How safe is the Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth?

How safe is the Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth?
Opponents line up to stop the renewal of Pilgrim's operating license

By Gerald Rogovin

With the eyes of the world still focused on the nuclear accident in Fukishima, Japan, last March, residents from Cape Cod to Plymouth are raising questions about the safety of nuclear plants in the U.S., particularly Pilgrim Nuclear Station, close by Plymouth Rock.

Since 1990, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited four reactor events as "a significant precursor of core damage that could lead to a large-scale release of radiation." They included Three Mile Island in 2002, Catawba Nuclear Station in 1996, the Wolf Creek nuclear plant in 1994 and the Shearon Harris nuclear plant in 1991.

One of every four nuclear reactors in the U.S. -- 27 of 104 -- has leaked tritium, a cancer-causing radioactive form of hydrogen, into ground water.

Sound scary?


It ought to. Those four events were in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina and Kansas. But right here on Cape Cod, less than 60 miles from the Pilgrim plant, we share a similar exposure.

And Pilgrim, which has operated for more than 39 years, is seeking an extension of its license for another 20 years starting in 2012, when its current license expires.

For years, activist organizations have been trying to shut down nuclear plants in New England. Currently, they operate in Plymouth, Vernon, Vt., and Seabrook, N.H, none much further than 80 miles from Cape Cod Canal. All of them have joined the effort to deny Pilgrim's license renewal.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick pleaded with the NRC to slow down the renewal process. But state action will have no impact on a decision. The state's Attorney-General petitioned the agency, opposing renewal. Denied, AG Martha Coakley appealed in federal court in 2006 against the NRC. Her challenge cited the risk of severe accidents in the spent fuel pool of the plant in the event of a terrorist attack, a national disaster, human error or equipment malfunction. The suit is still pending.

One change that may have come of the state's action: if the license renewal is approved, Pilgrim will be required to use dry cask storage of its spent rod fuel.

In their efforts to close down operating nuclear plants in New England and New York State, public interest groups have had some success. Their principal argument is that the plants were designed for use for no more than 40 years, for safety reasons, and they are still operating.

But regulating the plants has been solely up to the NRC, which took away states' authority in 1990, when deregulation took hold. Cities and towns in the vicinity of the plants are at the mercy of the plant managements.

Pilgrim, Vermont Yankee and the Fukishima Daiichi plants were all built within a year of each other, nearly 40 years ago. General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors were installed. The design was by Bechtel, the company that built the Big Dig highway complex in Boston.

The Plymouth plant, which employs 650 people, is part of Entergy Nuclear Corp., a provider of electricity to eight states.

All three plants have limited capacities for pools of radioactive spent fuel. Pilgrim is currently at 85 percent of capacity, according to the Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) in Shelburne Falls, Mass., a 20-year-old activist group. It reports that Yankee Vermont, near Brattleboro on the Vermont-Massachusetts line, has four times its capacity stored on the site.

CAN succeeded in closing the Yankee Rowe nuclear plant in 1992, working with the Union of Concerned Scientists, according to CAN's director, Deb Katz. "It was really not the tsunami or the earthquake that created the radiation problem in Fukishima," she said. "Fukishima failed because the venting systems in all three reactors failed."

Destruction of the Japanese plant led the government there to close 49 of the country's 54 nuclear plants, a huge blow to a nation that depends heavily on nuclear power, and has made little investment in renewable energy, The New York Times reported last month.

Radioactivity levels in rice crops, milk, beef, spinach and tea leaves were still at elevated levels on September 25, six months after the accident in a city 35 miles from the Fukishima plant. This forced the Japanese government to order more testing, particularly of rice, a staple of the Japanese diet, according to The Times.

Governor Patrick, continuing to oppose Pilgrim's license renewal, has been under growing pressure from activist groups to take an even stronger stand. MASSPIRG, an environmental group, wants the plant to close. "Even if safety concerns were not great, and they are, the economics of Pilgrim's continued operation are questionable," said Janet Domenitz, executive director of the organization.

"These old reactors are a huge risk, a fact brought home to us by Fukishima, which was designed and built exactly like Pilgrim," she added. John Rosenthal, a prominent Boston developer and a nuclear foe going back 30 years, when he was among the leaders of protests against the Seabrook, N.H. plant, concurs with Domenitz. "Regrettably, although the governor and the AG have weighed in because of the high risk, there has been push back. There are 645 jobs at Pilgrim. In these times, can we afford to lose that many? And Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray, in whose district the plant is located, has been very careful in her public comments about Pilgrim. She barely won re-election in her last campaign," said Rosenthal.

Pilgrim representatives have acknowledged that the pools holding the spent fuel rods were not designed for long-term storage. Spokesman David Tarantino told WBUR Radio they were built to hold the fuel rods for about five years, but have been used for 39 years and are nearly full. He cited frequent inspections by the NRC, which he said had determined the spent fuel storage is safe.

Charles Forsberg, who heads the nuclear fuel study group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agrees with Tarantino. He told WBUR, "in the short term, you store the spent fuel rods in pools, and in the long term, you put them in dry cask storage. If you store the spent fuel in those containers, nothing is going to happen."

But Pilgrim doesn't have dry cask storage. All of its spent fuel rods are in pools.

"Dry cask storage appears to be a workable response to the problems of storing nuclear waste. But the operators of these plants -- Entergy owns and operates Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee -- prefer not to undertake the expense." - Deb Katz, CAN Director
"Dry cask storage appears to be a workable response to the problems of storing nuclear waste," Katz said. But the operators of these plants -- Entergy owns and operates Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee -- prefer not to undertake the expense."

The earthquake that shook the Northeast in August caused relatively little damage, according to western Massachusetts newspapers. But The Boston Globe, in an editorial comment, said, "It underscored how inadequately prepared the region's nuclear power plants all are."

Measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, the quake produced tremors strong enough to exceed the "design basis" of a nuclear reactor in Virginia, closed since for safety inspections.

That has never happened before in an American nuclear plant, The Globe reported. It went on to note that the Virginia plant was not designed to withstand a quake of any size. The nuclear industry has insisted for years that it has anticipated every worst-case scenario. Altogether, 27 reactors in the eastern part of the U.S. may face seismic risks they were not built for, according to an NRC study conducted before the August quake.

George Harvey of the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution in Brattleboro, told CapeCodToday, "You folks on Cape Cod are in the same bind as we. Pilgrim Nuclear, like Vermont Yankee, is inherently unsafe. It happened at Fukishima. It can happen here: a meltdown could spread radiation from nuclear waste on prevailing winds to the Cape. Boston and Providence and everywhere in between would have to be evacuated.

"These plants have leaky pipes and faulty electrical cables. Fragments of the fuel are present. The spent fuel rods aren't designed for immersion in water. It's all an indication of NRC's lax attitude. It's frightening," Harvey said.

Gerald Rogovin began as a journalist in 1948 in dailies, weeklies, radio and magazines; and in the past 9 years back to weeklies and magazines. In between, for 36 years, he headed his own public relations firm in Boston. He lives in Yarmouth Port with a skepticism confirmed by 60 years in the inky trade.