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Dept. of Environmental Protection

    RADIOACTIVITY

    DEP Wants to Allow ‘Intervenors’ in Holtec Appeal Hearing

    Environmental, fishing, and real estate groups join forces against wastewater release

    By

    PLYMOUTH — The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) determined in July that Holtec Decommissioning International’s proposal to discharge up to one million gallons of wastewater from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into Cape Cod Bay violates state law.

    The agency based its denial on the Ocean Sanctuaries Act, which prohibits such industrial discharges into protected water bodies. Holtec is fighting the decision and filed an appeal in August.

    Now, six groups that filed motions related to the decision have secured the support of the DEP to participate in the appeal as “intervenors.” That is, they plan to participate in the hearing to support the denial of Holtec’s requested permit modification. One of the six groups is led by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC).

    But the decision on whether the intervenors will be allowed to participate is still ahead.

    The Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution, an independent entity within DEP, will decide on the requests. That same office will preside over the appeal process and then make a recommendation to Commissioner Bonnie Heiple, who will make the final decision.

    The process could take 18 months to two years, according to Andrew Gottlieb, the APCC’s executive director who formerly worked at DEP.

    APCC’s Group Filing

    Several individuals and organizations jointly moved to intervene as the “APCC Group.”

    Among the group’s members are the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Alliance and others in the fishing industry, including charter boat captain and former Dennis Select Board member Wayne Bergeron and Brewster oyster farmer Sally Andreola; Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council member David Weeden and tribe members Trish Kellinui, William Mills, and Robert Mills; state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who is currently running for a state Senate seat; Wellfleet Select Board member Sheila Lyons; Rick Sawyer, president of Aquacultural Research Corporation (ARC) shellfish hatchery; and Ryan Castle, CEO of the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors.

    In its motion to intervene, the group argues that the proposed discharge of water from the spent fuel pool and other systems at Pilgrim could affect seafood safety because pollutants can accumulate in sea animals. They also argue that the discharge could have long-term unknown effects on marine animal and organism health in Cape Cod Bay. The wastewater has been shown to contain suspended solids, oil and grease, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, boron, and phenol, which would pose human health risks, says the group’s filing.

    The group argues that if Holtec goes forward, both fishing and tourism would be affected: consumers could reject local seafood over fears of contamination, and tourists could choose to vacation elsewhere because of fear of exposure to the contaminants.

    Other intervenors whose participation is supported by the DEP include the town of Plymouth, the town of Barnstable, the Pilgrim Watch citizens action group, the environmental group led by James Lampert, and Duxbury resident J. Benjamin Cronin.

    Holtec’s Opposition

    Holtec has opposed the inclusion of the intervenor groups in the appeal on the basis of their arguments. The company argues that some of the intervenors cited harm that would be caused by radioactive elements rather than the nonradioactive compounds in the wastewater. The state has no authority over radioactive elements, Holtec said.

    “Because MassDEP has no authority to regulate the disposal of nuclear byproduct materials through liquid effluent discharge, any harm resulting from the disposal of such material cannot be within the zone of interest of the Ocean Sanctuaries Act, and thus cannot be the basis for intervention,” stated Holtec in the argument it submitted to the appeals office.

    The Ocean Sanctuaries Act is a state law. Holtec has argued that the federal Atomic Energy Act preempts state law. The company also argued that the handling and discharge of radionuclides are solely under the jurisdiction of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not state regulatory agencies.

    While DEP supported the motions to intervene since they each appeared to satisfy the legal requirements for intervention, the agency said that does not indicate its support or opposition to the arguments each group submitted.

    Compounds: A Hot Debate

    A set of year-old notes written by a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution about 2023 wastewater sampling results from Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool and other systems triggered a hot debate at the Sept. 23 meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel.

    During the public comment period, Peter Moyer, a member of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, read aloud the notes written by Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at Woods Hole.

    Buesseler has participated in the study of radioactivity at Fukushima, Chornobyl, and the Marshall Islands. The Independent previously reported on Buesseler’s observations on Pilgrim’s wastewater in May 2023.

    In that testing round, five radioactive isotopes were found in the untreated wastewater above the detection limit: manganese-54, cobalt-60, zinc-65, cesium-137, and tritium. Except for tritium, those elements could be reduced by a treatment system to levels allowed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

    According to Buesseler’s notes, even after removing 99 percent of the cesium-137, the remaining amount would be 2 million times more than what is currently found in Cape Cod Bay’s water. Once in the ocean, wrote Buesseler, cesium-137 and cobalt-60 could end up in fish and accumulate in sea-floor sediments. Buesseler concluded that the wastewater should be reanalyzed using more sensitive methods to provide a better analysis of other radioactive elements not included in the report.

    At the Sept. 23 meeting, NDCAP Chair James Lampert suggested posting Buesseler’s notes on the panel’s website. That suggestion, along with the content of the notes, quickly drew opposition.

    Holtec’s senior compliance manager David Noyes called Buessler’s observations “fear mongering.”

    Mary Gatslick, a former Pilgrim employee and current NDCAP member, characterized the scientist’s comments as “the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater.”

    Gatslick argued that posting Buesseler’s notes on the NDCAP’s website would appear to be an endorsement. “I don’t know how the rest of the panel feels about it, but I think this paper needs the person who wrote it to come here and talk to the panel,” Gatslick said. “The panel can ask him questions, and he can clarify some of these outrageous statements that he’s making.”

    Jack Priest, the Dept. of Public Health’s representative on the advisory panel, pointed out that the wastewater that had been sampled had not yet been treated. “It’s not completely accurate to compare drinking water standards and ocean water standards to this untreated water,” Priest said. Instead, he said, “The sampling was to give us a point on the map of what was currently in those Pilgrim vessels.”

    Priest said his agency recommended that radionuclides that were harder to detect be investigated. The lab that had done the original analysis conducted the assessment and found none, Priest said. It also tested for radioactive elements that emit alpha rays and found none.

    Buesseler did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

    Following the meeting, NDCAP chair James Lampert said he plans to ask Buesseler to make a presentation at the panel’s meeting in late November.

    Editor’s note: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article, published in print on Oct. 3, incorrectly reported that five groups, not six, had filed motions to intervene in the DEP decision and that all were being led by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. The APCC is leading one of the six groups.

    RADIOACTIVITY

    Nuclear Plant Owner Appeals Denial of Permit Change

    Holtec argues that Ocean Sanctuaries Act doesn’t apply in this case

    By

    PLYMOUTH — Looking for a way to gain approval for disposing of a million gallons of contaminated wastewater into Cape Cod Bay, Holtec International, the company decommissioning the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth, requested an amendment to its water discharge permit. The state denied that request in July, but Holtec has now appealed that decision.

    The Dept. of Environmental Protection’s denial was based on the state’s Ocean Sanctuaries Act, which prohibits such industrial discharges into Cape Cod Bay. While the act exempts discharges associated with active electric power generation and transmission, Pilgrim has not generated electricity since it was permanently shut down in 2019.

    Holtec argues that decommissioning a nuclear plant is simply another step in the production of electrical power, so the discharge should be permitted.

    Holtec has asked MassDEP’s Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution, which is an independent entity, to reverse the denial or to rule on the permit modification request under the Mass. Clean Waters Act rather than the Ocean Sanctuaries Act.

    In its filing, Holtec argues that the discharge would be consistent with the Clean Waters Act, given the characterization of the effluent pollutants in the wastewater. “MassDEP’s reasoning for denying the permit modification is mere pretext for an improper attempt to regulate radioactive byproduct materials, which is squarely preempted by the [federal Atomic Energy Act],” Holtec says in its appeal.

    The appeal was expected, but Mary Lampert, a longtime plant watchdog and member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), said the expense related to it would only impede a proper cleanup. “All Holtec’s legal fees come out of our decommissioning trust fund,” she said. The money in the fund came from ratepayers, and “Holtec did not put a dime into it,” Lampert said.

    Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod and also an NDCAP member, called the appeal “good for Holtec’s bottom line.”

    Buying Time for Evaporation

    “The longer they pursue this meritless appeal, the more time they have to induce evaporation of the contaminated water into the air while slowing their spending,” said Gottlieb in a written statement.

    What Gottlieb is referring to is Holtec’s evaporation of the radioactive wastewater through vents in the reactor building. The company has submerged heaters in the water stored in the reactor cavity for several months at a time, claiming that it helped to dry components and warm workers in the building. But a significant amount of the contaminated wastewater has been released into the atmosphere as a result, and opponents have argued that from there it would eventually come back down. Holtec removed the heaters for the summer but intends to submerge them in the wastewater again as the weather cools.

    The 1.1 million gallons of wastewater at the plant dropped by 150,000 gallons thanks to the evaporation, according to estimates Holtec provided earlier this year. “What does the public get from this?” said Gottlieb. “Increased exposure to radiation released from evaporation and an eight-year-longer wait for the site to be cleaned up.”

    The cleanup was originally to be finished by 2027. But Holtec has moved the projected date to 2035 and placed much of the blame for the delay on public opposition to the proposed discharge into the bay. Opponents have lobbied to have Holtec ship the contaminated water off-site for disposal at a licensed facility.

    Gov. Maura Healey’s spokesperson released a statement in response to the appeal that reads: “DEP’s permit decision is clear that Holtec cannot discharge wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. It’s time for Holtec to move forward, dispose of the wastewater in a safe and acceptable manner, and stop delaying our real goal — decommissioning of the site and returning the property to productive use. We’ll continue to monitor Holtec’s role in decommissioning and any potential impacts on the environment and human health.”

    The Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution has not yet set a date for a hearing or decided whether it will be held at DEP headquarters in Boston or the regional office in Lakeville, according to DEP spokesman Edmund Coletta. But the process will include a hearing open to the public.

    Once the appeal is heard, the presiding officer from the appeals office will issue a recommended final decision. Commissioner Bonnie Heiple will then review and make the final decision on the case. That decision could then be appealed in Superior Court.

    HEAVY METAL

    Old Leaking Oil Tanks Unearthed at Truro DPW

    Vehicle parts and old snowplow blades also among debris found on Town Hall Hill

    By

    TRURO — Twelve test pits dug at Truro’s current DPW site last week unearthed piles of metallic debris that had spent at least two decades underground, Director Jarrod Cabral said. One pit had so much spilled oil that the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) had to be called in.

    Leaking oil drums and other potentially hazardous debris were lifted from the DPW site. (Photos courtesy Town of Truro)

    The work was part of an environmental assessment of the site that is expected to take four to six months. The site is being considered for a new DPW facility.

    A ground radar test on July 9 detected 12 spots where metal was likely located underground. On the day digging began, July 11, staff first came upon about 4,000 pounds of steel, including old snowplow blades, buried just outside the existing facility’s salt shed.

    “It was a little odd,” Cabral said.

    Later that day, contractors from HRP Associates hauled a 275-gallon oil tank and six oil drums and steel piping from a hole roughly eight feet deep at the rear of the property. The tank leaked fluid as it was removed. DPW staff called the DEP for permission to undertake an “immediate response action” and remove the leaking tank.

    As the metals and oily soil were removed, the team took “about three dozen” samples for analysis. “The soil samples will tell us definitely what was in those drums,” Cabral said.

    They will also indicate whether the team successfully removed all of the contamination. Staff removed about 30 gallons of what they believe was a combination of oil, waste oil, and petroleum from test pit 5. By the end, the pit was 30 by 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Along with the leaking oil, they removed about 45 cubic yards of contaminated soil.

    The fire dept. assisted in containing the potentially hazardous materials. The oil-covered metals were placed on a rubber and polyethylene liner covered in absorbent pads.

    Asked why the materials were buried there, Cabral said he had “no idea.” There’s a similar functioning oil tank on the property, he said, adding that the DPW is not in the practice of burying rubble.

    Over two days of digging, the team unearthed heaps of concrete refuse, empty and crushed barrels, the chassis of a car or truck, a DPW truck hood, several tires, steel guardrail segments, and wooden telephone pole segments.

    “I do a lot of these types of projects, and this is a very limited amount of material,” said Bryan Massa, a licensed site planner from HRP Associates, after the snowplow blades and oil were discovered but before the excavations were completed. “We need to collect more data to find out its full nature and extent, but this is a relatively small release.”

    Siting Discussion

    The environmental investigation is being funded through a measure approved by voters at town meeting on May 5 and a special town election on June 27.

    A July 9 ground radar test revealed locations where metal was likely to be found.

    The article authorized the select board to borrow $2.8 million to be used for engineering costs associated with a new facility “predominantly at the Town Hall Hill site (excluding the 340 Route 6 site).”

    Discord persists over where the new facility can be located. Town Counsel John Giorgio of KP Law attended the July 9 meeting of the select board to address the legality of different location options.

    Citizens and elected officials have disagreed about whether the May 5 vote precludes use of 340 Route 6 as a development site. Giorgio said last week that none of the approved funds can be used for sitework there.

    “The role of town meeting was limited to appropriating the money and authorizing the borrowing,” Giorgio said. “However, town meeting cannot force the select board to act in a specific way.” While voters approved the borrowing, the select board carries out that borrowing.

    Giorgio said that the Route 6 site is not entirely off the table, legally speaking, because the borrowing authorization could be amended at a future town meeting.

    With lab analysis of soil samples expected to take 35 to 45 days, the DPW is proceeding with other aspects of environmental review.

    Soil borings will test the ground at depths lower than test pits can go — about 20 feet below ground, said Massa. The boring is set to begin on July 18, and the plan is to drill in six to eight spots. Cabral said Monday that they might add one to two borings near test pit 5, where the oil was discovered, “to confirm that no further removal of soil is required.”

    Later this month, the team will test monitoring wells at depths of 120 to 130 feet to assess groundwater flow. The total phase 2 environmental assessment cost has reached $135,250.

    VIOLATIONS

    State Sues Holtec for Mishandling Asbestos at Pilgrim Reactor Site

    Attorney general says demolition put workers and residents at risk

    By

    BOSTON — Mass. Attorney General Andrea Campbell has filed a civil complaint against Holtec Decommissioning International, owner of the shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, for a long list of violations related to improperly handling, storing, shipping, and disposing of asbestos-laced debris during demolition work at the plant.

    The complaint cites three separate events between January 2021 and September 2023. The improper handling put the health of workers and residents near the plant in jeopardy, according to the complaint, which seeks penalties of $25,000 per day for each violation.

    The 28-page civil suit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Feb. 14.

    The next week, the attorney general’s office confirmed that the two sides are working on a settlement. No details were provided before the Independent’s deadline this week.

    Holtec spokesperson Patrick O’Brien said he had not yet seen a settlement agreement so he could not confirm its details, including the amount his company would have to pay. O’Brien said he believed it would be between $200,000 and $250,000.

    The company’s critics were dismayed: “$200,000 is nothing to Holtec,” said Diane Turco, president of the advocacy group Cape Downwinders.

    Mary Lampert, who is a member of the state-appointed Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), said the asbestos violations were typical of Holtec’s record.

    “Holtec’s motto is ‘It’s cheaper to pay the fine than obey the law,’ ” Lampert said.

    Repeated Violations

    The civil complaint, signed by Assistant Attorney General John Craig of the office’s environmental division, states that Holtec did not hire the required asbestos inspector before demolishing a 32-foot water tower in 2021. Asbestos-laced paint on the tower’s exterior was not removed and properly stored, the complaint charges, and it wound up in flakes on the work site and mixed in with metal scraps from the tower.

    The debris was stored on top of open dumpsters in ripped trash bags and left in the work area and a nearby shed, the lawsuit says. It was then taken in three large open-top trailers to a recycling facility in Middleborough that is not licensed to accept such waste. The material, still not labeled as containing asbestos, was stored and processed there and then transferred to the Schnitzer Steel scrap metal facility in Everett.

    Under state regulations, renovation and demolition cannot take place until asbestos is properly removed. The demolition area must be sealed, and filters must be used to prevent asbestos fibers from leaking into the air.

    The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) must be notified 10 days before a demolition if asbestos is present. Typically, the asbestos is soaked so that it doesn’t become airborne, and then it is stored in clearly labeled, sealed containers.

    Holtec did not take any of those precautions, the state charged.

    Turco said she reviewed the videotape of a 2021 NDCAP meeting from around the time the water tower was being demolished. “At the meeting, the public was reassured by Holtec representative Pat O’Brien that ‘abatement’ of asbestos was under control,” Turco said. “They lied then, and they lie now.”

    The second alleged violation in the lawsuit took place in January 2022, when Holtec’s contractor started demolishing the interior concrete walls in a warehouse at the Pilgrim site.

    The survey Holtec submitted to the state failed to note that the walls contained asbestos, and Holtec again did not notify the state 10 days before demolition. The warehouse was not sealed off, and required filters were not installed, allowing unfiltered exhaust to be released in the area. The commingled debris was cleaned up and put in containers without a required emergency waiver from DEP.

    Holtec notified the DEP that asbestos-containing vermiculite had been discovered only after the material was cleaned up and stored, according to the lawsuit. The company’s actions “risked the health of people at and around the work location and increased the likelihood that asbestos was released into the air,” Craig wrote.

    A third alleged violation took place last September, when Holtec failed to check a pipe and gasket for asbestos prior to repair work. The gasket contained 40 percent Chrysotile asbestos, Craig wrote. Again, Holtec had not properly notified DEP or hired an asbestos inspector.

    A Settlement

    A few days after the lawsuit was filed, O’Brien issued a statement on Holtec’s behalf.

    “We continue to focus on a safe, efficient decommissioning of Pilgrim Station,” it said. “We meet regularly with Mass. DEP on our work containing asbestos and ensuring compliance with regulations. We maintain contracts with licensed site professionals and hygienists to ensure compliance. We report any material that is found unexpectedly during work evolutions. We look forward to continuing to make progress on the safe dismantlement of the facility. We have a settlement agreement with the AG regarding these unfortunate incidents and at no time was our work found to be at fault as part of the settlement.”

    Turco was outraged by the claim that Holtec was not at fault.

    “By not admitting guilt and just paying a minimal fine, this nuclear mafia gets away with endangering the public health again and again,” she said.

    Holtec is still in the hot seat for evaporating 200,000 gallons of wastewater from Pilgrim’s reactor systems through the reactor building’s vents — and using submersible heaters to speed up the process. The evaporation of radioactive wastewater continues despite public objections.

    At an NDCAP meeting in late January, the DEP directed Holtec to submit an analysis of contaminants known to be in the wastewater based on sampling done last April and any additional pollutants that may have been released into the water and then evaporated since then.

    Results of that analysis should be available at the NDCAP meeting in late March.

    RADIOACTIVITY

    State Says Holtec Must Report on Chemicals in Vaporized Wastewater

    DEP wants to assess whether Pilgrim releases should require air quality permit

    By

    PLYMOUTH — Holtec International, the company that now owns the shuttered nuclear power station here, has so far not received permission to pursue its initial plan to discharge 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay.

    But while it awaits decisions by state and federal regulators, the company has gotten rid of some 200,000 gallons of that wastewater laced with radioactive and nonradioactive contaminants by placing submerged heaters in the reactor cavity and evaporating it.

    The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), prompted by letters asking about the state’s ability to oversee such discharges, has decided to direct Holtec, which is now decommissioning Pilgrim, to “calculate and submit an analysis” of the potential emission of contaminants known to be in the plant’s wastewater based on sampling last April. DEP asked that Holtec’s analysis factor in any additional pollutants that may have been released in reactor system water since those samples were drawn.

    Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of the Mass. DEP’s Bureau of Air and Waste, told the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) at its Jan. 29 meeting that if any contaminant exceeds the threshold of one ton per year, Holtec would need a state permit to release it under air quality regulations.

    Holtec’s initial plan to release contaminated wastewater stored in the spent fuel pool and other systems at the plant into the bay included treating the water first to bring radioactive contamination levels down within federal limits.

    But in order to pursue that strategy, the company was required to apply for discharge permits from both the DEP and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. DEP issued a draft denial of the state permit in July, saying the discharge would violate the Ocean Sanctuaries Act because Cape Cod Bay has been designated an ocean sanctuary. The agency has not yet made a final decision.

    The EPA is still conducting its review of the federal permit application.

    The evaporation, the company has said, has been incidental to heating the water to keep the building warm for workers and to help shorten drying time for boxes containing irradiated pieces of the reactor after they are removed from the cavity.

    But some NDCAP members, along with activists and area residents, point out that Holtec’s radioactive wastewater problem is quickly vanishing through the reactor building’s unfiltered vents.

    During the advisory panel’s Jan. 29 meeting, its chair, James Lampert, asked how much wastewater was in the plant when Holtec purchased Pilgrim after its 2019 permanent shutdown. David Noyes, Holtec’s senior compliance manager, said there were about 2 million gallons.

    Nearly 1 million gallons of that evaporated before January 2021, Noyes said, due to the heat being generated by the radioactive fuel assemblies stored in the spent fuel pool. Those assemblies have since been moved to large concrete and steel casks.

    It’s not possible to project how long it might take to evaporate the 900,000 gallons now remaining in storage because there are too many variables, according to Noyes.

    Lampert and his wife, Mary, also an NDCAP member, wrote to state officials recently, arguing that the evaporated water, laden with contaminants, ultimately ends up in Cape Cod Bay, carried by prevailing wind and falling in the form of precipitation. If discharging the wastewater into the bay is a violation of the state’s Ocean Sanctuaries Act, then evaporation would also be a violation, the Lamperts wrote.

    When Mary Lampert pointed out during the NDCAP meeting that Holtec had agreed to abide by state laws in the settlement agreement with the attorney general, Noyes said the agreement doesn’t mention the Ocean Sanctuaries Act.

    The agreement simply states “applicable laws,” argued Noyes. To that, Lampert responded, “Well, they weren’t talking about speeding.”

    Pine duBois, an NDCAP member who was formerly the chair, praised Holtec’s practice of heating the reactor building with wastewater. “I applaud your ingenuity in this heating system, and I wish I could do it at my house,” duBois said.

    DuBois went on to say, however, that she preferred Holtec’s option of discharging the water into Cape Cod Bay over evaporation. “I relate your million gallons of water to the 1.7 million gallons a day that Plymouth releases into the bay,” she said, referring to the town’s wastewater. That water, she said, “has all kinds of contaminants in it, including the stuff we’re talking about here.”

    Mary Lampert disagreed. “Saying the bay is already screwed is not an argument for why we should add more,” she said.

    Holtec is meanwhile fighting an unrelated battle in New Jersey, where the company is decommissioning Oyster Creek, another of its nuclear plants.

    New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a statement to the press on Jan. 30, announcing that the state and Holtec had reached a multimillion-dollar settlement following a criminal investigation into the company’s attempt to exploit the state’s tax credit program.

    The investigation involved a 2018 application for $1 million in tax credits that Holtec and its sister company, Singh Real Estate Enterprises, claimed was due to them. Under the settlement, Holtec must pay a $5 million fine and retain an independent reviewer approved by the state for any submissions for state tax credits, loans, or other benefits during the next three years.

    RADIOACTIVITY

    State Says Holtec Must Report on Chemicals in Vaporized Wastewater

    DEP wants to assess whether Pilgrim releases should require air quality permit

    By

    PLYMOUTH — Holtec International, the company that now owns the shuttered nuclear power station here, has so far not received permission to pursue its initial plan to discharge 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay.

    But while it awaits decisions by state and federal regulators, the company has gotten rid of some 200,000 gallons of that wastewater laced with radioactive and nonradioactive contaminants by placing submerged heaters in the reactor cavity and evaporating it.

    The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), prompted by letters asking about the state’s ability to oversee such discharges, has decided to direct Holtec, which is now decommissioning Pilgrim, to “calculate and submit an analysis” of the potential emission of contaminants known to be in the plant’s wastewater based on sampling last April. DEP asked that Holtec’s analysis factor in any additional pollutants that may have been released in reactor system water since those samples were drawn.

    Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of the Mass. DEP’s Bureau of Air and Waste, told the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) at its Jan. 29 meeting that if any contaminant exceeds the threshold of one ton per year, Holtec would need a state permit to release it under air quality regulations.

    Holtec’s initial plan to release contaminated wastewater stored in the spent fuel pool and other systems at the plant into the bay included treating the water first to bring radioactive contamination levels down within federal limits.

    But in order to pursue that strategy, the company was required to apply for discharge permits from both the DEP and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. DEP issued a draft denial of the state permit in July, saying the discharge would violate the Ocean Sanctuaries Act because Cape Cod Bay has been designated an ocean sanctuary. The agency has not yet made a final decision.

    The EPA is still conducting its review of the federal permit application.

    The evaporation, the company has said, has been incidental to heating the water to keep the building warm for workers and to help shorten drying time for boxes containing irradiated pieces of the reactor after they are removed from the cavity.

    But some NDCAP members, along with activists and area residents, point out that Holtec’s radioactive wastewater problem is quickly vanishing through the reactor building’s unfiltered vents.

    During the advisory panel’s Jan. 29 meeting, its chair, James Lampert, asked how much wastewater was in the plant when Holtec purchased Pilgrim after its 2019 permanent shutdown. David Noyes, Holtec’s senior compliance manager, said there were about 2 million gallons.

    Nearly 1 million gallons of that evaporated before January 2021, Noyes said, due to the heat being generated by the radioactive fuel assemblies stored in the spent fuel pool. Those assemblies have since been moved to large concrete and steel casks.

    It’s not possible to project how long it might take to evaporate the 900,000 gallons now remaining in storage because there are too many variables, according to Noyes.

    Lampert and his wife, Mary, also an NDCAP member, wrote to state officials recently, arguing that the evaporated water, laden with contaminants, ultimately ends up in Cape Cod Bay, carried by prevailing wind and falling in the form of precipitation. If discharging the wastewater into the bay is a violation of the state’s Ocean Sanctuaries Act, then evaporation would also be a violation, the Lamperts wrote.

    When Mary Lampert pointed out during the NDCAP meeting that Holtec had agreed to abide by state laws in the settlement agreement with the attorney general, Noyes said the agreement doesn’t mention the Ocean Sanctuaries Act.

    The agreement simply states “applicable laws,” argued Noyes. To that, Lampert responded, “Well, they weren’t talking about speeding.”

    Pine duBois, an NDCAP member who was formerly the chair, praised Holtec’s practice of heating the reactor building with wastewater. “I applaud your ingenuity in this heating system, and I wish I could do it at my house,” duBois said.

    DuBois went on to say, however, that she preferred Holtec’s option of discharging the water into Cape Cod Bay over evaporation. “I relate your million gallons of water to the 1.7 million gallons a day that Plymouth releases into the bay,” she said, referring to the town’s wastewater. That water, she said, “has all kinds of contaminants in it, including the stuff we’re talking about here.”

    Mary Lampert disagreed. “Saying the bay is already screwed is not an argument for why we should add more,” she said.

    Holtec is meanwhile fighting an unrelated battle in New Jersey, where the company is decommissioning Oyster Creek, another of its nuclear plants.

    New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a statement to the press on Jan. 30, announcing that the state and Holtec had reached a multimillion-dollar settlement following a criminal investigation into the company’s attempt to exploit the state’s tax credit program.

    The investigation involved a 2018 application for $1 million in tax credits that Holtec and its sister company, Singh Real Estate Enterprises, claimed was due to them. Under the settlement, Holtec must pay a $5 million fine and retain an independent reviewer approved by the state for any submissions for state tax credits, loans, or other benefits during the next three years.

    RADIOACTIVITY

    Holtec Releases Some Pilgrim Wastewater as Gas

    Officials say amount is small, but watchdogs worry more is planned

    By

    PLYMOUTH — Officials and citizens groups that have spent two years fighting to block Holtec Decommissioning International from dumping 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Pilgrim nuclear plant into Cape Cod Bay learned on Aug. 16 that the company is already releasing some of that water — not into the bay but into the air in the form of gaseous effluent through a vent in the reactor building.

    Holtec and federal officials say the company is releasing only a very small portion of the wastewater as part of its reactor cleanup process.

    But an unsigned letter sent this week from an apparent whistleblower to the state Dept. of Public Health and to Diane Turco, director of the Cape Downwinders, an advocacy group opposing the release, says Holtec plans to “boil away the water volume” using submerged heaters. The use of those heaters, the letter suggests, indicates the company plans larger releases through evaporation.

    “Holtec takes no responsibility for putting dangerous radionuclides into our environment,” Turco said. “The company’s priority is profit. We are acceptable collateral damage.”

    On Tuesday, Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said he was aware of the unsigned letter. “The answer for now is that we are reviewing this, including whether this constitutes an allegation,” Sheehan said. “We would note that we addressed the use of the submersion heaters in our latest inspection report for the Pilgrim nuclear plant,” he added.

    Federal inspectors discovered submerged heaters were being used when they did a routine check of Pilgrim in June. Holtec had not notified the NRC that it had installed immersion heaters in February in the wastewater-filled reactor cavity.

    The purpose, Holtec officials said, was to speed the drying time for waste boxes holding irradiated segments of the reactor’s internal parts when they were removed from the cavity. How much water is evaporated in the process depends on how much residual water is left in each of the waste boxes.

    Neither Holtec nor the NRC could provide information on the amount of wastewater that’s been released in gaseous form.

    The inspectors reviewed documents and interviewed staff to determine whether the process met federal offsite dose standards. In their report, NRC inspectors concluded there was “reasonable justification” for adding submersion heaters, and that the changes had not required NRC approval.

    The Independent provided Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien with a copy of the anonymous letter, but he would not directly answer questions regarding allegations that the company plans large-scale evaporation of the wastewater.

    “The use of heaters to support habitability and solid waste packaging from vessel segmentation was referenced in the most recent NRC inspection report and found to have no issues or violations,” O’Brien said in an email. In addition, O’Brien wrote, “Evaporative releases have occurred since 1972 and are monitored and reported as part of required environmental reporting annually.”

    During Pilgrim’s operation, it was common practice to release hundreds of thousands of gallons annually of gaseous effluent caused by the heat coming off the spent fuel pool where radioactive fuel assemblies were being stored. But since the transfer of the spent fuel rods into concrete casks, the pool no longer generates heat that causes evaporation.

    There is no longer continuous radiation monitoring at the reactor building’s vent, but the filters are sampled weekly or twice a month for the presence of tritium and other radionuclides, Sheehan said. As long as the emissions remain within the federal limits for effluents that are “as low as reasonably achievable,” Holtec can continue to evaporate wastewater with no need to report on it beyond its annual report of effluent releases due next spring.

    James Lampert, a longtime critic of the Plymouth nuclear plant and a member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), is skeptical about the evaporation being limited, given that Sheehan’s comments confirm that “at least some of what has been evaporated is the wastewater that Pilgrim wants to dump,” Lampert said. “He calls it ‘a small portion’ but leaves wide open how big a portion will eventually be evaporated and when.”

    Evaporation of at least some of the million gallons of contaminated wastewater is one of the alternatives to releasing it into Cape Cod Bay, but it is probably not a good choice in terms of public health. At a past meeting of the NDCAP, Jack Priest, a panel member and director of the radiation control program for the state Dept. of Public Health, called both the release into the bay and evaporation “lousy choices.”

    “If you’re evaporating the water, it eventually makes its way to the ground wherever the cloud floats to,” Priest said.

    Holtec has said that evaporation of the 1.1 million gallons of wastewater would not be cost effective, based on the amount of energy it would take to heat the water.

    Mary Lampert, an NDCAP member and president of the Pilgrim Watch citizens group, said that the decommissioning process is new to everyone. “In 2019-2020, we and the state were all focused on the site cleanup and never considered the wastewater issue,” she said. “Then we became immersed in wastewater, and now it’s air emissions.”

    The bottom line, Mary Lampert said, is that “Holtec is monitoring itself and keeping us in the dark about its releases.”

    The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) will hold a hearing at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 24 in Plymouth Town Hall to gather public comment on its recent draft decision to deny Holtec an amendment to its surface discharge permit that the company needs to release the wastewater into the bay. The draft decision is based on the state’s Ocean Sanctuaries Act, which prohibits the release of industrial waste into a designated ocean sanctuary. Cape Cod Bay is so designated.

    Based on the large number of comments submitted on the draft denial, DEP has arranged for a second room to be available at the town hall for those attending the hearing.

    Several towns and environmental organizations on Cape Cod have submitted comments supporting DEP’s draft denial. Both the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates and the county commissioners have approved resolutions supporting the denial and submitted those to the DEP as comments.

    The Save Our Bay coalition has scheduled a rally in front of Plymouth Town Hall for 5 p.m. on Aug. 24.

    OCEAN SANCTUARY

    State Agency Denies Holtec’s Permit Change

    DEP’s draft decision blocks path to nuclear wastewater release for now

    By

    PLYMOUTH — The state Dept. of Environmental Protection issued a draft determination on July 24 denying a permit modification that would have allowed Holtec, the company decommissioning the shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, to release over one million gallons of wastewater into Cape Cod Bay.

    The decision was based on a state law protecting water bodies, including Cape Cod Bay, that are designated “ocean sanctuaries.”

    Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of DEP’s Bureau of Air and Waste, explained the draft decision during Monday’s meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) in Plymouth. “The Ocean Sanctuaries Act prohibits the dumping and discharge of commercial, municipal, domestic, or industrial wastes into ocean sanctuaries,” Pickering said. “The wastewater that the facility proposes to discharge qualifies as industrial wastewater, and therefore discharges are prohibited under the Act.”

    The wastewater, although treated, would still contain both radioactive and nonradioactive contaminants.

    The state Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM), the agency that oversees the Ocean Sanctuaries Act, agreed with DEP’s interpretation of the law. That office’s director, Lisa Berry Engler, sent a letter to the DEP on July 24 citing several sections of the act that would prohibit the release. “CZM’s analysis reaches the same conclusion as MassDEP’s interpretation of the Act in this matter,” Engler wrote.

    Holtec says the battle isn’t over yet. At Monday’s meeting, Holtec’s compliance manager David Noyes said the company intends to look at its options, which include submitting additional information to support its case for the water release and exercising its right to request a public hearing.

    The draft determination requires a 30-day public comment period — through Aug. 28. After considering the comments, DEP can finalize its draft decision.

    “We are disappointed by the state’s denial of our permit modification for discharge of treated water from Pilgrim Station,” Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said in a statement on behalf of the company. He called the water the company wants to release “well within safe limits.”

    “We will continue with the EPA modification process,” O’Brien wrote. That means the company is preparing for the DEP’s decision to fall through: a permit modification would need to be approved federally by the Environmental Protection Agency, but DEP approval on a change to the surface water discharge permit would have to come first.

    O’Brien took the position that the permitting process has slowed economic development at the site. His statement continued: “This process has already delayed the completion of the project for an additional four years, impacted the workforce on site and further changes when the site can be returned to be an economic driver for the Plymouth Community.”

    An Example for Others

    DEP’s draft decision comes 18 months after Holtec announced its plan to release the water into the bay, triggering objections from the public, federal and state legislators for the region, local officials, and the fishing and tourism industries.

    Diane Turco, president of the Cape Downwinders, which is now part of a coalition called Save Our Bay, praised Gov. Maura Healey and her administration in an interview after the July 24 decision was announced. “I look forward to keeping this going to seal the deal to halt Holtec,” Turco said. “Then we can be an example for communities across the country that are going to have to fight Holtec over this same issue.”

    Holtec is currently decommissioning the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey, where it has released wastewater, and the Indian Point plant in New York, where officials and others are opposed to a release of water into the Hudson River.

    Healey, while she was the state attorney general, was instrumental in crafting an agreement requiring Holtec to obey state laws. “I’m glad to see this tentative decision from MassDEP,” Healey wrote in a statement. She said that her administration will continue to monitor Holtec’s role in the decommissioning at Pilgrim.

    U.S. Sen. Edward Markey also issued a statement calling the MassDEP decision a win “for the environment and for all of the people, businesses, and organizations that rely on Cape Cod Bay’s reputation for clean and safe water.”

    “The denial of Holtec’s permit modification is an incredibly meaningful win for the countless Cape and Islands advocates who have long worked to block the discharge of radioactive wastewater into our bay,” said State Sen. Julian Cyr in a statement to the Independent.

    Gray Areas?

    NDCAP member James Lampert said the public certainly didn’t anticipate it would take 18 months for DEP to issue a draft decision, and he wondered how long it might take the agency to finalize its draft.

    Pickering would not make a prediction about that. The 30-day public comment period could be extended at the request of Holtec or those who have submitted comments, “if the department determines that such an extension would be in the public interest,” Pickering said.

    Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod and an NDCAP member, said he hopes the draft decision will allow the panel and the public to move on to other important matters related to the decommissioning of the Plymouth nuclear plant.

    When the plant was producing electricity, its periodic releases of wastewater into the bay were allowed under an exemption in the Ocean Sanctuaries Act. Now that the plant has been shut down, that exemption no longer applies.

    “It changes the applicability of the Act entirely, and as a result we don’t need to any longer get into the mind-numbing conversations about what level of tritium is okay, what’s happening at Fukushima, and who thinks it’s okay and who doesn’t,” Gottlieb said during Monday’s meeting.

    “The plain black-letter reading of the law is that a new discharge from a point source into an ocean sanctuary, of which Cape Cod Bay is one, is prohibited,” Gottlieb said. “End of conversation.”

    Noyes responded that the DEP’s decision is not final. “There is nothing in this that’s black and white legal until we get through the process,” he said.

    If the denial is finalized, Holtec will have the option of appealing it in Superior Court.

    Public comments on the DEP’s draft decision should be sent to: [email protected]. Comments may also be mailed to Cathy Coniaris, MassDEP’s Surface Water Discharge Program, 100 Cambridge St., Boston, MA 02114.

    PILGRIM UPDATE

    Pilgrim Water Must Go to Colorado for Testing

    By

    PLYMOUTH — The state has still not tested samples of untreated water from the spent fuel pool and other areas of the former Pilgrim nuclear plant, members of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel learned at their Jan. 23 meeting.

    Seth Pickering, the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) representative on the panel, said sampling had not yet been done because none of the laboratories contracted by his agency could handle the contaminated water. The agency planned to ship the samples to Eurofins Scientific’s testing laboratories in Colorado, he said.

    Pickering said that the sampling procedure could now continue as planned, with representatives from DEP and the Dept. of Public Health present. Both agencies will still be provided with some water from the samples. DPH will test it for the presence of radionuclides. DEP will test for the presence of nonradioactive contaminants that are prohibited under the current discharge permit.

    David Noyes, Holtec’s senior compliance manager, told the panel in November that the company plans to file an application for a modification to its current discharge permit at the end of the first quarter of 2023. Noyes said at the time that the company would not proceed with any release of radioactive wastewater while the permit modification is underway.

    That reassurance came after the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to Holtec President Kelly Trice in December saying the discharge permit didn’t allow the water to be released into Cape Cod Bay and that any violations could result in fines and even imprisonment.

    “We recognize the authority of the EPA,” Noyes said at that time.

    That permit modification will trigger an extensive review, Pickering said, involving state and federal agencies.

    During a short public comment period, Joanne Corrigan, who lives close to the Pilgrim plant, pointed out that none of the two million gallons of wastewater at Vermont Yankee, which is being decommissioned by NorthStar, went into the Connecticut River. “Vermont might be a bunch of pot-smoking tree-huggers,” she said, “but they had enough sense to give the legislature the final say on what went on at the plant.” The water was hauled offsite to a disposal facility.

    WATER QUALITY

    Major Septic System Rule Changes May Be Ahead

    Systems near ponds and bays would need upgrades

    By

    WELLFLEET — The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is proposing major changes to Title 5 that, if adopted, could force home owners near sensitive bodies of water to upgrade their septic systems with nitrogen-reducing technology at their own expense or require towns to adopt nitrogen-reduction systems at taxpayer expense.

    “It is a huge deal,” said Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Dennis-based Association to Preserve Cape Cod. “It finally gets to the core of the problem — that the standard Title 5 systems are the source of our problem.”

    Septic systems are responsible for 82 percent of the nitrogen-polluted wastewater entering Cape Cod estuaries, according to a 2017 study by the Mass. Estuaries Project.

    The proposed changes would create designated nitrogen sensitive areas (NSAs) wherever there exists “any watershed to an embayment or sub-embayment that is the subject of a nitrogen Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL),” according to a fact sheet released by the DEP on June 1. A TMDL establishes the total amount of nitrogen that is allowed in a body of water before it fails to meet EPA-defined water quality standards.

    For years, towns have been slowly working to come up with plans for reducing nitrogen pollution. A 2011 lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation, which sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency for inaction on pollution on the Cape, has not done much to help. In 2015, the Cape Cod Commission’s revised water management plan imposed legal requirements for each town, according to the Conservation Law Foundation.

    Many Cape towns are now closer to executing nitrogen-reduction plans, but the proposed changes in the DEP rules would be real motivation to get the job done, Gottlieb said. Towns that have DEP-approved watershed permits can be exempted from new Title 5 septic system requirements.

    Wellfleet’s Watershed Plan

    The Wellfleet Select Board submitted the final draft of the town’s targeted watershed plan at its June 23 meeting. Four representatives of the DEP were present at the meeting, including Commissioner Martin Suuberg.

    The plan will now be reviewed by the DEP and the Cape Cod Commission, and there will be a public comment period.

    “I wish we had some fireworks going off,” said Chair Ryan Curley of the select board. “Just getting this far represents the culmination of 12 years of work.”

    There are currently 30 watersheds on the Cape with EPA-approved nitrogen TMDLs. A draft TMDL for Wellfleet Harbor will soon be issued for public comment by the DEP.

    “We ultimately have the responsibility to ensure that concrete actions are taken in a timely way to address nitrogen contamination and ensure that critical water resources meet water quality standards,” said Suuberg.

    One proposed change to Title 5 would require any septic system within an NSA to be updated to include the “best available nitrogen-reducing technology” within five years of the NSA designation. The technology referred to is an alternative type of septic system certified by the DEP.

    Towns with watershed permits will not need to replace all the septic systems within their NSAs. They will be given the opportunity to address water quality through other innovative approaches.

    The watershed permit option “gives almost all the control to the towns,” said Gottlieb. “Watershed permits can be scaled and modified to meet the needs of individual towns. It gives us the ability to provide meaningful relief to our individual residents, and not impose septic burden upgrades on them.”

    The watershed permit requires towns to monitor and report results of implemented strategies over a 20-year period. If those strategies do not meet nitrogen mitigation requirements, the towns must modify their plans.

    Wellfleet’s draft plan includes strategies for reducing nitrogen in nine vulnerable sub-watersheds. Those strategies are consistent with the Cape’s 208 Plan, which was approved in 2015 to comply with the Clean Water Act.

    Scott Horsley, a water resources consultant, presented two approaches for watershed management in Wellfleet’s plan at the June 23 meeting.

    The first “hybrid” approach incorporates a variety of methods that would function throughout the town to reduce nitrogen pollution. They include installation of enhanced innovative and alternative septic systems and permeable reactive barriers, fertilizer mitigation, stormwater reduction, ecological restoration of Herring River and Mayo Creek, consideration of aquaculture and its natural ability to reduce nitrogen loads, and construction of a centralized sewage system that includes a collection and treatment plant at a location still to be determined.

    In this approach, centralized sewering would encompass the affordable housing project at 95 Lawrence Road as well as the Harborside Trailer Park and a small portion of the town in the developed areas of Duck Creek and the Cove. The estimated cost of this hybrid approach is $106.6 million.

    A second approach, referred to as “traditional,” incorporates innovative and alternative septic systems and construction of a centralized sewage system with a collection and treatment plant.

    In this approach, centralized sewering would encompass 95 Lawrence Road, the Harborside Trailer Park, and a larger portion of the town in the areas of Duck Creek, the Cove, Drummer Cove and Blackfish Creek, Wellfleet Harbor, and Loagy Bay. The estimated cost of the “traditional” approach is $237.5 million.

    “By having a balanced plan with a lot of different technologies, the town is extremely well served,” said Curt Felix, chair of the Wellfleet Clean Water Advisory Committee.

    The Cape Cod Commission will review Wellfleet’s draft watershed plan to ensure consistency with the 208 Plan. Public feedback will be sought.

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