Nuclear Power Poisons the Planet — Shut Down Xcel’s Monticello Reactor

Artwork from Hoodwinted in the Hothouse and Nativemovement.org; Credit: Nativemovement.org
 

By Kelly Lundeen, Nukewatch, and Nancy Price
Earth Democracy Committee

April 2024

Author and anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman recently asked: “If atomic reactors can’t economically compete, can’t be insured, operate uninspected, worsen climate chaos, are sitting ducks for terror attack [sic] and so much more… Why are they still running? The answer is clear: They are the unspoken infrastructure for our nation’s bomb-making machine.”

Nuclear power is the flipside of nuclear weapons and carries its own dangers.

The latest propaganda craze pushing nuclear power is riding the wave of the climate change movement, greenwashing nuclear power as if it were clean and carbon-free. New theoretical nuclear reactor designs are being promoted as real and improved, of which they are neither. Old reactors are getting license renewals rubber stamped to run until the ripe old age of 80 years by the federal government and bailed out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars by taxpayers. The US and international partners recently committed to tripling nuclear energy production by 2050. Uranium mining in the US is being revived.

Nuclear power comes with high risk to our Earth, water, and all life. Risk of allowable and accidental radioactive releases, accumulation of radioactive waste which sits on river banks, and all the waste heat (thermal pollution) produced by the reactor. The high-level radioactive waste created at reactors is dangerous for a million years. Every storage sitting solution that gained political support has been an environmental justice catastrophe, always earning the opposition it deserved from Indigenous and other local communities.

The benefits of nuclear power could potentially outweigh these risks if it could actually solve our climate crisis, but on the contrary, it cannot even withstand climate change. As global water temperatures increase, reactors, which rely on water to cool, have had several shutdowns during heat waves over the last 6 years to avoid meltdowns. Proximity to cooling water is the reason reactors must be sited near water bodies, but that in turn puts the onsite radioactive waste in danger as sea levels rise.

This brings us to Xcel Energy’s nuclear reactor in Monticello, Minn. Situated along the banks of the Mississippi River, it is 200 miles from the headwaters of the Great River and upstream from the source of drinking water for 20 million people, including those in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minn.

This spring, Xcel Energy is expected to issue its environmental impact statement regarding its application for a 20-year operating license extension to the operating life of the reactor. This begins a 30-day public comment period on the “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” (Draft SEIS), wherein anyone concerned with the continued operation of the leaking, accident-plagued, 54-year-old reactor can send comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Washington, DC. Once the comment period opens, Nukewatch will provide sample comments you may submit at nukewatchinfo.org/monticello.

Photo: Monticello map; Credit: Carl Sack for Nukewatch. Click here to view larger.

The Monticello reactor made national headlines in March 2023, when Xcel disclosed publicly that it had leaked cooling water contaminated with radioactive tritium, iodine and xenon into the groundwater under the facility. Xcel and local news media reported that an extremely high concentration of radioactive tritium contaminated the leaked wastewater: 5 million picocuries per liter, or 250 times the allowable levels for drinking water. According to WCCO TV, Xcel said that a "small amount of leaked water may have reached the Mississippi River."

The nuclear beast raises its head along the entire nuclear fuel chain – in newly operating uranium mines, at enrichment facilities, weapons testing sites, and power reactors. Right now, we have a unique opportunity to chime in on whether one reactor continues to run. Will you stand up and take this simple action today? Submitting public comments opposing the continued radioactive pollution from this nuclear reactor is something we can all do to stop the nuclear beast in one of its many forms.

For detailed information on the radioactive leak, the license extension, and sample comments to submit, see: nukewatchinfo.org/monticello.  Nukewatch, 740A Round Lake Rd., Luck, WI 54853 715-472-4185; nukewatch1@lakeland.ws; www.nukewatchinfo.org 
Kelly Lundeen  +1(715)933-1941, kellylundeen14@gmail.com  nancytprice39@gmail.com