Plymouth seeks extended benefits as Pilgrim closes

By Christine Legere 
Posted Nov 29, 2018 

Land, annual payments on list of requests for new plant owner.

PLYMOUTH — With Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station set to shut down in six months, Plymouth officials are scrambling to get some current financial commitments extended to ease the loss of benefits the town has enjoyed since the plant went online in 1972.

Holtec International is looking to buy Pilgrim from current owner Entergy Corp. once the plant shuts down May 31, and both parties already have filed a request for a license transfer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Plymouth Town Manager Melissa Arrighi said it was important that items on the selectmen’s negotiating priority list be settled before the license transfer takes place.

“We have dealt with Entergy for a long time, and now there is a new LLC coming to take over,” Arrighi said. “We believe some things need to be addressed prior to them becoming our neighbor. We want to get all the people together and say, ‘We welcome you as a new partner, but here are these issues.’”

Topping the priority list is negotiation for the transfer of about 1,600 acres of “pristine forest” that are part of the Pilgrim site but outside the area involved in nuclear power generation, according to Arrighi.

Although the town has right of first refusal on the acreage, leaders say they should get it at no charge.

“It’s a central area to the community, and the decisions on its use should be made by the town,” Arrighi said. There has always been an understanding with Entergy that the town would be given the land, she said.

The town wants the transfer of title and ownership to take place within 30 days of the license transfer to Holtec.

“The company can take it as a tax deduction,” said Sean Mullin, a Plymouth businessman and chairman of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. “It’s a write-off.”

Also on the selectmen’s list of items to negotiate with Holtec is a continuation of annual $9.5 million payments in lieu of taxes until six months after all nuclear spent fuel has been transferred into dry casks.

Holtec expects that task will be complete in 2022.

Town officials also want Holtec to continue to provide $2.6 million annually to maintain the current level of emergency planning and $300,000 to maintain current levels of charitable support until six months after spent fuel is in dry casks.

Officials would then renegotiate all payments with the expectation that money would continue to flow into the town until the spent fuel is moved to “a remote repository.”

To date, no permanent repository has been identified. Holtec is moving forward with federal review of a proposed interim site storage facility in New Mexico and has said Pilgrim’s spent fuel would be shipped and stored there. 

“These are small numbers when you’re talking about a no-bid $1.1 billion decommissioning project,” Mullin said of the annual payments and land donation. Since Holtec is trying to establish itself as the leader in nuclear plant decommissioning, it would be worthwhile for the company to agree to those financial commitments to create goodwill, he said.

“They need to get on the phone with the town right now,” Mullin said. “This is an opportunity for them to sit down with the town and the region and be open and reasonable. As I told them, we can be your best recommendation going forward, or we can be your worst nightmare.”

Other priority items on the list include written assurance and financial guarantee that Holtec will provide sufficient funding to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to cover off-site radiological monitoring and testing and that it will repair or replace dry casks that crack or leak; written and financial assurance that it will remediate and remove any structure materials and soils that contain detectable levels of tritium even if the levels fall below NRC requirements; that a mutually agreed-upon level of security remain to protect spent fuel; and written and financial guarantees that a dedicated amount of money will be set aside to support job retraining for current Entergy employees, with the goal of retraining them in Plymouth.

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