PLYMOUTH — Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's glut of spent fuel rods won't be moved into more stable dry cask storage anytime soon.
Four out of five members on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted Tuesday to end further consideration of a plan to expedite transfer of radioactive spent fuel rods from cooling pools to dry casks in plants across the country.
NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane cast the sole vote in opposition, saying the issue warranted further study.
The vote was part of the NRC's review of the post-Fukushima study conducted by its staff. The staff's overall conclusion had been that expedited transfer of the rods to casks was not necessary since pools would likely withstand earthquakes without leaking.
"The staff has not properly explored all potential initiating events — in this case only considering seismic initiators," Macfarlane wrote in a narrative accompanying her vote.
A plan to store spent rods from all the nation's reactors in a permanent geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, after years of debate, was abandoned in 2010 and another storage location has yet to be identified.
Meanwhile the country's 100 nuclear power plant licensees have stored spent fuel on site. When spent fuel is removed from a nuclear reactor, it produces both heat and radiation for several years. The fuel assemblies must cool in pools for five to seven years, but frequently they remain there for a much longer time.
Studies by nuclear experts have shown even partial loss of water in spent fuel pools could result in a fire and release of radiation.
Diane Turco, a Harwich resident and founder of the Cape Downwinders, expressed frustration over the NRC vote. "Once again, the NRC votes to support profits for the nuclear industry over glaring public safety issues of the densely packed spent fuel pools that are an imminent danger to the public," Turco said.
The commission's vote prompted an angry response from U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who just last week filed a bill with fellow Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would give plant owners 180 days to put together plans for moving spent fuel rods from wet pools to dry casks.
Operators would then have seven years to complete the transfer.
"Overcrowded spent fuel pools are a disaster waiting to happen," said Markey in a written statement Tuesday. "Experts agree an accident at one of these pools could result in damage as bad as that caused by an accident at an operating nuclear reactor."
Markey pointed out that Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth has about four times the number of spent fuel assemblies in its cooling pool than the unit was designed to hold.
The pool was constructed for 880 assemblies and currently holds about 3,200.
"It is time for the NRC to post the 'Danger' sign outside the fuel pools and begin to swiftly move spent fuel to safer storage now before a disaster occurs," Markey wrote.
Mary Lampert, a Duxbury resident and founder of Pilgrim Watch, said her group is "in a rage" over the NRC vote.
Lampert noted there is ample scientific evidence to prove the dangers of over-crowded fuel pools.
"Sen. Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) testified that it would be a cinch to fly a plane into the fuel pool at Pilgrim and then the game would be over," Lampert said. "The question is when and the question is where the next accident will be. Pilgrim is a good one to bet on because of the spent fuel pools."
The Union of Concerned Scientists has long warned of the danger of long-term storage of spent fuel in pools. Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the UCS Global Security Program, called the NRC vote Tuesday "deeply disappointing" and "shortsighted."
Lyman noted that Macfarlane, in her narrative accompanying her vote, said the NRC staff study had shown that reducing the density of spent fuel in a pool at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, "would lower the human health consequences of a zirconium fire by more than a factor of 10, the number of individuals who may have to abandon their homes by a factor of 50, and the
economic cost by $100 billion."
"In our view, the evidence is crystal clear," Lyman said in a written statement. "Reducing the density of spent fuel in pools by expeditiously transferring spent fuel to safer, dry storage casks would greatly reduce the chance that a massive amount of highly radioactive material gets into the environment."
Markey spokeswoman Giselle Barry said the senator remains "strongly committed to moving the bill forward and will continue to work, despite NRC opposition, to move spent fuel into dry cask storage."
"There is a legislative push to do so," Barry said.
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