The state of Vermont is calling on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to withdraw a series of decisions allowing utility Entergy to use money from the decommissioning trust fund for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station for management of the plant’s spent fuel.
The state government has fought this battle for years, worried about draining funds from the account intended to pay for full cleanup of the facility that closed in December 2014. The NRC in June 2015 approved Entergy’s request for an exemption under which it can direct some of the decommissioning trust fund to management of used fuel assemblies stored on-site at Vermont Yankee. The company is also not required to provide advance notice to the agency of such withdrawals.
Following a challenge from the state, Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. (the plant’s prior owner), and the Green Mountain Power Corp., the regulator in October 2016 directed staff to study possible environmental impacts from the exemption. Staff last month reported back with a draft environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact; the NRC said it would thus not prepare an environmental impact statement on the matter.
Vermont Assistant Attorney General Kyle Landis-Marinello, in a public response to the decision submitted earlier this month and made public this week, wrote that the staff decision “compromises the adequacy and integrity of the Decommissioning Fund, and raises a significant risk that the Fund will fall short of what is needed for a full cleanup and site restoration.” The finding also breaches the National Environmental Policy Act mandate for an assessment of the possible environmental and economic impacts of such a significant federal decision, he argued.
“An environmental impact statement is required if the agency’s review shows a ‘substantial possibility’ that the project or action ‘may have a significant impact on the environment.’ Under this test, a court will reverse an agency’s decision not to prepare an environmental impact statement when the agency has failed to consider all of the substantially possible effects of its action,” Landis-Marinello wrote.
With that in mind, the state and the power companies called on the NRC to withdraw the 2015 exemption as well as the new environmental assessment and FONSI, and instead prepare an environmental impact statement that addresses Vermont’s concerns.
The Vermont Yankee trust fund held about $572 million as of the end of February. It would be included in Entergy’s planned sale of the plant to NorthStar Group Services, which intends to decommission Vermont Yankee by 2026 at a cost of $811.5 million.
The NRC and Vermont Public Service Board must both sign off on the deal, which the companies say would cut 50 years off the decommissioning timeline and save hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup expenses.
NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley said by email this week that the regulator reviewing public comments submitted in response to its draft environmental assessment. It is in the early stages of finalizing a decision, she said.
“We don’t have a schedule at this point for the next steps in the process,” Conley stated. “The staff will wade through comments, consider them and respond to them.”
Entergy Notifies NRC of Spent Fuel Campaign Schedule Changes
Meanwhile, Entergy in a filing earlier this month notified the regulator of a timeline shift for Vermont Yankee’s dry fuel loading campaign.
Entergy had originally estimated spent fuel from the plant would remain in wet storage from 2016 to 2020, but the company now expects the spent fuel transfer to wrap up in 2018. Entergy Vermont Yankee government affairs manager Joe Lynch said Friday that the timeline shift resulted from improved canister technology that will allow the company to save money in decommissioning.
The campaign will involve moving the contents of the site’s spent fuel pool into dry storage on two independent spent fuel storage installations. Entergy is developing a second dry fuel storage pad at the plant, which will allow the utility to transfer nearly 3,000 spent fuel assemblies into 45 dry casks at a cost of $143 million. The current storage pad contains 13 dry casks. Entergy will pay for the campaign through a line of credit and then seek damages from the Energy Department, resulting from DOE’s failures to take title to the waste as required by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
