The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should uphold all emergency preparedness and response requirements at shuttered nuclear power plants until spent fuel is moved into dry storage, a host of lawmakers suggested in a recent letter to the agency.
The NRC’s issuing of safety exemptions has drawn criticism from lawmakers and residents near closed nuclear power plants. In Vermont, for example, locals spoke out in 2015 when the NRC granted a safety exemption to Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant owner Entergy, shrinking the plant’s 10-mile emergency planning zone to within the site’s boundaries. Entergy plans to move Vermont Yankee’s spent fuel into dry storage by the end of 2020.
The NRC issued the exemption with the reasoning that a closed facility poses a lower safety risk than an operating plant. Concerned residents and lawmakers, however, contend that safety risks remain high until fuel is moved into dry storage.
The NRC maintains that both spent fuel pools and dry casks “provide adequate protection of the public health and safety and the environment.” Lawmakers and NGOs like the Union of Concerned Scientists have offered a different take. The nongovernmental organization believes that having less spent fuel inside pools significantly lowers risk in the event of an accident or disaster. With less spent fuel in the pools, plant workers have more time to deal with the loss of cooling ability or loss of water from the pool, because the amount of heat released by the spent fuel is lower, according to the union. The less heat, the lower the risk of fire, explosions, and subsequent radioactive releases.
Fifteen Lawmakers from Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Illinois wrote to NRC Chairman Stephen Burns on Sept. 16, offering suggestions as the regulator works through its 2019 decommissioning rulemaking. The rulemaking is intended to streamline the decommissioning process, with a particular focus on reducing the need for regulatory exemptions.
The lawmakers voiced concern over industry calls that the NRC “narrow the scope” of the rulemaking and focus first on standardization of exemption requests. This approach, the letter argues, delays consideration of broader decommissioning issues in the rulemaking, including: whether the NRC should be the body to approve post-shutdown decommissioning activities reports; determinations on decommissioning timelines; and defining the role of state and local government involvement.
“Delaying consideration of these important issues would hamper the NRC’s proper goal of comprehensively reviewing and revising the rules that govern the decommissioning process,” the letter reads. “Fast-tracking the exemption standardization process risks prioritizing the concerns of the nuclear industry over those of our constituents.”
The lawmakers who signed the letter are: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Rep. William Keating (D-Vt.), Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III (D-Mass.), Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Conn.), and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Their suggestions include:
-Enhancing community involvement by requiring state and local input for decommissioning, and for the NRC to formally approve decommissioning plans.
-Ensuring that decommissioning funds are “strictly for statutorily-authorized purposes.”
-Require that spent fuel is moved from wet to dry storage “as quickly as possible.”
-Ensure a plant site is returned to “beneficial use” promptly following decommissioning.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency will respond to the lawmakers in “a timely manner.” The commission expects to publish a draft regulatory basis for the rulemaking in December, followed by a final regulatory basis in fall 2017.
