Healey: Show us the money for Pilgrim decommissioning
By Christine LegerePosted Apr 2, 2019
Attorney general files rebuttal in bid to intervene in nuclear plant’s sale.
BOSTON — In a forceful final pitch to intervene in the federal review of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s sale and license transfer, Attorney General Maura Healey argues the plant’s prospective owner has not provided enough financial information for a transfer decision to be made.
Longtime owner Entergy Nuclear Operations is looking to sell the Plymouth plant to New Jersey-based Holtec International. The two have a license transfer request pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pilgrim, a 46-year-old reactor and the only one remaining in Massachusetts, is set to power down permanently May 31.
Holtec proposes it will then dismantle the reactor and buildings, load the radioactive fuel rods from decades of operation into steel-lined cement casks and clean up the site, using a $1.03 billion decommissioning trust fund that comes with plant ownership.
The company has promised an aggressive timeline, saying it can complete cleanup in about eight years. If the license transfer does not occur, Entergy plans to take 60 years to complete decommissioning.
Healey points out that Pilgrim will be the first plant Holtec decommissions, and the company intends to decommission other plants at the same time.
A license transfer to Holtec is under review for the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey, and Holtec plans to take over the Entergy-owned Palisades plant in Michigan when it permanently powers down in 2022.
Healey is concerned that the $1 billion trust fund, the only source of funding identified in the transfer application to handle decommissioning and site cleanup activities at Pilgrim, will prove insufficient. A funding shortfall could put not just the wallets of Massachusetts residents on the line, but also their health and safety, the attorney general has argued.
She has requested a hearing so the public can weigh in before federal regulators make their final decision.
Healey filed her petition to intervene in February. Holtec and Entergy have since submitted arguments in opposition.
Healey was forceful in her rebuttal of their arguments Monday.
“The applicants oppose the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ petition to intervene and for a hearing, based on a simple yet wholly misguided premise: trust us,” she wrote. “Trust that the Pilgrim decommissioning trust fund contains sufficient money for Holtec, on its first attempt to decommission and restore the site at a pace never previously achieved.”
Even after those tasks are completed, the fund must continue to cover the cost of storing the spent fuel on the site for decades, she noted.
The financial information Holtec submitted to federal regulators does not provide assurance that any funding sources beyond the decommissioning trust fund would be available if money runs short. Holtec Pilgrim and Holtec Decommissioning International, both limited liability corporations that would hold Pilgrim’s license after the transfer, have no assets listed.
“Its status as a limited liability company will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach beyond it to a parent entity to secure additional funding in the event of a shortfall,” the state official’s submission says.
And although nuclear plant owners have successfully sued the Department of Energy for failure to provide a national repository for spent fuel, Holtec has “carefully avoided making a regulatory commitment” to use the $500 million anticipated payment to cover a trust fund shortfall, the attorney general said.
In the initial petition to intervene, Healey and officials from other state agencies expressed concern that other contamination found during decommissioning might need cleaning up. Those unanticipated costs would strain the budget, they said.
Healey and the governor’s office also have asked for a closer look at the property under the National Environmental Policy Act as part of the license review.
Entergy and Holtec argue that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not require such study. Instead, the review relies on existing documents such as environmental assessments or supplemental environmental statements.
Holtec’s senior vice president for business development and communications provided a brief statement.
“We are aware of the Attorney General’s April 1st filing with the NRC,” said Joy Russell. “We respect the process and we believe we have made appropriate regulatory filings and responses and we stand behind the positions in those documents.”
Duxbury-based citizens group Pilgrim Watch is also looking to intervene, and made similar arguments in its filing with the NRC on Monday.
“We know that neither the present owners (Entergy), nor the prospective buyer (Holtec), has sufficient funds to decommission the site; and neither have performed the requisite thorough site assessment to have any understanding of all the contaminants on the site,” Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch, said via email. “Without the site analysis, they cannot judge how much it will cost to clean it up nor prevent runoff into Cape Cod Bay.
“Our goal in this litigation is to prevent having Massachusetts taxpayers left holding the bag after Pilgrim’s owner, either Entergy or Holtec (both limited liability companies), skip town leaving us a huge bill, a very dirty site, and tons of spent fuel to guard for the indefinite future,” Lampert said.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the submissions were under review.
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