Scrutiny of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to continue after shutdown
By Christine Leger
Posted Jun 2, 2019
Watchdogs hope to head off safety, financial, environmental concerns.
PLYMOUTH — Although the reactor at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has been permanently shut down, the region’s lawmakers, leaders and longtime watchdogs say the danger to the public continues as long as high-level radioactive waste is stored on the property.
They intend to follow the decommissioning process closely and stay vigilant to maintain safeguards, such as radiation monitoring and emergency planning, that had been in place while the reactor operated.
The plant’s 46½ years online left behind more than 4,000 spent fuel assemblies that will likely be stored on-site for years to come.
At the moment, there is nowhere else for the waste to go.
“Pilgrim remains a risk to safety as long as the fuel stays on the site,” state Sen. Julian Cyr, a Truro Democrat, said.
Three-quarters of the waste sits on boron-coated racks under 40 feet of water in the spent fuel pool at the top of Pilgrim’s reactor building. The boron, which prevents a nuclear reaction from occurring in the pool, has been deteriorating over the last several years, forcing operators to rearrange the pool fuel.
The plan is to slowly move the waste from the pool into heavy-duty dry casks, which will be placed on a concrete pad on the property about 75 feet above sea level — a process expected to take about three years.
While Pilgrim was churning out power, Entergy Corp., the plant’s owner and operator, was paying annual assessments to the state Department of Public Health to cover radiation monitoring in the region, and to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency for planning and training for towns in the 10-mile evacuation zone around the plant.
“Under the current law, once the plant is inactive, they no longer have to pay those assessments,” Cyr said. “These are activities the public would expect to continue.”
Cyr and state Sen. Viriato “Vinny” deMacedo, R-Plymouth, filed an amendment to the coming fiscal year’s state budget that would require Pilgrim’s owner, whether that remains Entergy or switches to Holtec International, to continue paying assessments for radiation monitoring and emergency planning throughout decommissioning. And the plant owner could not tap Pilgrim’s decommissioning trust fund to cover those costs.
Published on May 30, 2019
Entergy announced in August it planned to sell the plant to Holtec for decommissioning. The license transfer awaits Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval.
“As of July 1, the flow of payments of those dollars will end, so we won’t get any assessments in 2020 without this,” Cyr said. The Senate passed the budget with the amendment.
According to Cyr, the provision still faces the hurdle of remaining part of the budget package worked out by a conference committee of House and Senate members.
The budget then will return to the full House and Senate for up or down votes and move on to the governor for signature.
“We’re talking about a pretty significant chunk of resources,” Cyr said, noting the total is more than $1 million. “We expect Entergy is going to fight this.”
Cape and Southeastern Massachusetts lawmakers also have filed a handful of Pilgrim-related bills. One would set the residual radioactivity exposure level on the reactor property at less than 10 millirems per year at the end of cleanup.
The federal standard is less than 25 millirems, and because Pilgrim is federally licensed, it must meet only that standard.
Other ways to make the plant owner meet the 10-millirem maximum are being tried as well.
An interagency working group, consisting of appointed representatives from state environmental, health and emergency planning agencies and the attorney general’s office, is working on a settlement agreement with Entergy or its successor.
David Johnston, who represents the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, recently reported that the working group’s priorities include assurance that Pilgrim’s $1 billion decommissioning fund is adequate to restore the plant site; that the company agrees to the 10-millirem radiological standard; and that emergency response measures remain.
Attorney General Maura Healey and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton have filed a petition to intervene in the proposed license transfer to ensure taxpayers are not burdened with the costs of decommissioning the plant or cleaning up the site.
Sean Mullin, chairman of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel — a 21-member body established in 2016 to advise the governor and educate the public about decommissioning activities at Pilgrim — said the group’s local priorities include maintaining payments in lieu of taxes to Plymouth; having a say in the future of the 1,600 acres of open land that Entergy owns; and keeping emergency planning in place.
Entergy already has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to eliminate the 10-mile emergency planning zone around the reactor beginning April 1, shrinking the radius under its protection to its property line. The company argues the requirements are expensive and unnecessary. To date, every nuclear plant in the U.S. that has decommissioned has requested an exemption from the emergency planning requirements, and in every instance federal authorities have granted it.
On a broader level, one priority is that cleanup satisfy state standards and not just federal standards.
Mary Lampert, of Duxbury, president of the Pilgrim Watch citizens group, plans to keep an eye on the decommissioning. Safety remains a top concern.
“The likelihood of an accident decreases when the reactor shuts down and the fuel is in dry casks, but the risk remains until all the spent fuel leaves the site, the reactor is decommissioned and the Pilgrim site has been cleaned up,” Lampert said via email.
Environmental issues are also high on Lampert’s list.
“There has to be a thorough site assessment at the beginning of the decommissioning process,” she said. “Never forget that underneath the plant is the Plymouth-Carver aquifer.”
And Lampert wants the NRC to conduct frequent inspections during decommissioning. “The more eyes on the process, the better it will be,” she said.
“There is much work for all of us to do.”
— Follow Christine Legere on Twitter: @ChrisLegereCCT.
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https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20190602/scrutiny-of-pilgrim-nuclear-power-station-to-continue-after-shutdown
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