The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held an environmental scoping meeting Thursday as it reviews plans to restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Van Buren County.
At the meeting, NRC representatives and the U.S. Department of Energy described the process behind reopening the plant.
Members of the community, along with elected officials, came to Lake Michigan College to hear an overview for the project, its environmental review process, and ask questions. NRC environmental branch chief Daniel Barnhurst explained the reasoning for the meeting and what they are looking to hear about.
“In order for us to understand the baseline, we need to understand the community and the issues that are important to the community and the issues that are affecting the community in those areas,” Barnhurst said. “Because if the plant restarts, there would be an additional workforce. There may be some positive benefits of that, and there may be some negative benefits of that. So that’s what we’re trying to understand.”
Kevin Kamps, representative from Beyond Nuclear, is against the reopening of the plant. At the meeting Thursday, he stated it bring big risks to the community.
“This is perhaps the most dangerous atomic reactor in this country and by some measures in the entire world,” Kamps said. “And we cannot afford to have a Fukushima-scale catastrophe or a Chernobyl-scale catastrophe on the Lake Michigan shoreline. We can’t afford to take that risk, but this company seems willing to take those risks.”
The NRC is expecting the environmental review draft to be completed next year, with the final review set to come out next summer.
