The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should certify that the parties involved with decommissioning Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant comply with environmental law and that there’s a plan in place for water use at the site, a watchdog group said in a filing with the agency last week.
Citing new evidence in the form of emails between state regulators and the owners of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, environmental watchdog Three Mile Island Alert said in a filing dated July 30 that NRC should reverse its June decision to toss the group’s motion to reconsider the sale of the plant’s Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2). The commission ruled in June that it didn’t have jurisdiction to reconsider the license transfer to EnergySolutions subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions from FirstEnergy because the proceeding was already closed.
In the July 30 filing, watchdog chairman Eric Epstein says new emails received through an open records request from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) “corroborate” his organization’s February allegations that TMI-2’s sale didn’t abide by a water quality certification rule in the Clean Water Act.
Epstein said that the SRBC emails confirm that TMI-2 Solutions will need a minimum of 100,000 gallons of water per day to decommission the reactor and that there is “clear and unambiguous confirmation” that the company doesn’t have the water rights certification the watchdog argues is necessary.
Although NRC said in its June 22 decision that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on the watchdog’s petition to reconsider TMI-2’s sale, the commission noted that the license transfer didn’t violate water use regulations because there would be “no new discharge” of water from the reactor into the nearby Susquehanna River.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission said July 16 that it would look into water usage at the Dauphin County, Pa. nuclear plant.
Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor shut down in 1979 after a partial core meltdown caused one of the largest radiological releases in American history.
