By John Stang
Massachusetts’ government and a Cap Cod activist organization this week pressed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a stay of agency staff’s approval of the license transfer and decommissioning trust fund exemption for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
Former owner Entergy completed the sale of the retired single-reactor plant to Holtec International on Aug. 26 after receiving NRC approval for the transfer of Pilgrim’s operational and spent-fuel storage licenses. The agency also authorized Holtec to use the plant’s decommissioning trust for spent fuel operations.
In similar stay requests Tuesday, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and Pilgrim Watch said Holtec erroneously claimed it could complete decommissioning with only the money in the trust dedicated to that work at Pilgrim, that NRC staff breached federal regulations and law in approving the license transfer, and that expedited decommissioning in this case could pose a threat to the public interest.
“For the foregoing reasons, the Commonwealth requests that the Commission grant this Application for a Stay pending administrative and/or judicial review,” according to the Massachusetts filing.
The NRC declined to comment on the requests for stays of effectiveness.
In a written statement, Holtec said: “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that Holtec met the required regulatory, legal, technical and financial requirements to qualify as licensee. While we respect the petitioner’s rights to file legal motions, we are not going to comment on any specific legal motions or action.”
New Orleans-based Entergy bought the 690-watt boiling water reactor from Boston Edison in 1999, then announced its closure in 2015. The sale to Holtec was announced in August 2018, less than a year before Massachusetts’ last nuclear power plant shut down on May 31.
Massachusetts and Pilgrim Watch in February separately filed for intervention and a hearing in the NRC’s license transfer proceeding. The NRC did not rule on the petitions prior to authorizing the license transfers and trust fund exemptions, even as Massachusetts made clear it would seek a stay of the actions. The federal regulator is allowed to retroactively nullify that decision if it can be persuaded to do so.
Holtec Decommissioning International is now the licensed operator at Pilgrim. Comprehensive Decommissioning International — a joint venture of Holtec and scandal-plagued Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin — is to conduct the actual decommissioning.
The Massachusetts and Pilgrim Watch filings say granting the license transfer and trust exemption prior to any public hearings violated the National Environmental Protection Act and the NRC’s own regulations. Specifically, the filers said Holtec allegedly does not have enough money in the site’s decommissioning trust fund to guarantee that decommissioning will be completed if problems occur.
The Attorney General’s Office also noted that Holtec has already committed to decommissioning six reactors at four nuclear power plants in four states over the next decade — an unprecedented number of projects at a quick pace. The filing contends Holtec does not have a track record of decommissioning expertise, while also being stretched thin with multiple projects.
Pilgrim is one of several retired or soon-to-close nuclear power plants that New Jersey-based Holtec is acquiring for decommissioning. On July 1, it bought the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey from power company Exelon. It also plans to acquire Entergy’s Palisades Power Plant in Michigan and Indian Point Energy Center in New York state, which are due to close by 2022. In each case, Holtec expects to retain some of the site’s decommissioning trust as profit.
Alongside the work at Pilgrim, Holtec Decommissioning International and Comprehensive Decommissioning International “are likely to have the same responsibilities at five other nuclear reactors, according to the commonwealth. “This set-up will overextend their self-described management capacities and exacerbate the already significant risk of delays, mistakes, and additional cost-overruns. And it will occur in the context of an underfunded Trust Fund and Holtec International’s and SNC-Lavalin’s questionable integrity and noncompliance history.”
The integrity issues include the New Jersey Economic Development Authority recently freezing a $260 million tax break for Holtec because the company falsely stated it had never been barred from doing business with a state or federal agency. That statement to the New Jersey authority ignored a temporary prohibition from doing business with the Tennessee Valley Authority following indications it had paid an employee of the federally owned corporation $54,000 to help secure a contract.
Meanwhile, Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin is caught up in a bribery scandal focused on prior work in Libya, which could lead to a 10-year prohibition on doing business with the Canadian government.
The viability of the decommissioning trust for Pilgrim was one of the original points of concern for Massachusetts and Pilgrim Watch. Holtec inherited the fund once it acquired the plant.
In its Tuesday filing, the Attorney General’s Office contended the decommissioning trust fund could be underfunded by between $56 million and $768 million, citing figures from the Four Points Group, a nuclear engineering consulting firm hired by the commonwealth. It cast doubt on Holtec assumption that the Energy Department would meet its legal mandate to take the plant’s spent fuel from 2030 to 2062.
“A promise of expeditious decommissioning and site restoration, of course, means nothing if Holtec lacks the financial and technical wherewithal to fulfill it,” the Massachusetts filing said.
Holtec predicts a $1.134 billion decommissioning budget, with slightly more than $1 billion currently in its trust.
Massachusetts said the NRC-granted exemption to allow Pilgrim’s decommissioning trust fund money to be used for spent fuel and site restoration purposes violates the federal Administrative Procedures Act because the money will not be used for its legally intended purpose.
Pilgrim Emergency Exemption
Separately, three members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep emergency preparedness and planning regulations in place for the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
Staff at the agency has already recommended that Pilgrim be exempt from certain regulations following the end of operations and removal of used fuel from the reactor. Entergy submitted the request to the NRC on Aug. 9, a few weeks before completing the sale.
If those exemptions are granted, Pilgrim would not be required to have emergency planning zones, an off-site emergency response plan and procedures to notify the public in the event of an emergency, according to the Aug. 30 letter to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki from Sen. Edward Markey, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. William Keating (all D-Mass.).
“If an event beyond the design basis of the Pilgrim plant was to occur, this could result in a loss of cooling to the spent fuel pools, triggering a hydrogen explosion and a release of radioactive gas — like that seen in the Fukushima Daiichi disaster,” the three wrote.
The NRC said Tuesday that it would reply directly to Warren, Markey, and Keating, and otherwise declined to comment.
