Power company Entergy has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its plan to withdraw up to $4.5 million from the trust fund for decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
The disbursement from Bank of New York Mellon would occur 30 days after the date of the Aug. 15 letter from Entergy, which was posted Tuesday on the NRC’s documents website. The funds would be used to pay for, “among other things, site-specific decommissioning costs related to licensing/emergency planning contractor costs, insurance and property tax,” according to David Ryan, Bank of New York Mellon managing director, and John Boyle, director for nuclear decommissioning at Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC.
The company declined to provide further detail on how the funds would be used.
The NRC requires 30 days notice from the trust fund trustee, the bank, before money is disbursed. The head of the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation can block a disbursement or payment by objecting in writing, though that has not happened to date, according to John Boyle, Entergy’s decommissioning director for Vermont Yankee.
Vermont Yankee, a boiling-water reactor plant, closed in 2014 after more than four decades of service. Entergy plans to sell the property by the end of 2018 to New York City-based NorthStar Group Services, which would take control of the trust fund to carry out decommissioning – which it says it can complete as early as 2026 at a cost of $811.5 million, plus $30.6 million in pre-closing expenses.
The decommissioning trust fund held just under $571 million as of June 30; Entergy held another $24 million in the trust for site restoration.
The state of Vermont has long been critical of Entergy’s use of the trust for non-decommissioning operations such as management of the plant’s spent fuel, worried it would not have sufficient funds to cover the eventual cleanup. In April, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office urged the NRC to roll back decisions authorizing Entergy to use money from the trust fund for management of spent fuel.
The NRC and Vermont Public Utility Commission are continuing to review the sale of the nuclear plant; approval from both bodies is necessary for it to go through.
“In the Vt. PUC review process, Entergy and NorthStar, as joint petitioners, and other interested parties have filed their initial testimony and are continuing to engage in discovery,” Boyle said by email.
