The parties involved in an ongoing legal dispute over the sale of Indian Point Energy Center proposed a settlement this week that would end a slew of legal challenges to the transaction and allow the plant’s decommissioning.
The settlement agreement between Holtec International, Entergy, the state of New York and several others would allow Indian Point’s license transfer to take place in exchange for greater financial transparency and community engagement from Holtec, which is slated to take ownership of the plant this month, when Entergy is scheduled to shut down its Unit 2 reactor.
Under the agreement, Holtec would keep a balance of at least $400 million in Indian Point’s decommissioning trust fund for a decade after the Buchanan, N.Y. plant’s license transferred to them. The company’s use of the trust fund — which it received permission to use for site remediation and spent fuel management via federal regulatory exemption — was a major point of contention in New York’s Jan. 22 lawsuit.
Holtec would also need to file a complaint against the Department of Energy to receive compensation for spent fuel management, the agreement said. At least 50% of the money the company gets from DOE has to go into the trust fund.
Where nuclear waste cleanup is concerned, the proposed settlement would allow the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation to oversee Holtec’s site remediation activities using an onsite monitor.
The company would also have to help fund local emergency response and provide regular project status updates to the state and other stakeholders, the agreement said. In addition to the reports, Holtec would create a public-facing website to provide information about decommissioning activities.
In return, New York and the other stakeholders would drop their joint lawsuit, which is currently pending in the D.C. circuit court of appeals, the proposed settlement said.
The state public service commission will review and consider the proposal “during a future session,” according to a Thursday press release from the office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). For now, the agreement is open for public comment, the release said.
Until then, New York’s federal case challenging the Indian Point Sale is still ongoing. A federal judge last Friday approved Holtec and Entergy’s request to intervene in the proceedings alongside the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Indian Point’s Unit 2 reactor will be the last one at the three-reactor site to shut down. Unit 2 went offline late last year, and Unit 1 went dark back in 1974.
