ELR Citation: ELR 20274
No(s). 74-1751 (7th Cir. Apr 1, 1975)

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the Atomic Energy Commission violated its own regulations in issuing a construction permit for the Bailly nuclear power plant on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The city line of Portage, Indiana, a city which will have more than 25,000 residents in 1980, is one mile from the reactor site. Under AEC's population density rules, the third buffer zone, or distance between the nearest boundary of a population center containing more than 25,000 people and the reactor, must be two miles for the Bailly plant. The court also notes that AEC failed to take into account in its siting decision public and interagency comments relating to the detrimental effects of construction of the plant at the Bailly site on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, less than a mile away. A temporary order staying construction is made permanent, and the court orders that the existing excavation be filled in.

Counsel for Petitioners
Robert J. Vollen
Edward W. Osann Jr.
Business and Professional People for the Public Interest
109 N. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60602

Counsel for Petitioner-Intervenor State of Illinois
William J. Scott Attorney General
Richard W. Cosby Asst. Attorney General
Environmental Control Division
Suite 2315, 188 West Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60601

Counsel for Respondents
James R. Thompson U.S. Attorney
Garry L. Starkman Asst. U.S. Attorney
U.S. Courthouse
219 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60604

Wallace H. Johnson Asst. Attorney General
Carl Strass
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530

Raymond M. Zimmet
Leon Silverstein
Atomic Energy Commission
Washington DC 20545

Counsel for Respondent-Intervenor Northern Indiana Public Service Co.
William H. Eichhorn
David C. Jensen
Schroer, Eichhorn & Morrow
5243 Hohman Ave.
Hammond, IN 46320

Maurice Axelrad
Newman, Reis & Axelrad
1025 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036