For Immediate Release, August 17, 2026


Contacts: Michael J. Keegan, co-chair, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, mkeeganj@comcast.net, (734) 770-1441 
  Kevin Kamps, executive director, Don't Waste Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI, kevin.kamps@proton.me, (269) 217-6326
  Terry Lodge, attorney, Toledo, OH, tjlodge50@yahoo.com
  Wallace Taylor, attorney, Cedar Rapids, IA, wtaylor784@aol.com
  Arnie Gundersen, nuclear engineer/expert witness, (802) 238-4452, sailchamplain@gmail.com

ENVIRONMENTALISTS APPEAL TO FEDERAL COURTS
 AGAINST HOLTEC'S PALISADES ATOMIC REACTOR RESTART 

In Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, Groups Challenge Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 
Reversal of Permanent Shutdown, Approval for Fuel Loading and Return to Operations


COVERT TWP., MI, CINCINNATI, OH, and WASHINGTON, D.C., August 17, 2026--Don't Waste Michigan and Michigan Safe Energy Future have appealed to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, continuing their years-long campaign opposing Holtec International's unprecedented effort, to restart the long closed Palisades atomic reactor. Palisades is located on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert Township, Van Buren County, southwest Michigan, near South Haven. The groups' attorneys, Terry Lodge of Toledo, Ohio, and Wallace Taylor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have provided legal counsel to Palisades' opponents in previous U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing proceedings and federal court actions since 2005 and 2014, respectively.

The Sixth Circuit appeal, filed on July 22, 2026, involves the groups' challenge to NRC's approval of an "Exemption Request" by Holtec, to reverse Palisades' previous owner, Entergy's official and legally binding certifications of permanent cessation of operations, and permanent removal of nuclear fuel from the reactor vessel, dated June 13, 2022. Entergy's certifications, docketed by NRC, meant the 60-year old Palisades reactor, designed in the mid-1960s, and first fired up in 1971, was closed for good, after 51 years of very troubled operations, never to again load nuclear fuel in the core, nor operate.

Entergy had permanently shut down the reactor on May 20, 2022, 11 days earlier than planned, due to the latest in 50 years of safety-critical Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM) seal leaks. As reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Palisades' CRDM seal leakage is the worst such Operating Experience in the nuclear power industry. The root cause of the problem has never been determined by Palisades' various owners over the past half-century, nor corrective action taken to prevent it from recurring again in the future.

The environmental coalition has objected for several years to Holtec and NRC's collusion in cobbling together of a "Regulatory Path to Reauthorize Power Operations," making it up out of thin air, picking and choosing from regulations never intended for application at closed reactors. On November 17, 2025 the coalition initiated this litigation in the federal district court in western Michigan. But in late June, 2026 the chief judge there, Hala Y. Jarbou, ruled the case belongs instead at the federal appeals court level. The groups' refiling at the Sixth Circuit is in response to her ruling. 

And on August 14, 2026, the coalition also appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, against the NRC Commissioners' June 15, 2026 rejection of multiple safety and environmental contentions related to Palisades' restart. Over the course of years, the groups brought the contentions to NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), challenging many of a very long list of Holtec License Amendment Requests, and other agency authorizations, needed for reactor restart. ASLB panels rejected every single contention, which the coalition then appealed to the NRC Commissioners. The Commissioners' final ruling two months ago means NRC's low-level environmental review, and approval of Holtec's mere sleeving of dangerously degraded steam generator tubes, to name but two examples, are now ripe for federal court action, which the coalition has just initiated.

Holtec's contractor, Framatome of France, has admitted that a mere 14 months after restart, Palisades' degraded steam generator tubes will be at exponentially increasing risk of bursting. The burst of a single steam generator tube would result in the release of a certain amount of hazardous ionizing radioactivity into the environment. But the cascading failure of a large enough number of tubes all at once could lead to a reactor core meltdown.

A 1982 NRC report (CRAC-II, short for Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences, also known as the 1982 Sandia Siting Study or NUREG/CR-2239) estimated Palisades' meltdown would cause: a thousand acute radiation poisoning deaths; 7,000 radiation injuries; 10,000 latent cancer deaths; and more than $50 billion in property damage downwind and downstream. Adjusting for inflation alone, property damage would now surmount $175 billion in current dollar figures. And the Associated Press has warned that, given population growth near American atomic reactors like Palisades over the past several decades, a proportional increase in casualty figures would also result, given more people live, work, and recreate in harm's way. AP also cited neutron-embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), and risk of through-wall fracture from pressurized thermal shock, as a top example of NRC weakening safety regulations to accommodate continued operations at age-degraded reactors. NRC has admitted that Palisades, and the Point Beach Unit 2 reactor, also on Lake Michigan's shore in Wisconsin, are the two worst-embrittled RPVs in the country. Watchdogs have warned about Palisades' embrittlement for more than three decades.

"All the king's horses, and all the king's men, invite cataclysm attempting to run Palisades again," said Michael Keegan, co-chair of Don't Waste Michigan in Monroe. "Holtec is already more than two years behind its own schedule for restarting Palisades, and we hope a federal court injunction will make that already long delay permanent," Keegan added. 

"The very long list of exemptions, waivers, license amendment requests, and other shortcuts on safety that NRC has approved means Holtec's zombie reactor restart at Palisades risks a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-scale catastrophe there, imperiling the entire Great Lakes, Great Lakes State, and beyond," said Kevin Kamps, executive director of Don't Waste Michigan in Kalamazoo. "Palisades' restart -- just like Holtec's proposed, so-called 'Small Modular Reactor' new builds there -- is unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely risky for health, safety, security, and the environment. We look to the federal judiciary to stop such potentially catastrophic risk-taking, by a rogue executive branch agency, dead in its tracks, before it's too late," Kamps added.

" 'Crossing your fingers' and 'Palisades restart' don’t belong in the same thought process, but yet here we are," said nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, who has served as the environmental coalition's expert witness in this NRC proceeding, and a previous one a dozen years ago.

Gundersen, who has 55 years of nuclear engineering experience, had warned for years that Holtec, which has never operated a reactor before, was making grave "rookie errors" at Palisades. In January 2025, it was revealed that Holtec, from 2022 to 2024, had neglected the basic safety-critical maintenance of performing a chemically preservative wet layup on Palisades' steam generator tubes, significantly worsening degradation that the reactor's original owner/operator, Consumers Energy, admitted to the Michigan Public Service Commission two decades ago necessitated complete steam generator replacement. (See page 2.) However, NRC has never required this, so Consumers and Entergy never did so. 

"Now Holtec has performed mere 'Band-Aid fixes' -- degraded tube sleeving -- with NRC's approval, despite our coalition's legal challenges, and the extreme risks," Kamps said.

The Palisades precedent is being followed at other previously permanently closed atomic reactors, the owners of which are also now seeking restart, namely Constellation Energy at the Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly known as the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant) near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and NextEra at the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Three Mile Island Alert, watchdogs on Three Mile Island even before its Unit 2 reactor core meltdown on March 28, 1979, have intervened against the proposed restart of Unit 1 there. Taylor and Lodge represent Physicians for Social Responsibility Iowa opposing Duane Arnold's restart; on August 13, 2026, they petitioned for leave to intervene, and requested a hearing, in the NRC's licensing proceeding.

For more information, see Beyond Nuclear’s “Newest Nuke Nightmares at Palisades, 2022 to Present”. It is a one-stop-shop of web posts dating back to April 2022, when Holtec CEO Krishna Singh first floated “Small Modular Reactor” construction and operation at Palisades, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer first floated restarting the closed-for-good reactor.

--- End ---
Updated News from Don’t Waste Michigan
For Immediate Release 3:00 pm Thursday, October 15, 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)

COMPOUNDED PUBLIC PERILS AT PALISADES

Fuel Load Approved / Worker Big Chill / Operator Exam Failures

COVERT TOWNSHIP, VAN BUREN COUNTY, MICHIGAN and ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, Thursday, October 15, 2026--
Late afternoon Wednesday the NRC announced Approval of Holtec's License Amendment Request regarding the precariously stuck spent nuclear fuel at the bottom of the Palisades reactor. The Approval allows the Holtec to proceed with retrieval of the spent nuclear fuel currently wedged in the reactor. 'The Peril at Palisades' is Holtec's proposed fuel assembly retrieval operation of highly radioactive fuel by suspending out of water, into 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. NRC Approves License Amendment Request to Load posted here:
https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/news-releases/2026/nrc-approves-palisades-license-amendment-request Peculiarly the NRC last point on Approval found at page 4 states: "This license amendment is effective as of the date of issuance and shall be implemented within 10 days of the date of issuance."  

In a superficial and truncated Public Notice which expired last Thursday (10/8) Twenty plus Comments were made.
Only the Comments of Alan Blind were accepted for review and then dismissed. All others were out of scope. 

Twenty Commentors submitted and all were ignored. The NRC characterized those Commentors as such: "The remaining comments were out of scope, such as requesting more time to comment, stated that this should not be done as an emergency amendment, feels the NRC is rushing the review, a lack of public awareness, general disagreement with the application, or Palisades starting up in general." The Public Notice was purposefully posted in tiny print, to News Media, not usual practice. The standard Public Notice is posting at Federal Register or into NRC ADAMS docket. NRC found a loop hole, and provided a token posting of 44 hours.  

On the same day that NRC Approves Holtec Amendment #283, the NRC found that a Chilled Work Environment 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

The NRC's Approval comes knowing that on August 5, 2026 nine Senior Reactor Operator and six Reactor 
Operator applicants were administered license examinations. The results of the examinations were finalized on August 31, 2026. 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 four weeks, Palisades lost control and tipped a nuclear fuel bundle and couldn’t get it out. Nine out of 15 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 on this day, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just gave them permission to begin loading fuel again!" stated nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen.  

"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.

NRC Issues Chilling Effect Letter to Holtec
On Tuesday the NRC Office of Public Affairs made this statement: "The NRC found during a recent inspection that a Chilled Work Environment exists in Holtec's Supply Chain and Quality Assurance departments at the Palisades plant. The October 13 finding is limited to those two departments and does not involve any violations or significant plant safety issues. The NRC expects Holtec to share the findings with employees, take immediate steps to reassure staff, conduct an independent evaluation, submit a corrective action plan within 30 days, and implement corrective actions. The NRC will review the plan and oversee Holtec's response. The agency has determined that existing measures adequately protect plant safety, and based on current information, the findings are not expected to affect the planned restart of the Palisades facility. The agency will continue to verify through inspection and oversight that safety requirements are met and these issues are effectively addressed." Posted here: https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/news-releases/2026/nrc-issues-chilling-effect-letter-holtec
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2628/ML26286A257.pdf

"Chilling effects letters are rare. Very rare." stated nuclear engineer David Lochbaum. 

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 executive level as a nuclear engineer. Gundersen serves as Expert for Palisades Intervenors who are actively engaged at the U.S. Sixth Circuit, and the U.S. District of Columbia. Documents for those legal Interventions available on request. 

Please see previous Public Perils at Palisades - Fuel Load Update circulated earlier yesterday, and posted up at: <https://www.dontwastemichigan.org/HOLTEC.html> Comments and Documents also posted