A bill in the Massachusetts state legislature would prevent a company decommissioning a nuclear power plant in the commonwealth from releasing irradiated wastewater from the site into a nearby bay.
If it becomes law, the measure proposed by state Sen. Susan Moran (D) would ban the disposal of radioactive waste into “in any coastal or inland waters.” The proposed bill would institute a $10,000 fine for first-time offenders which would increase to $25,000 for future violations.
Moran’s bill March 3 was reported to the state Senate’s Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture committee. As of Monday it had yet to hear debate.
Meanwhile, Holtec International, which is currently decommissioning Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station near Plymouth, Mass., is weighing whether to release the site’s wastewater into the Cape Cod Bay — a proposal that has faced heavy backlash from both Boston and Washington in recent months.
Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a Jan. 28 letter, to assemble an interagency task force to “examine the lack of transparency and communication” in Holtec’s wastewater disposal plan. Keating made his plea days after Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote their own letter to the company pressing it to explore alternative methods of disposal.
For its part, Holtec has said that it would not release irradiated water from Pilgrim in 2022. Kelly Trice, president of the company’s decommissioning portfolio, said in a Jan. 27 letter that such a practice would “likely” be part of Holtec’s larger wastewater disposal strategy alongside evaporation and truck shipments.
Trice said that water discharges are “normal for nuclear plants and are very well regulated” by NRC, and that Pilgrim itself has discharged water for its entire 50-year lifespan. Average radiation doses for plant wastewater already released into the Cape Cod Bay measure around 0.12 millirem annually, he said, which is roughly 833 times lower than the NRC limit of 100 millirem.
