongoing and unjustified race to accomplish the restart wherein Holtec, itself, has been the source of its own problems."
 
"Holtec's unprecedented restart of the Palisades zombie reactor will risk a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-scale catastrophe, a hundred yards from the shoreline of the Great Lakes, drinking water supply for more than 40 million people in eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Indigenous Nations," stated Kevin Kamps, executive director for Don't Waste Michigan.
 
It is not known at this time if the expert and other public comments made to the Project Manager at NRC's Operating Reactor Licensing Branch 3 will even be considered before the agency signs off on Holtec's License Amendment Request. The dynamics at Palisades are unparalleled with the public being placed in great peril. If an accident occurs as a result of this rush to restart, it will be attributable to the reckless collusion of the NRC and Holtec.
 
Recent news articles about this fuel assembly tipping incident have been posted at: http://Dontwastemichigan.org/holtec.html.
 
 
Previous Incidents of Irradiated Nuclear Fuel Mishandling at Palisades
 
The 2005 cask dangle above the indoor wet storage pool, mentioned in the press release above, was kept quiet by NRC and then-Palisades owner/operator Consumers Energy, for several months. The August 30, 2026 fuel assembly tipping incident was concealed for three weeks. NRC's top public affairs spokesperson for the Midwest region, Viktoria Mitlyng, said in both cases, the public was not informed because the incidents were not deemed 'reportable.' In both cases, it took vigilant public watchdogs and news media reporters to bring the incidents to light, not the owner/operator of Palisades, nor NRC.
 
"If these very serious mishaps were not reportable incidents, then how bad do incidents have to be, before they become reportable?" asked Don't Waste Michigan's Kamps.
 
Here is additional information about the 2005 cask dangle near-miss:
 
 
 
[A PDF of the March 18, 2006 front page, above the fold Detroit Free Press article by Hugh McDiarmuid, Jr., about the October 2005 cask dangle can be emailed by Kamps upon request.]
 
Regarding crane concerns, also mentioned in the press release above, Don't Waste Michigan's Kamps added: "Scandalously, from December 2024 to April 2025, Holtec undertook a large-scale transfer of highly radioactive waste from the indoor wet storage pool into outdoor dry cask storage. Holtec did so with no Radiological Emergency Plan in place, including no evacuation planning for the local, area, and perhaps even regional population, if a disaster had unfolded, as due to the drop of a heavy cask into the pool. Holtec took advantage of Palisades' then decommissioning status, a regulation-free zone, despite the inherent risks of such an operation."
 
For documentation of Holtec's irradiated nuclear fuel transfer operation, see:
 
 
For documentation of a lack of Radiological Emergency and evacuation planning until after August 5, 2026, see:
 
 
Regarding  concerns about failure of one or more fuel rods, Kamps of Don't Waste Michigan added: "Just such a fuel rod rupture occurred at Palisades in 1993, prompting two evacuations of plant personnel from containment, including during a botched recovery operation."
 
(Upon request, Kamps can provide documents about the 1993 fuel rod rupture, as well as yet another, similar incident at Palisades in 2008.)
 
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Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/14/2026 - 19:33