PLYMOUTH — An Environmental Protection Agency official criticized Holtec International last week for misleading the public about its proposed dumping of radioactive water from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into Cape Cod Bay.
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station
RADIOACTIVITY
Attorney General Says Permits Forbid Release of Reactor Water
The company argues against the alternatives to ‘overboarding’
PLYMOUTH — The Mass. attorney general’s office has doubled down on a recent statement saying that Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s permits prohibit the release of radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
The news that the plant is on Attorney General Maura Healey’s radar brought some relief to opponents. But those who are determined to stop Pilgrim’s owner from dumping a million gallons of contaminated water into the bay remain wary.
Holtec International, the company that owns Pilgrim and is decommissioning it, said last fall that there are three options for getting rid of the water from the spent fuel pool and other systems: “overboarding” it, which means releasing it into the bay; shipping it to a disposal facility; or evaporating it, which entails its dispersal into the clouds and eventual return in the form of precipitation.
Healey’s office issued a statement on Feb. 2 saying that Pilgrim’s permits prohibit the discharge of spent fuel pool water and wastewater into Cape Cod Bay, and the attorney general expected Holtec to “abide by those rules.”
Further information provided by Healey’s office to the Independent this week elaborated on its earlier statement. The office cited the water discharge permit for the plant, issued by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January 2020, as the basis for its conclusion that release of contaminated water into the bay during decommissioning was not allowed.
“Our office will take any violation of Holtec’s permits seriously — especially one that could pose a threat to public health and safety,” said Chloe Gotsis, Healey’s spokeswoman. “We are continuing to coordinate with our state agencies to monitor this and are prepared to take action if needed.”
The federal Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a wide array of pollutants into waterways unless authorized by a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. But radionuclides are not on the statute’s list of pollutants, nor are they in the plant’s discharge permit. Those are under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has historically allowed such releases into waterways by nuclear plants.
The DEP and EPA have the power to prohibit the release of the water based on the presence of pollutants other than radionuclides. But the water has yet to be tested and its components identified.
“If this option were to proceed to the next step, scientists and regulators would need to have more detailed information about what exactly would be contained in the discharge,” said Richard Delaney, former executive director and now senior adviser to the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. The bay and coastal waters are already affected by a wide array of pollution ranging from excessive nitrogen to other chemicals like PFAS, Delaney said. “To add another accumulated insult to the Cape Cod Bay ecosystem makes no sense at all,” he said.
The fishing communities both on and off Cape Cod have been loudly protesting any release of radioactive water into the bay, saying it will have a devastating effect on the industry.
Mark DeCristoforo, executive director of the Mass. Seafood Collaborative, said his organization was “appreciative” of the attorney general’s statement, but added, “We need more.”
“Holtec has dug their heels in on this, based on every public statement the company has made,” DeCristoforo said. “It’s important for the legislature to pass one of the two bills now in committee and for the governor to sign it.”
Emergency bills prohibiting the release of radioactive water into any of the state’s waterways have been submitted by the region’s legislators. Their provisions carry fines for violators. It’s not the fines that might cause Holtec to think twice, DeCristoforo said, it’s the negative press a violation would generate.
Legislators, environmental activists, and the general public all oppose the plan to release the water, said Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. His organization will focus on the ways the state can legally block the option.
“How do we get in Holtec’s way, and how do we get the NRC out of the way?” Gottlieb asked.
Public reaction has had some effect, said Gottlieb. Facing protests, Holtec backpedaled, saying it would not release any water into the bay in 2022 while it studied all its options.
But after this year, the release of the water into the bay still appears to be the company’s top choice. Kelly Trice, president of Holtec Decommissioning International, has argued against the alternatives, citing in a recent open letter the potential for accidents in trucking the water away. And evaporation, he said, would require large quantities of electricity and possibly the use of a diesel generator to produce heat.
DeCristoforo said even smaller entities like local governments can help stop Holtec’s plan by implementing their own ordinances, which is being considered in Duxbury.
Holtec should be thinking long-term, because it has acquired several reactors and will be decommissioning all of them, said Gottlieb.
“They are going to run into this every place they are decommissioning, so it would behoove them to set a standard here that they can replicate elsewhere to avoid this kind of conflict,” he said.
RADIOACTIVE QUESTIONS
Attorney General: Dumping Pilgrim Water Is Prohibited
The water has not yet been tested for possible contaminants
Editor’s note: After this week’s Independent went to press, Mass. Attorney General Maura Healey’s office issued a statement about the release of radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay. The report below has been updated to include that late-breaking development.
PLYMOUTH — No one knows yet which radionuclides and other contaminants are in the million gallons of radioactive water that Holtec International has proposed dumping into Cape Cod Bay in decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
That lack of knowledge seemed to make it impossible for state and federal health and water quality agencies to say what authority they might have to prevent the release.
But on Wednesday, Feb. 2 at 4 p.m., a statement from state Attorney General Maura Healey’s office said release of the water was prohibited.
“The facility’s permits prohibit the discharge of spent fuel pool water and wastewater generated by the decommissioning process into Cape Cod Bay and we expect Holtec to abide by those rules,” said Chloe Gotsis on behalf of Healey. “Our office will continue to coordinate with state agencies to ensure that public health, safety, and the environment are protected during ongoing activities at Pilgrim.”
Before Gotsis’s statement, discussion of who would have authority over the proposed dumping focused on potential contaminants other than radioactivity in the water. The water has not yet been tested because some of it is still being used as “shielding.” Highly radioactive reactor components are kept under water while they are being segmented and put into containers to protect workers.
More than 100 people tuned in to a remote Jan. 31 meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP). Most were hoping for some assurance that there would be no release of radioactive water into the bay.
There was no such assurance at the meeting.
The NDCAP comprises representatives of state agencies, local officials, and a handful of citizens. Its job is to help oversee decommissioning: keeping the public informed and offering advice on how the job should be done.
The panel learned at its last meeting in November that Holtec International, which owns and is decommissioning Pilgrim, was considering a few options for getting rid of 1 million gallons of radioactive water from the spent fuel pool, the reactor cavity, and other plant systems.
Releasing the water into Cape Cod Bay in batches of 20,000 gallons is one option. Others include evaporation — where it goes up into the clouds and comes back down in the rain — and trucking it offsite to a disposal facility.
When news of the potential dumping became public, protests led Holtec to pledge not to release any of the water into the bay in 2022.
The fishing community has been vocal in its opposition.
“The livelihood of so many, providing nourishment to so many more, might forever be lost,” said Mark Cristoforo, executive director of the Mass. Seafood Collaborative, during a “speak out” event before the NDCAP meeting. Fishermen’s livelihoods would be “sacrificed on the altars of greed,” he said.
State Sen. Susan Moran, a Falmouth Democrat who is leading a legislative effort to block the dumping, said legislators had met with state officials to discuss what could be done. They plan to meet again in March.
The state attorney general and Holtec signed an agreement in 2020 with a long list of requirements. But it’s not clear whether the agreement gives the state authority to regulate the release of the water.
Legislators have also filed emergency bills in both the state House and Senate to prohibit the discharge of radioactive material into coastal or inland waters. Violators would face “steep fines,” Moran said.
“We will never allow the dumping of radioactive material in Cape Cod Bay,” she said.
Jack Priest, director of the radiation control program for the Dept. of Public Health and an NDCAP member, expressed frustration over the lack of information.
“It would be useful to have more facts,” he said. “We haven’t even seen what’s in the water. Are there other contaminants?”
The state’s water discharge permit for the nuclear plant, called the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, regulates an array of contaminants. The state Dept. of Environmental Protection and federal EPA can stop the release of the water into the bay if it contains contamination levels that exceed those allowed in the permit. But the permit does not regulate radioactive contamination, which is under the authority of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Priest also complained that Holtec seems to have dismissed the option of trucking the water to a disposal location.
“If you’re evaporating the water filtered from the stack, it eventually makes its way to the ground wherever the cloud floats to,” he said. “Or you’re doing a liquid dump into the bay. Both are lousy choices.”
David Noyes, senior compliance manager for a Holtec affiliate, assured Priest that trucking remains on the table.
But it’s been made clear by Holtec Decommissioning International’s president Kelly Trice that the company strongly favors discharging the water into the bay.
In a public statement last week, Trice cited the potential for accident inherent in trucking the water to a disposal facility. Evaporation, he said, would require large quantities of electricity and possibly the use of a diesel generator to produce heat. While hundreds of thousands of gallons of effluent have been evaporated over the last couple of years, the heat source was the pool where the spent fuel assemblies from nearly five decades of operation were stored. That fuel has been moved into massive steel and concrete casks.
Mary Lampert, an NDCAP member and director of an activist group called Pilgrim Watch, questioned Holtec’s safety concerns related to trucking. “Holtec wishes to have an interim waste storage site and have spent fuel trucked from all over the country, and they have no problem with transportation,” she said. Holtec expects to have a license for its planned storage facility in New Mexico approved by the NRC sometime this month.
Lampert tried to have NDCAP resume a monthly meeting schedule rather than every two months, but she failed to get her motion seconded. The next meeting will be at the end of March.
The NRC is scheduled to attend that meeting. NDCAP co-chair Pine duBois said a representative from the EPA would also attend. Lampert said Seth Schofield, senior appellate counsel for the attorney general, should be invited. Schofield was instrumental in hammering out the settlement agreement with Holtec. Lampert said Schofield could clarify “what specific authority the state has.”
Another panel member suggested asking a scientist from Woods Hole to attend, citing comments senior scientist and oceanographer Irina Rypina made in the Independent last week. Rypina said that contaminated water would be trapped in the bay rather than filtering quickly into the ocean because the shape of the land creates a semi-enclosed space. “A tracer released into Cape Cod Bay would recirculate and stay in the waters within the bay for a long time,” Rypina said. “And then will likely end up in the sediment on the ocean floor or on the beaches inside the bay.” The same thing would happen to the radionuclides in the water released from Pilgrim, she said.
PILGRIM WASTE
Shape of Bay Means Poisons Would Linger
Activists, legislators look to stop release of radioactive water from closed reactor
PLYMOUTH — Cape Cod Bay is not a good place to dump one million gallons of radioactive effluent from systems at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, according to an expert on ocean currents at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The contaminated water would be trapped there rather than filtering quickly into the ocean.
The shape of the land creates a semi-enclosed space. “Whatever is put in the bay would stay there a long time,” said senior scientist and oceanographer Irina Rypina. “It wouldn’t flush out quickly.
“A tracer released into Cape Cod Bay would recirculate and stay in the waters within the bay for a long time,” Rypina continued, “and then will likely end up in the sediment on the ocean floor or on the beaches inside the bay.”
The same thing would happen to the radionuclides in the released water, said Rypina, confirming the fears of the Cape’s fishing community and coastal property owners.
Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station permanently shut down in May 2019 and was purchased by Holtec International, the private company now decommissioning it. After a plan to consider release of the radioactive water from Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool, reactor cavity, and other systems into the bay caused a public outcry, Holtec announced it had put the decision on hold for 2022.
This week one legislator launched his own pre-emptive attack.
State Rep. Josh Cutler, a Democrat from Duxbury, filed an emergency bill that prohibits the discharge of “any solid or liquid radioactive material directly or indirectly in any coastal or inland waters.” Violators would be fined $5,500 for a first offense and up to $15,000 for each subsequent offense.
The bill would also hold Holtec liable for any damages incurred by a discharge of the radioactive water, both to private citizens and the state.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens’ Advisory Panel, a group of citizens and state agency representatives offering advice on Pilgrim’s decommissioning, learned at its November meeting that Holtec saw “overboarding” the nuclear waste as an option. Panel member Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of the state Dept. of Environmental Protection, said the release of the effluent would be under the authority of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission rather than the state.
The state’s water discharge permit for the nuclear plant, called the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, regulates a whole array of contaminants, which will be looked at prior to any release, but not radionuclides, Pickering said.
Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch and an advisory panel member, believes the state isn’t powerless. Holtec wants the state and the community to believe they have no authority, Lampert said in a phone interview. “We have to take away the myth that you can’t do anything,” Lampert said. “The big issue is for the state to exercise the authority it has and stop hiding behind ‘the NRC controls all factors to do with nuclear.’ ”
Lampert and her husband, Jim, an attorney, plan to submit a statement to the advisory panel at its Jan. 31 meeting that includes a half dozen ways the state can exert its authority to stop any dumping of radioactive water into the bay. The Lamperts cite past court rulings that establish that the federal laws regulating the nuclear industry do not preempt state laws regarding the health and safety of citizens.
The Lamperts also point to provisions in the settlement agreement hammered out between the Baker administration and Holtec in 2020, in which Holtec agreed to “comply with all applicable environmental and human-health based standards and regulations of the Commonwealth.”
State Agreements
A total of 37 states, including Massachusetts, have agreements with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that allow them to oversee the use of nuclear materials within their borders that would otherwise be under the oversight of the federal agency. But the agreements are limited, according to an NRC spokesman.
“Agreement States do not take on responsibility for activities at power and research reactors that, under the Atomic Energy Act, are under the jurisdiction of the NRC,” said Neil Sheehan. That is why, he said, “the NRC remains responsible for overseeing any discharge of radioactive effluents from a nuclear plant.”
Vermont officials took a different approach for discharges at Vermont Yankee, forging the state’s own agreement with plant owner Entergy Corp. and prohibiting release of radioactive effluent into the Connecticut River. Vermont Yankee shut down in late 2014 and NorthStar Group Services purchased it from Entergy in 2019.
NorthStar was aware of the agreement with Entergy on plant effluent and has continued to comply with it, according to a company spokesman. NorthStar shipped about two million gallons of radioactive water off site last year to disposal facilities in Tennessee and Idaho.
What’s in the Water?
Woods Hole senior scientist Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist, said, “Until we have an accounting of what different radioactive elements will be released and their concentrations, the impact of one million gallons is impossible to evaluate.” What’s needed are the actual values, by isotope, detection limit, and volume, for the stored water today, not the amounts after the required dilution before the release.
“Radioactive contaminants have vastly different fates in the ocean depending on their chemical nature,” Buesseler wrote in an email. “Some dilute and mix and are transported the same as the water (like tritium), others are more likely to be associated with marine sediments (like cobalt-60) and others accumulate in marine biota (usually cesium isotopes and strontium-90 are of concern).”
Yvonne Barocas of Wellfleet voiced a perspective expressed by many residents on Cape Cod. “The entire list of potential hazards from dumping water with radioactive waste is dismal — harm to our sea life that we work so hard to protect, economic damage to our shellfishermen’s livelihoods, and health hazards in our environment,” Barocas said.
Legislators Mobilize
The region’s legislators at all levels are applying pressure on Holtec. Congressmen Bill Keating and Seth Moulton and Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Kelly Trice, president of Holtec Decommissioning International, saying the proposed discharge “would only further burden the community surrounding Pilgrim, which has already borne the negative environmental impacts of the nuclear plant for more than 40 years.”
On the Cape, the County Commissioners and Assembly of Delegates wrote to Gov. Baker and the region’s legislators, urging them to act to protect the public and economic health of the Cape.
In its letter, Wellfleet’s select board wrote: “From a human health perspective, the potential for bioaccumulation of radiation in shellfish and finfish that are used as food sources is of great concern to us. These health concerns also translate into potential threats to our coastal economy, with ramifications for our commercial fisheries and the many businesses that rely on tourism dollars.” Just the perception that shellfish from here could be “somehow tainted” will significantly affect the livelihoods of the fishing community, the select board wrote.
Senators Cyr and Moran and Rep. Sarah Peake plan to meet on Jan. 28 with representatives from the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Dept. of Public Health, and the Attorney General’s Office to discuss the situation.
Cyr plans to “get confirmation concerning the status of the environmental monitoring program.” Under the agreement between Holtec and the state, money provided by Holtec to the Dept. of Public Health for monitoring food crops, milk, sediments, fish, and shellfish for levels of radioactivity will drop dramatically now that all the spent fuel is stored in dry casks. Payments to DPH were over $500,000 for 2021, but will drop to $250,000 in 2023. Cyr questioned whether that latter amount would be adequate.
Cyr said he was aware the practice of releasing radioactive water into the bay had been ongoing during the plant’s operation. “I fear we may be limited in what we can do as a state, given the NRC oversees decommissioning, and this is why I have pushed so hard for monitoring,” he said.
Public Input
“Citizens Speak Out to Save the Bay” has been set for 5 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 31 at Plymouth Town Hall, organized by the Cape Downwinders, Pilgrim Watch, and the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters. Sen. Markey and Rep. Keating plan to send video statements that will be played. Other speakers include Mark DeCristoforo, executive director of the Mass. Seafood Collaborative; Beth Casoni, executive director of the Mass. Lobstermen’s Association; state Sen. Susan Moran; other legislators; and representatives from several environmental organizations. The advisory panel’s meeting was slated for 6:30 p.m. in the same meeting room, but will now be held via Zoom. The meeting room at the town hall will be set up so that those at the rally can participate in the Zoom meeting, according to Cape Downwinder President Diane Turco.
PILGRIM NUCLEAR
Fishing Community Raises Alarm on Radioactive Water
Releases into Cape Cod Bay began as early as 2011, NRC documents show
PLYMOUTH — The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station had slowly drifted out of the public’s consciousness in the years since the troubled reactor’s final shutdown in 2019. But the region’s residents were recently jolted back to a state of vigilance by the news that Holtec International, the company decommissioning the Plymouth plant, might release one million gallons of radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
It turns out that’s been going on for years. A document provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) indicated Pilgrim operators have already released over 720,000 gallons into Cape Cod Bay in batches in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017.
Public outcry prompted a temporary reprieve on proposed new releases when Holtec, on Dec. 6, pledged not to release any radioactive water into the bay during 2022. The company will be using the year to consider its options and conduct outreach to the public.
Cape Cod’s fishing and shellfishing communities, and other watchdog groups, are mobilizing to do the same.
Shellfishermen Speak Out
At last week’s meeting of the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners, member Mark Forest said he has heard a tremendous outcry from shellfishermen across the Cape regarding a possible release of radioactive water. “It’s just outrageous what’s being discussed, and Barnstable County should get on the record,” Forest said.
Wellfleet shellfisherman Jake Puffer called it “shocking” to hear the option was even being considered. “Every organization that has a stake in the bay would be against it,” Puffer said. “I don’t understand how this wouldn’t be a hard ‘no’ from anybody who oversees the bay.”
Countywide, 265 growers landed around 26 million oysters with a value of $14.5 million in 2018, according to the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension website. Wellfleet was the top producer on the Cape that year, landing 10.74 million oysters, valued at $5.75 million, according to the state’s Div. of Marine Fisheries.
“A mere pause is not sufficient,” wrote Mark DeCristoforo, executive director of the Mass. Seafood Collaborative, in a letter to Holtec that called for the option of releasing the radioactive water to be eliminated altogether.
Limits and Options
The NRC sets limits on how much radiation a nuclear plant’s effluent can contain when it is released into a body like Cape Cod Bay, with the plant owners themselves doing the monitoring, according to NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
The radioactive water goes through a treatment system, sits in storage tanks, and then gets released in batches of 20,000 gallons — the idea being to keep the contamination below federal limits. But Mary Lampert, director of the Pilgrim Watch group who also sits on the citizens’ advisory panel for the decommissioning process, is worried.
“Where the water is coming from is something to be concerned about” with the current batch, Lampert said. About a third of the contaminated water would come from a massive pool where radioactive spent fuel rods were stored during the plant’s 46 years of operation. Another third is from the reactor cavity, which had been flooded so that the highly radioactive reactor could be dismantled underwater. The rest would come from other plant systems.
There are other ways of disposing of radioactive water, include trucking it offsite for disposal elsewhere and eliminating some of it through an evaporation system, according to Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “In this case, there are options,” Lyman said. “It’s a deliberate choice to discharge this water rather than packaging it and shipping it.”
Lampert is not optimistic. She believes Holtec will push to release the radioactive water because that’s what the NRC will allow — even if that is not the safest option.
Diane Turco, director of the Cape Downwinders, is urging the public to contact the region’s legislative delegation and to attend the meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 24 in Plymouth Town Hall. Citizen groups have planned a “speak out” beforehand, starting at 5:30 p.m.
Lampert said she will move at the start of the meeting to focus the evening solely on what is going to happen to Pilgrim’s radioactive water. She hopes the fishing community will attend and speak out against dumping the water into the bay. She thinks property owners, businesspeople, and regional legislators will also get involved.
“Do you really want to have radioactive water coming up on your beach?” Lampert said.
State Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown said in a statement that the region’s legislators are “collectively concerned” about environmental impacts to Cape Cod Bay and “its fragile and important ecosystem.” The delegation has asked to meet with representatives from the attorney general’s office, the Dept. of Public Health, and the Dept. of Environmental Protection “to discuss next steps and to collectively advocate for our constituents.”
‘Barney Fife’ Level Security
The radioactive water isn’t the only concern of plant watchdogs. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that oversees government functions, has called the hot and highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear reactors one of the most hazardous substances ever created by humans.
Pilgrim’s 4,000 spent fuel assemblies are now stored in 62 steel-and-concrete dry casks that sit on a cement pad in plain view from Rocky Hill Road in Plymouth. A low wall and chain-link fence provide the only barriers.
Meanwhile, Holtec is reducing the number of personnel at the plant. Spokesman Patrick O’Brien said there are currently 140 employees, but the company will reduce that to 60 on Jan. 6.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who was formerly the longtime director of nuclear safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists and now sits on the board overseeing the decommissioning of the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York, is concerned about the ways plants reduce security once they are shut down.
At that point, Lochbaum said, “the NRC scales back to not quite ‘Barney Fife’ level” — referring to the fictional small-town deputy sheriff in the 1960s television program The Andy Griffith Show.
Lampert agreed with Lochbaum’s suggestion that the casks should be encased in earth berms, a protection method used at other storage sites. Most plant owners won’t voluntarily install the earth berms as long as federal regulators don’t make it a requirement, Lochbaum said.
DECOMMISSIONING
Radioactive Water Could Be Dumped in Bay
Pilgrim’s owner considers how to dispose of a million gallons
PLYMOUTH — The Pilgrim nuclear station here, the only nuclear power plant left in Massachusetts — and among the worst performers in the country in its final years — was shut down in 2019 after generating electricity for nearly half a century. Cleaning up the radioactive fuel and waste left behind could take another half century. The plant’s new owner, Holtec Decommissioning International, has 60 years to do the job, though it is aiming to finish the work in eight.
One of the next steps could be releasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
Removing all of the highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies accumulated since the plant went online is a top-priority step Holtec plans to complete by Dec. 10. Working by remote control, technicians are now loading the assemblies into huge dry steel canisters set into concrete casks, both made by Holtec.
Some 4,000 fuel assemblies — bundles of rods packed with uranium pellets — piled up in the 40-foot-deep spent-fuel pool. This is nearly five times more than it was designed to hold, because the Dept. of Energy did not come through with the nuclear waste removal program it had promised.
There are 340,000 gallons of radioactive water in that pool. Releasing the water into Cape Cod Bay may be the company’s next step, according to Seth Pickering, a deputy regional director for the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection.
Pickering is a member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP), the state board that is reviewing the decommissioning of the nuclear plant. The NDCAP meets every two months. Pickering raised the subject at the group’s Nov. 22 meeting.
There is even more water Holtec needs to dispose of — some one million gallons of it, said Company spokesman Patrick O’Brien. For example, when the reactor was set to be dismantled, the cavity around it was flooded so the work could be done under water. That radioactive water is part of the total.
O’Brien said in a phone interview that “overboarding” the wastewater — that is, disposing of it in a nearby body of water — is one of a few options the company has. It will take another six months to a year, he added, for serious consideration of those options.
Some of the water, after filtering, can be disposed of through an evaporation process. “We have evaporated a large quantity since we started the fuel campaign,” O’Brien said.
Before overboarding it, O’Brien said, “the water would be tested, and we would look for what’s allowable. I know some might be irradiated, but that would be at a very low level.”
At the Nov. 22 meeting, Pickering pointed out that radioactive substances are not listed on the pollutant discharge permit issued to Pilgrim under the federal Clean Water Act and overseen by state and federal agencies.
That means the decision on whether radioactive effluent can be released into Cape Cod Bay would be left entirely to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal agency that oversees nuclear reactors. The NRC sets acceptable levels of radioactivity.
Dumping the water is “alarming when we look at the fragility of Cape Cod Bay,” said state Sen. Susan Moran of Falmouth. “I hope there is a long vetting to this plan and complete outreach to the public. And the other options, like trucking, storage, and evaporation, are things the community is entitled to hear all the risks for.”
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Neil Sheehan, said in an email that federal regulatory limits for liquid effluent releases from the plant are .06 millirems for the whole human body and .2 millirems for any organ, per month. “To put that into perspective, the average American is exposed to about 620 millirems of radioactivity each year from natural and manmade sources,” Sheehan wrote.
“Most plants perform liquid radioactive effluent releases,” Sheehan said. To achieve what he called the “very conservatively set limits” in federal regulations, there can be batch releases whose radionuclide concentrations have been measured after the liquid is treated by a radioactive waste cleanup system.
During the NDCAP meeting, Pickering said that if the water is released into the bay, it would be done in 20,000-gallon batches.
During the meeting, Duxbury activist and NDCAP member Mary Lampert asked how tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, would be handled. Tritium is not cleaned up by the resin filtering systems used to treat radioactive wastewater, Lampert said.
Jack Priest, a panel member and director of the radiation control program for the state Dept. of Public Health, agreed with Lampert. “I’m unaware of a filtering mechanism for tritium,” Priest said.
“We will look for concentrations of nuclides [referring to a substance’s nuclear properties] and chemicals in the water,” said John Moylan, a panel member and the Pilgrim’s site vice president. “That will drive processes for cleaning the water up and disposing of it.”
“We are going to see what the plan actually ends up being,” Pickering said. “We will have to see what would be included in the discharge and go from there.” The state agencies will have some ability to regulate any pollutants that do fall under the Clean Water Act, he said.
State Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown called any plan to discharge radioactive substances into the bay “a terrible idea.”
“I hope our friends at the Conservation Law Foundation will bring suit with the same zeal that they have against municipalities over wastewater issues,” Peake said. The organization currently has suits against Barnstable and Mashpee.
Diane Turco, founder and director of the Cape Downwinders, a watchdog group, called any plan to discharge the water into the bay “beyond negligent and irresponsible.”
“Cheap and fast is the Holtec business model,” Turco said via email after the meeting. “Public and environmental health and safety is not a Holtec priority.”
During a phone interview, Lampert agreed. “Whether they do the right thing will depend on public protest,” she said. “They need to follow the example of Vermont Yankee and truck it off site to a place suitable to store it.” Effluent from the Yankee plant was trucked to an Idaho facility for storage.
State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro filed provisions to fund continued monitoring of the bay throughout Pilgrim’s decommissioning in two state budgets that were approved by the Senate but didn’t make it through the House, despite support from Rep. Peake.
“We don’t actually know what’s going on around the plant,” Cyr said. “Until we have routine monitoring, absolutely no way in hell should there be any discharge.”
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters, May 27, 2021
From Judy Wood, Laura Gazzano, and David Agger
Something Missing
To the editor:
In the May 13 issue, on page A1, is an article about local fishermen who can’t afford housing in Wellfleet, thereby possibly imperiling their livelihood [“Select Board to Hear Change in Residence Rule”].
On page A9 of the same issue, however, we read about opposition to accessory dwelling units [“Planners See Only Problems in ADU Petition”], which seems like an answer to the problem of housing on page 1.
Am I missing something?
Judy Wood
Wellfleet
Nuclear Safety
To the editor:
When the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station closed in 2019, I naively breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that my worries about radioactive leaks would be over. But that’s not the end of the story. Christine Legere’s articles on the decommissioning process (April 1 and April 29 editions) were eye-opening.
There are many problems associated with decommissioning Pilgrim safely. Holtec International, the current owner, has had no experience decommissioning a nuclear power plant and has no plan for dealing safely with the 47 years of accumulated nuclear waste.
Holtec plans to use substandard dry casks (with a 25-year warranty) on a concrete platform in an exposed field with only a chain-link fence and shrubbery surrounding them. The salt air alone is enough over time to create leaks.
Although Holtec will claim that this is just temporary, and that they will transport the rods across the country to a final storage place in New Mexico, the attorney general of New Mexico and activist groups are fighting to block this move.
Our state legislators are having difficulty passing legislation to protect the citizens of the Cape and Islands in the event of a radiation leak. The only emergency plan for Cape residents is to shelter in place while residents closer to the Pilgrim site are evacuated.
The Cape Downwinders have persuaded Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Sarah Peake to file a bill that would implement a 50-mile emergency zone. Both legislators have said that they do not support this bill because it has no chance of passage, but they filed it because of constituent pressure.
We must continue to pressure our legislators to pass these important bills. Call or email them. Let them know that you support the passage of HD4212 and SD2662 and want them to do so, too.
Laura Gazzano
Wellfleet
Cleaning Up in Wellfleet
To the editor:
The annual cemetery clean-up day on May 15 at the Pleasant Hill and Oakdale cemeteries (right behind the Wellfleet Police Station, off Gross Hill Road) was a great success.
The Wellfleet Cemetery Commission thanks all who participated. It was a beautiful day to be working in one of Wellfleet’s historic cemeteries. Pleasant Hill and Oakdale look great now after the weeding, pruning, trash removal, and creation of locations for donated trees in our newly cleared section. We also appreciate the family members who came to care for their loved ones’ plots and then moved on to care for the surrounding sections as well.
We encourage all Cape residents and visitors to stop and walk through these cemeteries and enjoy their beauty, serenity, and historical significance.
Thanks to Richard Robicheau, Chris Allgeier, Jude Ahern, Robin Burns, Jennifer Congel, Nancy Winslow, Eric Winslow, Addison Winslow, Holly Lajoie, Sharon Rule-Agger, the family of Clara Higgins, Laura and Steve Gazzano, and AmeriCorps Cape Cod members Bianca Bowman and Nicole Westfall.
We hope to see all at our fall 2021 cemetery clean-up.
David Agger
Wellfleet
The writer is a member of the Wellfleet Cemetery Commission.
NUCLEAR ZONE
Legislators Are Pushed to File Pilgrim Safety Bill
Emergency planning for spent fuel mishap is ‘a heavy lift,’ says Peake
WELLFLEET — Candace Perry still has a sticker on her Subaru Forester that reads: “Pilgrim Blows: Bridges Close!” Perry first stuck it on her bumper when the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth was still churning out energy and producing hundreds of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel. But the slogan still applies.
Pilgrim was permanently shut down in May 2019, and many residents thought that was the end of nearly five decades of worry over a release of radiation. But more than 4,000 radioactive spent fuel assemblies remain on the Pilgrim site.
“Shutting it down doesn’t make it over,” said Perry, who is a member of the Down Cape Downwinders. “It’s important to keep people aware, but we’re fighting the weariness of it.”
Diane Turco, founder and director of the Cape Downwinders, has been pushing state Sen. Julian Cyr and state Rep. Sarah Peake to file a bill this session to establish a 50-mile emergency planning zone around Pilgrim, so that a plan would be in place for the Cape and Islands should there be an accident. The bill would keep the zone established as long as the spent fuel is stored in Plymouth.
As it stands now, Cape residents would be directed to shelter in place following a radiological release. Both auto bridges over the canal would likely be closed while mainland residents in areas around the plant were evacuated.
Bills to expand the emergency planning zone to cover the Cape and Islands were filed by Peake and Cyr in the last three legislative sessions. All of them failed. Generally, they don’t even make it out of committee.
In the current session, Sen. Susan Moran, a Falmouth Democrat, filed two Pilgrim-related bills, but neither would bring the Cape any relief. One would re-establish the 10-mile emergency zone around Pilgrim, which was eliminated under a federal exemption months after the reactor shut down. No part of the Cape is within the 10-mile radius.
Moran’s second bill would require nuclear power plant owners to pay $25 million annually into a post-closure trust fund so taxpayers aren’t left shouldering decommissioning costs. The bill is worded so that the payments would stop once the spent fuel is in dry casks, which will happen at Pilgrim by the end of this year.
What’s needed, said Turco, is a 50-mile zone that would remain in effect right up until the spent fuel is moved out of Plymouth.
Plant watchdogs agree.
“We on the Outer Cape are quite vulnerable, with Provincetown only 20 miles downwind, and with nowhere to run except west, toward a potential emergency,” said Brian O’Malley, Provincetown’s representative on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates in an email.
In Truro, Brian Boyle said Pilgrim remains dangerous as long as the spent fuel is there.
“Storage in Plymouth will be measured in decades, not years,” Boyle said. “Pilgrim is upwind from Truro. Any issues with contamination would find their way to Truro pretty quickly.”
The quality of the dry casks being used by Holtec International, the company that owns and is decommissioning Pilgrim, has been called into question. They are guaranteed for only 25 years, and there is no solid plan of action if a cask cracks and leaks.
Cyr and Peake both begrudgingly agreed earlier this week to file Turco’s suggested bill to establish a 50-mile emergency protection zone, but the bill won’t necessarily carry their support.
Peake told the Independent by text that “maintaining the protections of even a 10-mile EPZ is a heavy lift.” She had suggested more nuanced wording to Turco: that the bill set a 10-mile zone “plus Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket counties.”
Cyr’s office told Turco the senator “strongly agreed” with Peake.
Turco maintains the need for a 50-mile radius, saying that would include Boston, a high population area that could be contaminated by a radiation release. More political districts in the zone would also mean more support from their legislative representatives, she said.
Cyr has agreed to file the bill with Turco’s wording as a “constituent by-request bill.” Such bills don’t necessarily carry the support of the legislators who file them.
Peake may do the same. On Tuesday, she said she was “leaning” toward filing it as a by-request bill.
Cyr’s office said the senator is focusing on securing continued funding for water quality monitoring in Cape Cod Bay for tritium and other Pilgrim-related contaminants by the state Dept. of Public Health.
“As Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station continues through the decommissioning process, significant environmental and public health risks remain,” Cyr said in a statement. “I will continue to advocate alongside my colleagues in the Cape and Islands delegation to protect the public and our fragile environment so long as the site remains a risk.”
ENVIRONMENT
United on Shutting Pilgrim Reactor, Advocates Differ on Nuclear Waste
Navajo activist calls New Mexico plan ‘blatant environmental racism’
PLYMOUTH — The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has been shut down, but the arguments over what to do with its highly radioactive spent fuel are heating up.
A Navajo activist from New Mexico delivered a powerful warning on Monday about a plan to create a giant nuclear waste storage facility there, calling it an act of environmental racism.
“I want you to know, we are watching you in New Mexico,” Leona Morgan told a citizens panel on the decommissioning of the Plymouth reactor. “Your waste will not come to New Mexico if we can help it.”
In its 47 years of operation, the Pilgrim Station generated hundreds of tons of spent fuel, which is now being loaded into 61 massive steel and cement casks that will sit on a concrete pad off Rocky Hill Road in Plymouth. Holtec International, the company that purchased Pilgrim shortly after it shut down in May 2019, is securing a license for its HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage facility, proposed for Lea County in southeastern New Mexico. Waste from plants all over the country would be sent there.
Company officials have said the spent fuel at Pilgrim and other plants it has purchased would be shipped to New Mexico and stored underground until a permanent federal repository is built.
Morgan told the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel during Monday’s Zoom meeting that the governor of New Mexico, state land commissioner, and attorney general all oppose Holtec’s plan, along with many residents statewide. New Mexico has already been overburdened by the effects of uranium mining, she said.
“When you people say, ‘Take it away,’ that means bringing it to our communities, which to me is the most blatant form of environmental racism,” Morgan said. “This is beyond unjust. It’s something that will impact future generations, and not just residents here but all along the transportation routes.”
The initial license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the interim storage facility would be for 40 years, with an option to renew for 40 more. Holtec’s plan calls for initially taking 500 canisters of spent nuclear fuel, about 8,600 metric tons. In phases, the facility would ultimately accept 10,000 canisters.
Currently, nuclear plants nationwide have produced about 85,000 metric tons of waste, which is being stored at 80 sites in 35 states. Meanwhile, plans for a permanent federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have stalled for decades due to determined opposition.
John McKirgan, chief of storage and transportation for the licensing branch of the NRC, attended the Monday meeting to answer questions. His agency develops design standards for packaging spent fuel. The Dept. of Energy will handle issues related to shipping. “They have to notify the states, tribes, and local law enforcement prior to shipments,” McKirgan said.
The NRC is considering an application for a separate site in West Texas, proposed by Interim Storage Partners LLC. Completion of a safety review there is expected in May. Holtec’s completion date is being delayed so the company can answer further questions.
The NRC review includes soil analysis, flooding hazards, “aircraft crash hazards,” building design, and “aging management analysis.” The environmental review of both interim storage facilities should be completed by July.
“Technically, the NRC could issue the license this year,” said Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien in an email, and the interim facility could begin operation in 2024.
Sheltering in Place
When the Pilgrim reactor shut down, residents on both sides of the Sagamore Bridge breathed a collective sigh of relief. And for good reason: the tip of Provincetown is just 19 miles across the bay from the problem-plagued plant, which sits on the coast of southern Plymouth.
“There’s no escape from the Cape,” was a frequent comment about a possible accident. The state’s emergency plans called for holding the 250,000 Cape residents back from the bridges until Plymouth and other towns close to the plant had been evacuated. Cape residents were advised to “shelter in place” in their homes.
People remain concerned about the 4,000 radioactive spent fuel assemblies.
The dilemma of what to do with spent fuel is a tough one, said Susan Weegar, a Wellfleet resident and member of the Down Cape Downwinders. “I’m totally of two minds,” Weegar said. “It seems to be unsafe to be leaving it in Plymouth, where it is on the seacoast, but the idea of putting it in transport and shipping it across the country is such a nightmare.”
The federal Government Accountability Office has characterized spent fuel as one of the most hazardous substances created by humans, with some of its components remaining radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
Provincetown resident Brian O’Malley, a retired physician, called any plan for long-term storage of the radioactive fuel in Plymouth “preposterous.”
“I don’t know what the right path is, but the issue with nuclear power is the waste,” he said. “We shouldn’t be making it anymore.”
Dry Cask Concerns
The casks being used to store Pilgrim’s spent fuel are called HI-STORM 100s, manufactured by Holtec. Each cask consists of a stainless-steel inner canister where the fuel assemblies are stored, surrounded by inert gas. About 27 inches of concrete is installed between that inner canister and the carbon-steel outer shell to act as a radiation shield. When loaded, each 18-foot-high cask weighs 150 tons.
Holtec boasts that its casks could withstand the impact of a Boeing 767 traveling at 350 miles per hour, as well as extreme natural events like tornadoes, but opponents ask whether the casks are vulnerable to modern missiles launched by terrorists. They also argue that the inner canisters, about a half inch thick, are too thin and could corrode in the salt air.
Holtec officials have said the design, material, and workmanship of the dry casks have a 25-year warranty. That number is not reassuring, said Pilgrim Watch president Mary Lampert, who sits on the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel.
“Holtec provided a 25-year warranty for manufacturing defects, period,” Lampert said. “Even they were not willing to have a lengthy guarantee, so why should we believe the casks can withstand time?”
There is also concern about potential leaks. Holtec has said that leaking casks could not be opened. Instead, a separate larger cask would be slipped over the leaking cask, Russian-doll style.
“If they leak, what will that do to the bay?” asked Wellfleet resident Judith Kwiat Cumbler. “It’s horrible for fish and horrible for those of us who live on the bay. It is truly alarming how much radiation is in those things.”
McKirgan said Monday that the casks will be inspected for signs of degradation and corrosion, but Lampert countered that the program calls for sampling a few rather than all. According to the NRC official, technical assumptions about the rest of the casks could be made from the random sampling.
Divided Opinions
While activists agreed on the need to shut down Pilgrim, they differ on what to do with the waste.
Lampert believes it should be moved out of Plymouth. The environmental justice argument is an “oversimplification” of the issue, she said.
“Plymouth is unsuited for extended spent fuel storage, period,” Lampert said. “It is densely populated, an appealing terrorist target, and its marine environment conducive to corroding the casks.”
Diane Turco of Cape Downwinders disagrees. “We do not want it moved to New Mexico,” she said, noting the region’s population is predominantly Hispanic. Projects like this are often located in poorer communities, she said.
The governor of New Mexico, the All Pueblo Council, and citizens’ groups have all voiced opposition, she said.
“We want it safe and secure right here,” Turco continued. “It needs to be in better casks, not cheap Holtec canisters.” Turco also called for more robust security of the fuel storage area.
Lampert argued that the sparser population and arid conditions at the New Mexico target site make it preferable to Plymouth.
“There always will be opponents,” Lampert said. “But if the site makes sense, then, like with the Quabbin Reservoir, the greater good prevails. But those directly harmed should be recompensed.”
Holtec’s application for its HI-STORE facility already faces four separate appeals, according to Kevin Kamp, a nuclear expert from the national group Beyond Nuclear. His organization filed an appeal representing some abutters. Appeals were also filed by the Sierra Club, among others.
