A group of five environmental organizations is pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a deeper look at environmental impacts from the proposed restart of the Palisades plant in Southwest Michigan.

A panel of NRC judges heard oral arguments today to decide whether to hold a hearing.

The five groups – Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Three Mile Island Alert and Nuclear Energy Information Service filed a motion to have the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board reconsider several regulatory requirements for the restart going forward.

One contention from the groups is that the NRC should prepare an “Environmental Impact Statement” going into more detail than the agency did in its draft “Environmental Assessment.”

Terry Lodge, an attorney representing the environmental groups, said at Thursday’s hearing the existing environmental assessment doesn’t look closely enough at the potential for earthquakes.

“That is particularly important because there is, of course, going to be additional radioactive waste stored there.”

The NRC’s draft environmental assessment for the Palisades restart plan found there would be no significant environmental impact.

That finding came in part because the plant’s buildings are still standing, and nuclear waste is already being stored on site. Resuming operations at Palisades would likely have similar impacts to what happened there prior to 2022, the NRC concluded.

At Thursday’s hearing, a lawyer for the NRC said the five groups lacked standing to bring the claims, which she said came too late in the process anyway.

“Put plainly, there is no good cause if the information being challenged is not actually new and could have been raised earlier,” said NRC attorney Anita Ghosh Naber.

Holtec International has said it hopes to resume generating power at Palisades by the end of this year. The NRC has said it plans to complete its regulatory approval process by the end of July.