By John Stang
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office sued in federal court on Wednesday in an effort to roll back the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s recent approval of the license transfer of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
The commonwealth’s top lawyer wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate rulings and findings that allowed for the license transfer, after which owner Entergy sold the retired power plant to Holtec International for decommissioning. Those matters should then be returned to the agency for further review, according to the complaint against the NRC and the United States of America.
The commonwealth and advocacy group Pilgrim Watch in February both applied for intervention and an adjudicatory hearing in the license transfer proceeding. However, the industry regulator did not rule on their petitions before signing off last month on the application from Entergy and Holtec.
“The NRC acted arbitrarily and capriciously, abused its discretion, and violated the Atomic Energy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, NEPA, the Council on Environmental Quality’s NEPA regulations, and the NRC’s own regulations and policies in effecting the foregoing final agency actions and failing to provide the Commonwealth with a meaningful opportunity to participate in the process as contemplated by the Atomic Energy Act and the NRC’s own regulations and policies,” according to the Attorney General’s complaint.
Entergy did not comment on the lawsuit by deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor, while the NRC said it does not comment on active litigation.
In a prepared 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.”
In August 2018, New Orleans-based power provider Entergy announced its plans to sell the single-reactor power plant on Cape Cod to Holtec International for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management. The reactor ceased operations on May 31 of this year.
Following NRC approval of the transfer of Pilgrim’s operations and spent fuel storage licenses, the New Jersey energy technology company took possession of the property in August. Subsidiary Holtec Decommissioning International is the new licensed operator at Pilgrim, with Holtec-SNC-Lavalin joint venture Comprehensive Decommissioning International in charge of the actual decommissioning.
In their intervention and petitions, the commonwealth and Pilgrim Watch voiced concerns including whether there is enough money to complete decommissioning on the eight-year schedule laid out by Holtec, and that the two companies did not conduct the necessary environmental assessment for the license transfer. With NRC approval, they would be able to present their concerns in an adjudicatory hearing.
In its Wednesday complaint, the Attorney General’s Office called for the court to review and vacate the NRC’s approval of the license transfers; Holtec’s amendments to the operations license; a safety evaluation of the application by the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations; the NRC finding that the license transfers pose no significant hazards; an exemption from a National Environmental Policy Act review in the license transfers, and the NRC exemption that allows trust fund money to be used for site restoration and spent fuel management.
Pilgrim is one of several retired or soon-to-close nuclear power plants that Holtec plans to acquire for decommissioning. Its business model includes keeping some of the decommissioning trust as profit once the work is completed.
Pilgrim’s trust fund was valued at $1.05 billion as of Oct. 31, 2018. Under Entergy’s original six-decades-long SAFSTOR plan, decommissioning would cost $1.19 billion and long-term spent fuel management would cost $420 million. Under Holtec’s accelerated plan, decommissioning, spent fuel management, and site restoration would cost $1.134 billion and be primarily done by 2027.
