For Immediate Release, May 11, 2026
Contacts: Kevin Kamps, executive director, Don’t Waste Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI, <kevin.kamps@proton.me>, (269) 217-6326
Michael Keegan, chairman, Don’t Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, <Mkeeganj@comcast.net>, (734) 770-1441
David Kraft, director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Chicago, IL, <neis@neis.org>, (630) 506-2864 (cell); (773) 342-7650 (office)
NO NUKES DAY OF ACTION!
Kalamazooans and Friends, Joining Together for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes,
Beginning with stopping Holtec's Palisades’s nuclear reactor restart & "SMR-300" new builds!
Downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, Monday, May 18, 2026, from 1pm until evening—
Press conference, public speak-out, and community leafleting in opposition to the hazards of reopening the dangerously age-degraded Palisades Nuclear Power Station and siting of untested, hypothetical small modular nuclear reactors (SMNRs) there, proposed by Holtec International – a New Jersey-based company with zero experience building, repairing, or operating atomic reactors.
Supplemented by the music of Great Lakes Brass Band from Fennville, Michigan <www.greatlakesbrass.com/>, as well as folk singer/songwriter Victor McManemy from Empire, Michigan.
Nothing is better than a concert, except a FREE CONCERT!
As announced on the event flier (see below):
WHAT: A press conference, rally, public speak out session, march and free concert.
WHERE: Bronson Park Rotary Club Stage bandshell, and City Hall steps, downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan.
WHEN: Monday, May 18, 2026, starting at 1pm in Bronson Park (200 W. South Street/200 S. Rose Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49007), until late evening —
1pm: Anti-nuclear and safe-energy advocates, organizers, and leaders from across the Great Lakes Basin and beyond gather for a picnic lunch in Bronson Park, followed by leafleting pedestrians/passersby inviting them to the rally, marches, and press conference, as well as to the opportunity to speak out and voice concerns about the hazards of the proposed Palisades reactor restart, and SMR-300 (so-called Small Modular Reactors, but at 300 Megawatts-electric each, they are NOT SMALL!) at the Kalamazoo City Commission meeting public comment session.
3-4pm: A rally featuring the Great Lakes Brass Band in Bronson Park, and march with them around the heart of downtown Kalamazoo, with banners, placards, flags, and hand outs.
4-5pm: A PRESS CONFERENCE, featuring speakers: Don Cooney, former City of Kalamazoo vice mayor, long-serving Kalamazoo City Commissioner, and WMU Social Work professor; City of Kalamazoo vice mayor Drew Duncan; and Daniel Oropeza, organizer, United Farm Workers Foundation.
Kalamazooan Kevin Kamps, executive director of Don't Waste Michigan, the state-wide anti-nuclear coalition founded in the 1980s, will also speak. He has served on the Don't Waste Michigan board, representing the Kalamazoo chapter, and watch-dogged Palisades, since 1992. Additional representatives from environmental groups in the coalition opposed to Palisades will also speak, after having hosted an educational and strategic planning summit at Circle Pines Center in Delton, Barry County, Michigan, dedicated to building the movement for a safe-energy future in the Great Lakes Basin and beyond.
Northwest Lower Peninsula folk singer/songwriter Victor McManemy, himself a decades-long watch-dog on Palisades' sibling reactor, Big Rock Point, itself on the Lake Michigan shore near Charlevoix and Petoskey, will also perform. Holtec has also proposed constructing and operating one or more "Small Modular Reactors" there, as well as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) data center.
Press Conference Location: at the City Hall steps (241 W. South Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49007) or Bronson Park Rotary Club Stage bandshell (alternative location to be announced in case of rain).
5-6pm: A second march around the heart of downtown Kalamazoo, again led by the Great Lakes Brass Band.
7pm: Kalamazoo City Commission meeting public comment session in City Hall (241 W. South St.). Those who wish to speak out against/express concerns about the Holtec International plans to restart the "zombie" reactor at the Palisades nuclear power plant specifically, to construct and operate two SMR-300s there, and to nuclear power in general, can do so.
WHY: Holtec’s outrageous “zombie” reactor restart, and "Small Modular Reactor" (two so-called SMR-300s) new build schemes at Palisades, just 35 miles upwind of Kalamazoo, are alarming. Holtec's schemes are unprecedented, unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely high-risk for health, safety, security, and the environment.
We don't want "Yes, there really IS a Kalamazoo!" to become "Well, there really WAS a Kalamazoo!" if the worst happens at Palisades.
Holtec is risking a Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale radioactive catastrophe on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert Township, Van Buren County – affecting the primary drinking water supply of 16 million people on the shores of Lake Michigan alone (in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin), not to mention more than 40 million people in a total of eight U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a large number of Indigenous Nations, downstream, downwind, up the food chain, and down the generations.
Palisades also puts agriculture in the breadbasket of the Great Lakes State at risk.
For more information about the four-year campaign to stop Holtec's "zombie" reactor restart at Palisades, as well as the company's SMR-300 new build schemes on the same, tiny 432-acre site, see:
https://beyondnuclear.org/newest-nuke-nightmares-at-palisades-2022-present/
