The group overseeing the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts this week passed the only motion enough members were able to agree on: that current voting rules don’t allow the group to agree on anything.
In order to pass a motion, the 21-seat Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) currently needs 11 members to vote “yes,” regardless of how many are in attendance. The board agreed to ask state legislators to introduce a bill that would change the system to allow measures to be greenlighted with a majority vote instead.
The panel failed to pass two long-discussed motions at its monthly meeting for October: one requiring Holtec to submit information regarding the warranty on its spent fuel casks within 30 days, and another asking for voting rights of the group’s two Holtec representatives to be removed. The group already asked the legislature to pass such a bill in the last session, but it was rejected over a clause that would have asked Holtec representatives to leave the panel. The new motion allows Holtec representatives to remain on the panel.
The panel started holding meetings in 2017, two years before the plant officially closed in May 2019. It was established pursuant to state law to advise the governor and the public on the decommissioning of the Pilgrim Plant. Members are part of local and state government entities or were appointed by state legislators.
Holtec completed acquisition of the plant in August 2019 and has started preparing the facility for vessel segmentation, a process through which components in the reactor vessel are removed, cut up and placed in sealed robust containers for removal and storage, according to the company’s website.
Holtec has already reassembled the dryer and separator in the reactor cavity, it said.
