Lawmakers seek safeguards on Pilgrim decommissioning

By Chris Lisinski / State House News Service

Posted Jan 22, 2020 

Holtec lobbyist warns that proposed legislation would lead to lawsuits and delays.

BOSTON — Lawmakers are seeking additional influence over the decommissioning of the recently shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, but a representative for the company conducting the work argued Wednesday that those attempts may be unconstitutional.

Tom Joyce, a lobbyist for Holtec Decommissioning International, said that bills imposing higher cleanup standards or reforming how decommissioning is funded would exceed the state’s authority and infringe on the jurisdiction of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Joyce told the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that passage of the bills would likely prompt a lawsuit from Holtec, delaying the decommissioning process that the company has said will take seven years.

“As (lawmakers) attempt to regulate and to require certain criteria for the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant, they are, I would argue strenuously, in violation of the federal preemption doctrine of our United States Constitution,” Joyce said. “I say that without hesitation.”

Backers of the legislation, though, see the proposals as important steps to protect local stakeholders amid a process that has drawn criticism and a lawsuit from the attorney general.

Plymouth Republican Rep. Mathew Muratore, who filed one of the bills that would require decommissioning to meet stricter environmental standards, said his goal is to ensure the land is clean enough to appeal to potential businesses and avoid remaining vacant.

″(Holtec) says they follow the guidelines of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is fine,” Muratore told the News Service. “We get that. But we want to make sure that not only do they meet those guidelines, but that they exceed them for the sake of the community and so that land can be an economic driver down the road.”

The Pilgrim facility officially ended operations May 31 after decades of generating power. In August, the NRC approved the transfer of Pilgrim’s license from Entergy to Holtec International to handle its decommissioning.

Attorney General Maura Healey, with the backing of the Baker administration, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the transfer until the NRC holds a hearing on concerns about Holtec’s ability to decommission the plant safely, its financial stability and the company’s alleged involvement in a kickback scheme.

Speakers at Wednesday’s committee hearing said the case, which also features the Pilgrim Watch group as a party, is still pending.

Other bills before the committee would charge the owners of any nuclear power station in the state $25 million per year and stash the money into a fund managed by the state treasurer only to be used for postclosure activities.

Pilgrim Watch chairwoman Mary Lampert said that money would serve as an “insurance policy.” If decommissioning concluded using the existing trust fund set aside for those purposes, the owners would get back the additional funding plus interest, she said. If not, the state would have a reserve ready to cover any shortfall.

Without a safety net backing up the more than $1 billion trust fund, Lampert said, taxpayers would be on the hook.

“Who’s going to pay the difference? We’re going to pay the difference,” she told the committee. “Holtec cannot be required to do so. Why can it not be required to do so? Because it is a limited liability company and you cannot get blood out of this stone.”

Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, a co-sponsor of the bill, said Connecticut found itself footing a $480 million bill to complete decommissioning of the former Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.

Like the legislation concerning cleanup standards, Joyce argued the funding proposals would unconstitutionally circumvent NRC authority. 

“If any one of those bills is passed, it could very well have the likelihood of controversy, litigation, the consumption of much time, and result in not prompt decommissioning, but delaying decommissioning of the nuclear plant,” he said.

Muratore and Lampert said they did not agree with that argument, with the latter arguing that the bills in question are all “money bills” and therefore grant the state authority to take additional action.

“States have the authority to enact a more conservative (environmental) standard if it applies after NRC has released the site because once the NRC has released the site, it no longer has authority, so there is not a question of preemption,” Lampert said.

LINK

Panel to hear arguments for keeping Pilgrim’s emergency planning zone

By Christine Legere

Posted Jan 20, 2020

PLYMOUTH — Members of the region’s legislative delegation and those who continue to keep close watch on Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station will argue to keep the emergency planning zone around the plant during a hearing Wednesday before the state’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy.

In addition to keeping the zone in place, proponents also will argue for keeping the zone’s accompanying financial commitments.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to allow Holtec International, the plant’s current owner, to eliminate the 10-mile emergency planning zone around Pilgrim as of April 1, just 10 months after the reactor’s permanent shutdown.

Under tweaks included in Senate Bill 1943, the 10-mile emergency planning zone around a nuclear plant would remain in place, even through when the reactor is shut down, until “all spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste at the facility is stored in dry cask storage systems licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

The bill would also maintain the payments to fund evacuation plans, staff and training for Duxbury, Marshfield, Kingston, Carver and Plymouth, the five towns in the 10-mile emergency planning zone, at least until the spent fuel is stored in dry casks.

Those annual payments total about $2 million. Funding would also be required for continued monitoring around the plant done by the Department of Public Health, until spent fuel is in dry casks.

Pilgrim’s 46½ years online left behind more than 4,000 spent fuel assemblies that will likely be stored onsite for years to come.

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 move all the waste from the pool into dry casks over the course of the next three years.

Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, and former state Sen. Viriato “Vinny” deMacedo filed an amendment to the fiscal 2020 state budget last summer that would have required Holtec International to continue paying assessments for radiation monitoring and emergency planning throughout decommissioning, which is expected to take about eight years. The amendment was taken out before the budget was finalized.

“The aim of this bill is to preserve what we currently have,” Cyr said. “Why should the commonwealth have to be on the hook for these things?”

Mary Lampert, director of the citizens group Pilgrim Watch, said she agrees “in part” with the measures included in the bill, but said she would keep the requirements in place for considerably longer.

“The bill would require assessments to the licensee only while the spent fuel is in the spent fuel pool, but not when all the fuel is out of the pool and into dry casks,” Lampert said. “This recognizes the probability that a disaster with horrendous consequences decreases after the fuel is out of the pool. It does not end, however.”

The bill also requires payments for continued monitoring for radiation leaks at the site. Those measures help protect those who live on the Cape, as well as those in the area directly around Pilgrim. It also protects water in Cape Cod Bay.

“The monitoring is an early warning system for everyone,” Cyr said.

Lambert, however, plans to push to have the bill amended to require Holtec to cover the cost of monitoring for radiation until the spent fuel leaves Plymouth. Currently, there is nowhere for spent fuel from nuclear reactors to be permanently stored.

“The bill is to encourage them to empty the spent fuel pool as soon as possible,” Lampert said. “The licensee has said they are going to do that anyway.”

Lampert pointed out the possibility of fire in the contaminated buildings that could cause radiation to leak into the environment. She also said an accident could occur while handling the fuel, or the heavy steel casks could crack and leak.

“Currently no technology exists to inspect, repair or replace cracked canisters,” she said.

Patrick O’Brien, speaking for Holtec International, said the company stands by its plan to reduce the emergency planning zone to its site boundary on April 1.

“This allowance was done so after careful review and consideration of scientific data related to the risks associated with a potential issue with the spent fuel pool,” said O’Brien in an email. “With the reactor no longer in operation, and the multiple defense in depth options to maintain adequate level in the spent fuel pool, the scientific basis for the reduction is warranted. Safety and security remain our #1 focus at Pilgrim Station.”

The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy is scheduled to hear testimony on a long list of bills during its statehouse session Wednesday, which is scheduled for 11 a.m.

NOTICE CHARLIE BAKER'S SILENCE....BOTH SENATOR MARKEY AND SENATOR WARREN SPOKE OUT.... 

WHERE IS KENNEDY WHO PRETENDS HE SHOULD BE SENATOR? 
KENNEDY IS TOO BUSY DISTRACTING AND GLAD HANDING TO ADDRESS ISSUES OF SIGNIFICANCE TO THE COMMONWEALTH. 

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PILGRIM WATCH

Request for stay on Pilgrim license transfer denied

By Christine Legere

Posted Dec 22, 2019

Nuclear Regulatory Commission says AG’s office failed to show how approval would pose harm to citizens

Federal regulators have denied a request from state Attorney General Maura Healey to stay the license transfer for Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International until officials and the public have had an opportunity to weigh in.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff approved the license transfer Aug. 22, even though the commission had not yet acted on a petition from state officials to intervene in the license review process, which it had submitted in February.

Two days after the commission’s staff approved the license transfer, Entergy sold the plant to Holtec, the company that will oversee the now-shuttered Plymouth plant’s decommissioning.

But state officials have continued to battle for a voice.

On Sept. 4, the attorney general’s office filed its request to put a temporary halt on the license transfer until the commission made a decision on the state’s motion to intervene.

The attorney general’s office argued that the commission’s failure to act on the petition to intervene had deprived the public of its chance to weigh in on the transfer, since a hearing would have been part of that process.

If the stay was not granted, the attorney general said, the commonwealth and its citizens would suffer harm “due to the immediate start of decommissioning activities by a licensee that is neither technically nor financially qualified to perform the work.”

In its denial of the stay Tuesday, the five-member commission argued the state failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm, since current decommissioning tasks — moving spent radioactive fuel into dry casks — would be the same whether the property was owned by Holtec or returned to Entergy.

The 35-page denial also noted the commission would still have the ability to reverse the license transfer or attach orders and conditions, based on the outcome of the requested hearing.

Local activists and the region’s legislators view the denial as just one more snub state officials and citizens have been dealt as Pilgrim transitions into decommissioning. The reactor shut down permanently May 31.

Duxbury citizens group Pilgrim Watch has filed its own motion to intervene in Pilgrim’s license transfer, which is also pending. Organization president Mary Lampert was critical of the NRC’s stay denial.

“The residents around Pilgrim and the state of Massachusetts have real and substantive concerns about transferring the nuclear plant from one entity that had one of the worst safety records to another entity that has almost no experience decommissioning a power plant,” U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said in a letter to the NRC. “Instead of listening to the people of Massachusetts, the NRC continues to move forward with this license transfer without answering critical questions about safety, security, and funding.”

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the denial “a punch in the gut to the people who live, work and go to school in the area and who have rightly raised safety concerns and should be heard.”

Over the last several months, state officials had made several unsuccessful attempts to have a voice in the license transfer process. Asked whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a deadline to act on the petition to intervene and request for a public hearing, spokesman Neil Sheehan said in an email that the commission “will rule on the requests when it is ready to do so.”

Healey’s office sued the commission in federal court in late September, asking the court to overturn the agency’s August license transfer approval and an accompanying exemption that allows use of the plant’s $1.1 billion decommissioning trust fund for non-decommissioning activities.

The suit accuses the commission of violating the Atomic Energy Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the commission’s own regulations by approving Pilgrim’s license transfer without providing “the Commonwealth with a meaningful opportunity to participate in the process.”

Duxbury citizens group Pilgrim Watch has filed its own motion to intervene in Pilgrim’s license transfer, which is also pending. Organization president Mary Lampert was critical of the NRC’s stay denial. 

“The decision is replete with statements that the NRC can ‘fix’ this after the hearing,” Lampert said in an email. “The fact of the matter is that the NRC cannot turn back the clock; neither does it have any ability to require anyone to make up a shortfall in funding if the only two licensees, Holtec Pilgrim and HDI (Holtec Decommissioning International), are limited liability companies and have no money. The NRC cannot get blood out of a stone.”

“While we are pleased with the recent ruling denying the stay requests, we appreciate and understand that there is still an adjudicatory proceeding remaining,” Patrick O’Brien, spokesman for Holtec and Pilgrim, said in a statement. “As a reminder, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had previously concluded that Holtec met the required regulatory, legal, technical and financial requirements to qualify as licensee, but we respect the petitioner’s rights to file legal motions, we are not going to comment on any specific legal motions or action.”

MEMA chief objects to elimination of emergency buffer at Pilgrim

By Christine Legere

Posted Nov 25, 2019

Decommissioning process still poses substantial risk to public, new director argues.

PLYMOUTH — The state’s top emergency planning official is objecting to a federal exemption allowing owners of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to shrink the current 10-mile emergency planning zone around the reactor down to the plant’s property line.

Samantha Phillips, the new director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, says the “all hazards plan” the state uses for other emergencies would not provide an adequate response for a nuclear accident.

The emergency planning for the zone around the nuclear plant should remain in place until all 3,000 radioactive spent fuel assemblies, currently sitting in a pool on the site, are transferred to heavy steel and cement dry casks, she said.

“The Commonwealth’s overriding interest at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is to maintain public safety,” Phillips says in her letter to Scott Wall, manager of the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, a branch of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. “While the type and probability of public safety risks at a nuclear power station evolve and reflect whether a plant is active or inactive, a nuclear power station undergoing decommissioning and deconstruction nonetheless presents substantial and complex risks to public safety, especially when spent fuel remains in the spent fuel pool.”

The Plymouth reactor ceased operation May 31. Longtime owner, Entergy Corp., then sold the plant in August to Holtec International, which will handle decommissioning.

Based on a vote earlier this month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow the elimination of the emergency planning zone, which encompasses sections of Plymouth, Kingston, Carver and Duxbury, come April.

With that elimination comes the loss of about $2 million in annual funding for those towns to be put toward safety training, staffing, equipment and expenses.

Meanwhile, staff at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station continues to be reduced. According to Patrick O’Brien, a spokesman for Holtec, staffing is currently at 263 workers and at the end of March or early April the number will drop to 180-185 workers.

“The Commonwealth is deeply concerned that such a reduction in on-site personnel will result in reliance on state and local off-site personnel to address hazardous and potentially catastrophic events at PNPS, such as spent fuel uncovering, fires affecting radioactive materials, and construction accidents,” Phillips wrote.

But O’Brien argued staffing remains robust.

“Pilgrim Station continues to maintain four strong, talented emergency planning teams,” O’Brien said in an email. He added that the exemption from the emergency planning zone requirement was granted “based on science and the low potential for an emergency to expand past the site boundary after the fuel has cooled in the pool for an appropriate amount of time.”

Holtec has said the fuel should all be transferred into dry casks by the end of 2022.

Prior to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s vote to grant the exemption to the emergency planning zone, state and federal legislators voiced their opposition.

Federal emergency management officials had expressed concern with the commission’s assumption that state and local responders could provide necessary assistance at the plant during a nuclear emergency, and at the same time evacuate citizens from the 10-mile area around the plant.

Using the “all hazards plan” places “an inappropriate and undue burden on local communities nearby PNPS,” Phillips said. “State and Local agencies will be required to maintain significant and hazardous responsibilities to ensure public safety and disaster response at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Such essential obligations include developing and implementing a wide-scale evacuation and sheltering program.”

Mary Lampert, president of the Pilgrim Watch citizens group, said the damage caused by a nuclear accident, even with the plant shutdown, would be devastating.

“Until all spent fuel has been moved from the spent fuel pool into dry casks, the risk of a spent fuel pool fire remains, resulting from acts of malice, a fuel handling accident during transfer, equipment failure or human error.” Lampert said. “The NRC estimated that the offsite consequences of a major pool fire could include contaminating as much as 38,610 square miles of land, forcing the evacuation of millions, and trillions of dollars in damages.”

Jeff Baran was the sole commission member to vote against granting the exemption. Although Pilgrim is shut down, Baran said, “EPZs should be in place to provide defense-in-depth because the probability of an accident involving a significant release of radioactive material, although small, is not zero.”

David Lochbaum, former director of the Nuclear Safety Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, agreed with Baran’s concern. He said maintaining an emergency planning zone is “akin to passengers on cruise ships having a reserved spot in a lifeboat along with a life preserver.”

“Eliminating emergency planning with irradiated fuel in the spent fuel pool is gambling with American lives as table stakes,” Lochbaum said.

Attorney General Maura Healey sued the commission last month for approving the transfer of Pilgrim’s license from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International without first listening to what state officials and the public had to say about it. Healey contends Holtec is inexperienced in decommissioning and will likely run out of money before the job is done.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with correct staffing number information.

AG seeks overturn of Pilgrim license transfer

By Christine Legere
Posted Sep 26, 2019

Filing with federal appeals court asks that matter be sent back to NRC.

BOSTON — State Attorney General Maura Healey has filed a federal court appeal that seeks to vacate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s order to transfer Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International, and its $1.1 billion trust fund along with it.

“The NRC has repeatedly rubber-stamped Holtec’s plans, despite serious concerns about the company’s financial capacity, technical qualifications and competency to safely decommission and clean up the Pilgrim site,” Healey said. “We are asking the court to exercise its authority to vacate the NRC’s misguided and unsupported actions.”

Pilgrim shut down permanently May 31 and is poised to be decommissioned. Entergy applied for the license transfer to Holtec in November. On Aug. 22, the NRC approved the request, along with an exemption for Holtec to use the decommissioning trust fund for nondecommissioning activities such as site restoration and spent fuel storage.

Entergy sold the plant to Holtec a few days after the transfer.

In the 103-page document submitted Wednesday, Healey’s general counsel, Seth Schofield, asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “orders, findings and decisions and remand the matter back to the NRC for further proceedings.”

The court petition accuses the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of violating the Atomic Energy Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the agency’s own regulations by transferring Pilgrim’s license without providing “the Commonwealth with a meaningful opportunity to participate in the process.”

In February, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the attorney general’s office filed a petition to intervene in the NRC’s review of the requested license transfer. They questioned Holtec’s financial ability to decommission Pilgrim and called for a full environmental review of the reactor site before decommissioning. State officials also called for a public hearing.

“The Baker-Polito administration remains strongly committed to ensuring the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is decommissioned in a manner that protects the safety of the public and environment and is supporting and assisting the attorney general’s lawsuit regarding the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s approval of the license transfer prior to a ruling by the commission on the concerns raised by both the administration as well as the attorney general,” Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Secretary Kathleen A. Theoharides said Thursday.

A citizens group called Pilgrim Watch filed similar requests.

The petitions had yet to be acted on when the NRC approved the license transfer.

The NRC also denied a request made during the summer by the attorney general’s office to put the license transfer review on hold for 90 days to allow state officials and the plant owner time to reach a settlement agreement.

The day before the transfer approval, the attorney general sent a seven-page letter to the NRC questioning Holtec’s truthfulness, citing the company’s admission to bribery of a Tennessee Valley Authority employee in 2007. More recently, state officials in New Jersey froze a $260 million tax break secured by Holtec when they discovered the company had lied on its application, the attorney general said.

U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. William Keating, all Massachusetts Democrats, also weighed in, urging the NRC to hear from state officials and citizens groups before acting on the transfer request.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff approved the license transfer despite never having taken action on the state’s petition to intervene.

Earlier this month, Healey made yet another attempt to have input, asking the NRC for a temporary stay on Pilgrim’s approved license transfer until the agency acts on her February petition to intervene.

Both the February motion and the September request remain pending, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Thursday. The agency declined to comment on the federal court appeal.

Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch, praised the attorney general for filing the federal appeal.

“We could not agree more,” Lampert said. “In addition to depriving Pilgrim Watch and the commonwealth their right to participate in the process, NRC’s decisions endanger our health, safety and pocketbooks. We have full confidence that the attorney general’s office will prevail.”

Patrick O’Brien, spokesman for Comprehensive Decommissioning International, a joint company formed by Holtec and SNC Lavalin to decommission Pilgrim and several other plants, provided a written statement:

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that Holtec met the required regulatory, legal, technical and financial requirements to qualify as licensee. While we respect the petitioner’s rights to file legal motions, we are not going to comment on any specific legal motions or action.”

Pilgrim license transfer draws outrage

By Christine Legere
Posted Aug 23, 2019

Legislators, state officials, activists say NRC ignored concerns.

PLYMOUTH — News that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the transfer of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International late Thursday has been greeted with outrage from Attorney General Maura Healey, the region’s federal and state legislators and local citizens groups, who all say their concerns have been ignored.

In a written statement Friday, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey called the commission’s decision “misguided.”

“We continue to have serious concerns about Holtec’s financial capacity, technical qualifications and judgment to safely and properly clean up the site and store and manage Pilgrim’s spent nuclear fuel,” spokeswoman Chloe Gotsis said.

Gostis added the attorney general was reviewing “all of our available options to ensure the health, safety and interests of our residents and the environment are protected.”

Entergy Corp., the company that bought Pilgrim from Boston Edison in 1999, applied in November to the NRC for a license transfer to Holtec. Holtec has promised accelerated decommissioning, saying it can dismantle the reactor and other buildings, move the spent radioactive fuel into massive dry casks and clean up the site in about eight years.

As part of approval, Holtec Pilgrim, the owner of record, and Holtec Decommissioning International, the decommissioning operator, secured an exemption that allows use of the plant’s $1.1 billion decommissioning trust fund for spent fuel management and site restoration.

Several attempts at allowing the public a say in the transfer review were made in the past several months.

In February, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the attorney general’s office filed a petition to intervene in the NRC’s review of Pilgrim’s sale and license transfer. State officials questioned Holtec’s financial ability to decommission Pilgrim and called for a full environmental review of the reactor site before decommissioning. They also requested a public hearing.

A citizens group called Pilgrim Watch filed a similar request.

To date, the NRC has not acted on either.

The state attorney general’s office more recently asked the NRC to put the license transfer review on hold for 90 days to allow state officials and the plant owner time to reach a settlement agreement. The NRC denied that request.

And on Wednesday, the day before the transfer approval, the attorney general sent a seven-page letter to the NRC questioning Holtec’s truthfulness, citing the company’s admission to bribery of a Tennessee Valley Authority employee in 2007. More recently state officials in New Jersey froze a $260 million tax break secured by Holtec when they discovered the company had lied on its application, the attorney general said.

U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. William Keating, all Massachusetts Democrats, urged the NRC last week to hear from state officials and citizens groups before approving the license transfer.

After the transfer, Markey wrote that the “Nuclear Regulatory Commission is abdicating any responsibility for protecting public health and safety.” He called the license transfer approval “rushed and uninformed.”

Although the NRC can still belatedly grant the petitions to intervene and hold hearings for public input, Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, said “the game is over” now that the license transfer has been approved.

“They rubber-stamped the baseless assumptions provided by Holtec,” Lampert said.

The attorney general and Pilgrim Watch have 10 days to comment on the license transfer. “Comments will be why they should hold the license transfer in abeyance until they listen to the plethora of facts we have that there are insufficient funds, that a new environmental assessment should be done,” Lampert said.

Diane Turco, president of the anti-nuclear group Cape Downwinders, expressed her own frustration.

“The NRC approval of the license transfer without full hearings on contentions related to radiological, environmental and financial concerns is an affront to any open and responsible decommissioning process,” Turco said. “Once again, the public interest loses.”

State Sens. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, and Viriato “Vinny” deMacedo, R-Plymouth, added their disappointment.

“It’s disturbing that Massachusetts has not been treated fairly in this matter,” Cyr said. “The attorney general highlighted serious concerns about Holtec that need to be answered.”

DeMacedo said he worries about Holtec’s financial ability to complete decommissioning.

“If they run out of that billion dollars, who’s liable?” he said. “I hope this is a message to other states around the country. There has to be some power given to the community where the plant is and to the state.”

— Read more about the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

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LINK

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.

State Senator Julian Cyr

Published on May 30, 2019

During the State Senate's debate of the FY2020 budget on May 23, 2019 - State Senator Julian Cyr advocated for amendment #1070, which allows the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to continue making assessments on inactive nuclear power plants, if such a plant has spent fuel rods in a spent fuel pool, and not in dry cask storage. The amendment was unanimously adopted, a strong show of support for this amendment by all Senators. You can read the text of the amendment here: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/GetAm...

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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