For Immediate Release: Wright's Palisades Visit Slathers Icing On A Rancid Cake
DOE Secretary Wright's Palisades Visit Slathers Icing On A Rancid Cake
For Immediate Release 3:00 pm Thursday, October 29, 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)
"The Palisades Cake has been baked with: Exhausted Workers; Lack of Quality Assurance; Missing Documentation; Workers Chilled; Operator Exam Failures; Defective Equipment; Inspections Deferred for Decades. (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright's Public Relations slathering of icing on this rancid cake is a White Wash"
COVERT TOWNSHIP, VAN BUREN COUNTY, MICHIGAN and ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, Thursday, October 29, 2026 ---
Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright visited the Palisades nuclear plant on Thursday promising restart by the end of November 2026. In 2022, Holtec predicted it could restart the closed Palisades reactor by mid-2024 . Palisades restart at years end puts them 2.5 years behind what they had projected to the DOE on July 5, 2022 in order to secure $1.52 billion loan. The state of Michigan ponied up $300 million.
"The Palisades Cake has been baked with: Exhausted Workers; Lack of Quality Assurance; Missing Documentation; Chilled Workers; Operator Exam Failures; Defective Equipment; Inspections Deferred for Decades, this is a recipe for disaster" stated Michael J. Keegan, chair, Don't Waste Michigan. Keegan added "(DOE) Secretary Chris Wright's Public Relations slathering of icing on this rancid cake is a White Wash. Palisades is in Peril, this is the proverbial 'Perfect Storm' which will lead to disaster".
“Once they restart this zombie reactor, all bets are off. They are playing radioactive Russian roulette on the Lake Michigan shore, wasting billions of dollars of state and federal taxpayer money to do so. They are risking a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-scale catastrophe, putting in peril the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes State, and beyond” stated Kevin Kamps, Executive Director of Don't Waste Michigan.
Two weeks ago the NRC issued a report on the Chilled Work Environment that exists in Holtec's Supply Chain and Quality Assurance departments at the Palisades plant, posted here: https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/news-releases/2026/nrc-issues-chilling-effect-letter-holtec
and at https://www.nrc.gov/docs/
"Chilling effects letters are rare. Very rare." stated nuclear engineer David Lochbaum.
Two months ago the NRC finalized examinations for nine Senior Reactor Operator and six Reactor Operator applicants. Six applicants passed all sections of their respective examinations. Nine applicants were issued Preliminary Results letters. Three were issued senior operator licenses and three were issued operator licenses. In other words, nine out of fifteen failed, posted here: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2628/ML26286A267.pdf (Palisades - NRC Initial License Examination Report)
"In the last past two months, Palisades lost control and tipped a nuclear fuel bundle and couldn’t get it out. Nine out of fifteen licensed reactor operators failed their exam. And more than half of the people in their quality assurance and procurement departments feel they will be fired by management if they bring concerns forward. But ironically, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just gave them permission to begin loading fuel again!" stated nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen.
Arnie Gundersen said "Organizationally, the quality assurance department reports directly to the plant manager. If quality assurance is feeling chilled, clearly the plant manager must be involved in pressuring that department."
"That the people in QA in particular are being silenced is of extreme concern to all of us. The NRC's criticism of the corporate culture at Palisades is a very serious allegation and I suspect silencing internal critics figures into the excessive speed Holtec attaches to the restart." stated Terry J. Lodge, attorney for Intervenors, Lodge warns "They're moving too fast and bad things become more possible when there are a lot of unknowns about what will hold and what might not withstand a return of Palisades to power generation."
Arnie Gundersen has 55 years of executive level experience as a nuclear engineer. Gundersen serves as expert witness for Palisades environmental coalition intervenors who are actively engaged at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Documents for those legal Interventions available on request.
Please see previous Public Perils at Palisades - Fuel Load Update posted up at: <https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/HOLTEC.html > Comments and Documents also posted.
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