COVERT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Workers at the Palisades nuclear plant in southwestern Michigan have located the source of a minor cooling water leak.

Spokesman Mark Savage said Monday in a release the leak is coming from a control rod drive mechanism stalk in the Covert Township plant's containment building.

The drive mechanisms permit control rods to be inserted and withdrawn from the nuclear fuel by control room operators to regulate reactor power levels.

The reactor was shut down Sunday to allow workers to do a visual inspection and find the leak. Savage says the plant owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. will be returned to service once repairs are completed.

Savage says the leak isn't associated with repairs earlier this summer to the safety injection/refueling water tank that also forced a plant shutdown.