Potential Pilgrim buyer may add to nuclear cleanup projects
By Christine Legere
Posted Apr 17, 2019
Holtec also seeks to acquire 3-reactor site in NY.
The company poised to buy Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, along with two other plants, has announced its plan to also buy Indian Point Energy Center, a three-reactor site in New York.
If Holtec International receives authorization for the license transfers from federal regulators, the firm will own six reactors in four states, most of which it would then decommission simultaneously.
The process involves moving all the radioactive spent fuel generated by each reactor during operation into dry casks, dismantling and disposing of buildings and cleaning up contamination on the properties. The spent fuel must then be secured on-site until a federal repository has been constructed.
Holtec has promised to complete decommissioning at each of the plants in about eight years, instead of the 60-year time frame allowed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pilgrim, scheduled for permanent shutdown at the end of May, will be one of the first plants to be decommissioned. Although Holtec will hold the licenses of the plants it buys, it has contracted Comprehensive Decommissioning International, a new joint venture company between Holtec and SNC-Lavalin, to perform decommissioning.
The two other plants under agreement along with Pilgrim are Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey and Palisades Power Plant in Michigan.
In a written statement on the Indian Point purchase and decommissioning plan, CDI President Kelley Trice said the company would bring “a fleet approach to the decommissioning business.”
Although the company does not anticipate that all six reactors will be “in active decommissioning” at the same time, Holtec is confident it can manage simultaneous decommissioning projects, according to Joy Russell, the company’s senior vice president of business development and communications. “Each of Holtec’s decommissioning sites will have dedicated leadership,” she said.
“The on-site organizations will include incumbent plant staff who will be retained at license transfer, supplemented by experts in decommissioning and dismantling to fully round out successful and experienced teams at each site,” Russell said.
The lack of decommissioning experience on the part of Holtec and its new company CDI worries some officials and Pilgrim watchdogs.
“I don’t want Holtec to learn how to shave on our beard,” said Sean Mullin, a Plymouth businessman and chairman of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel.
“It raises several questions on whether they have the qualified staff to do this,” Mullin said. “While they appear to be a qualified company, this is a new business venture on an accelerated time frame with multiple plants.”
Former state Sen. Daniel Wolf, a fellow member of the citizens decommissioning panel, agreed.
“I think everyone should be concerned they have adequate resources internally as a company to manage this and that regulatory oversight at the state and federal level have adequate resources as well,” Wolf said. “I’d love to see Holtec’s business plan.”
One of Indian Point’s three reactors shut down in the mid-1970s and was mothballed pending closure of the other two reactors. One of the remaining two will shut down in April 2020 and the other in April 2021. The sale of Indian Point to Holtec is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2021.
As part of the deal, Holtec will take over the site, the spent nuclear fuel and the $1.85 billion in the decommissioning trust fund for the three reactors.
Pilgrim’s sale, currently under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, includes its $1.04 billion decommissioning fund.
Wolf pointed out the money in the funds — whether at Pilgrim or Indian Point — was put there by utility ratepayers.
“It is there to do decommissioning, not so there can be some opaque business venture,” he said.
During a meeting with Holtec last month, members of the citizens advisory panel were frustrated by the lack of answers to questions they had on the Pilgrim plant sale and decommissioning.
Holtec representative Andrea Steardis said the information they sought was proprietary or confidential.
“My concern is over their lack of candor and transparency on even the most basic details of the proposed transaction, like what they’re going to pay for the property,” Mullin said.
Diane Turco, president of the anti-Pilgrim activist group Cape Downwinders, had a warning for watchdogs of the Indian Point plant.
“Wait until the citizens in N.Y. attend meetings with Holtec where their questions will not be answered due to ‘proprietary’ issues,” she said via email. “Nonsense! Stakeholders whose communities will bear the brunt of ongoing safety concerns should have transparency and truth.”
Although the decommissioning panel was scheduled to meet Wednesday night, Holtec said its representatives could not attend and “reiterated it didn’t have any further information for us,” according to Mullin.
Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch, expressed concern over Holtec’s plan to decommission multiple plants, saying it “sounds like they’re biting off more than they can chew.”
“It shows that there is a lot of money to be made in decommissioning, especially if host states may be left with the bill,” she said.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has petitioned to intervene in the review of Pilgrim’s license transfer, questioning whether Holtec can be held financially responsible if the trust fund runs out before decommissioning is completed.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also has requested assurance from Holtec that the company has the resources to clean up more than one plant at a time.
The news of the possible acquisition of Indian Point could strain those resources even further.
“Indian Point would be by far the largest of the sites they acquire,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. “That’s clearly a question we’ll be seeking answers to.”
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