The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered Massachusetts nuclear power plant affirmed Monday night that it would not discharge radioactive water from the facility until it gets a required federal permits modification later this year.
Holtec International “will fully comply” with the terms of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s National current Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit while it seeks a modification from the Environmental Protection Agency, company project manager David Noyes told members of the Plymouth, Mass., Pilgrim Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel Monday evening.
EPA in December threatened to throw the book at Holtec over its proposal to release about one million gallons of irradiated wastewater from Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool into the nearby Cape Cod Bay. Such an action would violate the terms of the plant’s NPDES permit, which bars spent fuel pool discharges, the agency said.
“We recognize the authority of the EPA and the specific restrictions that they’ve placed on us via the letters that we’ve received,” Noyes said Monday.
Holtec has said that it is in the process of requesting a permit modification that would allow it to release Pilgrim’s wastewater. Noyes forecast that the company would submit its request to EPA in the “mid-to-late first quarter of 2023.”
Meanwhile, Holtec “will not discharge until that permit modification process goes through,” Noyes said.
Local community stakeholders and Massachusetts lawmakers have spoken out against the proposed discharges in recent months.
State Sen. Susan Moran (D), who represents Pilgrim’s host community of Plymouth and is a vocal opponent of Holtec’s plan, said during Monday’s meeting that she had refiled legislation aimed at placing a “moratorium” on any such releases from the facility until 2025 or so. Moran introduced similar language last year in a spending bill that cleared the state legislature but was vetoed in November by Gov. Charlie Baker (R).
Holtec has defended its proposed discharges, arguing that such a practice is normal for nuclear decommissioning. The company, which acquired Pilgrim from Entergy Corp. in 2018, has said that it could wrap up work at the site by 2027 or so.
