In case you missed it....
BARNSTABLE — Cape Cod's largest environmental organization is calling for closure of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth.
In a position statement sent last week to its 5,000 members, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod "calls for Pilgrim's permits to be terminated and for the facility to be decommissioned."
Related Links
The Barnstable-based environmental organization further urges the transfer of Pilgrim's 3,800 spent fuel rods to dry casks; air and land radiation monitoring; expansion of emergency planning to include the Cape; and replacing the power plant with "safer and less-polluting alternative energy sources."
Ed DeWitt, the association's executive director, said Friday the agency had been looking at this issue for several months largely because of the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, "and what came out of that in lessons learned."
In its position statement, which focuses on environmental impacts, the association calls Cape Cod "one of the most ecologically valuable and sensitive areas" in the state.
"The Fukushima nuclear disaster provided important lessons: a) improbable accidents occur, and b) if an accident results in major radioactive contamination, there can be serious and widespread impacts on water resources, fish, wildlife, food webs, crops, the economy, human populations and society," the statement says.
Safety concerns included frequent power outages at the plant, a past fire that could have damaged the reactor, storage of spent nuclear fuel in pools, partial blockage of the emergency cooling system by mussels, and Pilgrim's "vulnerability to natural hazards and terrorism."
The agency pointed out that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently downgraded Pilgrim to include it in a group of the nation's eight lowest-rated reactors, based on its recent poor performance.
"These issues point to aging infrastructure, outdated systems, failure to account for climate change, and inadequate maintenance, oversight and regulation," the association says in its statement.
Also on the association's list is concern over the release of radioactive materials, including tritium, into groundwater and discharge of heated seawater into Cape Cod Bay "resulting in a thermal plume, erosion, barren and stunted areas, warm-water algae growth and increased thermal burden on marine ecosystems."
Diane Turco, co-founder of the Pilgrim watchdog group Cape Downwinders, called the nine-page position statement "another comprehensive indictment of Pilgrim."
"How much more evidence does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission need to follow its congressional mandate to preserve the public's safety?" Turco said.
Entergy, the Pilgrim plant's owner and operator, issued a statement when asked for reaction to the position paper.
"Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is a safe and vital resource to the commonwealth and the region. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, after six years and tens of thousands of hours of review and analysis, including the plant's potential effects on the environment, concluded that the plant is safe and can continue to provide virtually emission-free electricity for years to come and we stand by that," Entergy's statement says.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not provide a comment in time for this story.
DeWitt said the association plans to share the statement with officials and organizations throughout the region, hoping to gain support. "Ultimately we want to work toward logical decommission," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment