Mary P. Sinclair (September 23, 1918 – January 14, 2011) was an American environmental activist and "one of the nation’s foremost lay authorities on nuclear energy and its impact on the natural and human environment".
She also worked for the Atomic Energy Commission as a technical writer, abstracting research reports[3][4] When Consumers Power announced their intentions to build the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station on the shoreline of Lake Michigan in 1967, Mary Sinclair's background in nuclear fission technology prompted her to write a letter to the editor questioning the safety of several elements of their plan.
According to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, her papers "illustrate how one individual's efforts can have a wide and far-reaching impact on environmental issues".
The document posed questions about nuclear power risks to government experts, scientists and academic scholars, and detailed their responses.
[1] Cracks in the containment building's foundation and sinking caused the Midland Nuclear Power Project to be abandoned in 1984 and a fossil-fueled plant was built instead.
In late 1992, the New York Times identified Sinclair as being "at the forefront of a battle...around the country, as utilities seek to build casks to hold the spent fuel"[7] Nuclear plants were constructing 100-ton concrete-and-steel storage containers to hold nuclear waste on the same property where the reactors were located and close to large bodies of water.
"[5] Sinclair continued her education at the University of Michigan earning a Master's degree, then taught and lectured on Energy and the Environment at UM from 1973 to 1978.