Keep Palisades CLOSED - Less, NOT More, Nuclear Radiation in the Great Lakes
What (and Where) Is Palisades?
Zombie Reactor?! Isn’t that a comforting name? Doesn’t it just bring up all that’s warm and cozy? Oh, No? Feeling a little uneasy just at the thought of a nuclear reactor situated on the Great Lakes that earned the nickname Zombie? Well, smart on you - we should all be not only alarmed, but motivated to do something about it. And we’re trying to make that easy for us. (Check out our Actions Page here and take two minutes to send a letter to your reps to tell them to slow this roll and halt the assault on our precious waters.)
We believe that Water is Life and we should do all we can to protect life!
Meanwhile, want to know a bit more about Mr. Zombie, his (other nuclear power plant) friends, and how radiation impacts the health of the people and our one and only planet? Here’s the gist. Palisades is just one Nuclear Power Plant of many, located in Covert, Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan. But this defunct and decommissioned reactor is now at risk of being resuscitated. We want to keep it shut down because even more radiation exposure increases the danger to our health and safety. If put back online, Palisades significantly adds to serious health risks for Lake Michigan, the environment at large, and our families.
Even when operating according to plan, nuclear power plants such as Palisades and Fermi 2 (learn more about Fermi 2 and why we should SHUT it DOWN here in our video) already have horrible impacts on the local ecology. But, there’s more - what about the possibility of an accident? We need only refer to Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island for examples of the horrifying and costly consequences.
Radiation and Health Risks
One of the major threats to our health from the nuclear fuel chain is radiation. From uranium mining to power plants to waste storage facilities, ambient radiation is a constant threat to all life. Regulatory committees make a mockery of our health as they are charged with defining the “safe” level of radiation exposure, but the truth is: there is none. No amount of exposure to radioactivity is safe.
Several factors come into play when determining this imaginary “safe” level, such as the pressure energy companies place on legislators to allow them to continue operations and make a profit. But from the Western medical sector, what constitutes an “allowable” exposure is based on something called “The Standard Man” – a white, able-bodied man in his twenties with average weight and height. “Allowable” exposure is based on the effect it would have on this “standard man.”
This is a default of medical studies and is dangerous on many levels. Obviously, it leaves out the vast majority of the human population. Women, people of color, trans folks, the elderly, disabled, and immunocompromised individuals, as well as our children, are all proven to be much more vulnerable than the “standard man”. NIRS offers us this from the New Scientist:
“Children and the unborn are especially susceptible because of their rapid cell division during physical growth. DNA is most vulnerable to radiation impact while cells divide. In addition to cancer and birth defects, evidence exists that radiation is permanently mutating the gene pool and contributing to its gradual weakening, resulting in ‘developmental deficiencies in the fetus, hereditary disease, accelerated aging, and such nonspecific effects as loss of immune competence” in “Radiation and Children: The Ignored Victims”.
What’s Wrong with Palisades and Why the Rush?
There is always something suspicious when our allegedly protective governmental agencies (like the NRC - Nuclear Regulatory Commission) want to slip “projects” under the wire without due process. It never bodes well. There is currently a possibility that Palisades will be put online before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) even listen to the professionals on their concerns for the viability of the plant.
Arnold Gundersen and Alan Blind are two nuclear engineers with almost a century of experience between them. Both of them have strongly advised against reopening Palisades without addressing the immediate safety concerns: critical equipment within the plant is at risk of failure.
In “Nuclear Engineers Question Holtec Palisades Steam Generators’ Safety,” it speaks to the steam generator tubes and how the lack of maintenance could result in a full-blown meltdown.
“Gundersen had long warned that Holtec, which has never operated a reactor, could cause severe degradation of the steam generator tubes if they were not put into a proper, chemically-preservative wet layup. On January 14, 2025, an NRC staffperson acknowledged Holtec had not done so from 2022 to 2024, causing widespread damage to the exceedingly thin-walled (just 0.042 inch-thick) steam generator tubes. Gundersen has also testified that while a single tube rupture would cause a release of some quantity of hazardous ionizing radioactivity into the environment, a cascading failure of enough tubes all at once could lead to a full-blown reactor core meltdown, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire region.”
Poorly maintained 0.042 inch thick tubes are what we are going off of to hold back hazardous ionizing radioactivity. Tubes thinner than a penny are what prevent Palisades from nuclear meltdown. This critical equipment isn’t projected to last even two years according to Blind, who “has pointed out that Holtec itself can only be 50% confident that the Palisades steam generators will operate for just 18 months without a tube failure.”
The Great Lakes provide fresh water to over 30 million people. We cannot afford to compromise our waterways with a faulty power plant like Palisades. This is why CRAFT has put together a letter campaign to Michigan representatives, where you can let them know that Palisades is a Do Not Resuscitate. Join us in this campaign here as we strive to Keep Palisades Closed and Keep the Great Lakes Safe.
Wanna read more from Gundersen and Blind? Find more of their writing on Palisades here: