By John Stang
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should disregard the commonwealth of Massachusetts’ request for a 90-day stay on its review of the license transfer application for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, the plant’s owner and prospective buyer said Monday.
Entergy and Holtec International argued that the delay is not needed even as they try to complete negotiations on a settlement agreement to address concerns raised about the pending sale by Massachusetts officials.
“The Commission should deny this Motion because it is inconsistent with NRC rules and practice, unsupported by any compelling reasons, and highly prejudicial to the interests of the Applicants,” according to the companies’ response to the motion filed with the NRC last week by the commonwealth.
The federal agency must approve the license transfer before Entergy can sell the retired single-reactor plant on Cape Cod to Holtec for decommissioning. Massachusetts and the local advocacy group Pilgrim Watch have both filed petitions for intervention and a hearing in the proceeding, which if approved would enable them to formally present contentions against the license transfer.
The companies oppose the petitions. In their filing Monday, they said the NRC might complete its review of their license transfer application before ruling on the intervention requests. A decision on the application had at one point been anticipated by the end of July. However, an NRC spokesperson said this week “there is no exact timeframe at this point on when that process will be completed.”
In August 2018, New Orleans-based power company Entergy announced its plans to sell Pilgrim, which ceased operations on May 31 of this year. The license transfer application was filed last November.
Pilgrim is one of several retired or soon-to-close nuclear power plants Holtec, an energy technology company based in New Jersey, plans to acquire for decommissioning. On July 1, it completed the acquisition of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey from power company Exelon. Its business model is predicated on retaining some portion of the decommissioning trust as profit once the work is completed.
Following federal regulatory approval and completion of the sale, Holtec would take ownership of Pilgrim’s decommissioning trust fund and all responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management on the property. The 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 done by 2027.
The commonwealth’s concerns boil down to whether there is enough money to complete decommissioning on the eight-year schedule laid out by Holtec, and that the two companies have not conducted the necessary environmental assessment for the license transfer. Massachusetts and the companies have since 2018 conducted settlement talks that produced a draft agreement in mid-June, according to the document filed Monday.
The commonwealth said in its Aug. 1 filing that a 90-day delay would not harm decommissioning at Pilgrim and could help expedite the license transfer proceeding by resolving differences between the sides. The settlement negotiations are proceeding satisfactorily, and a 90-day stay would give them time to wrap up, according to lawyers led by state Attorney General Maura Healey.
Details of the negotiations and the draft agreement have not been made public.
The Massachusetts motion noted that Entergy has permission from the NRC to use its decommissioning trust fund for Pilgrim for some non-decommissioning activities, giving it flexibility in managing the retired reactor site.
“Entergy is responsible for, and capable of, maintaining decommissioning efforts during the pendency of the proceeding, and a temporary, time-limited stay will not affect that. Indeed, allowing a stay may provide a quicker resolution to the proceeding and be more administratively efficient,” according to the commonwealth’s attorneys.
However, among their arguments against the stay, Holtec and Entergy responded this week that “staying all activities in this proceeding will greatly prejudice and harm the Applicants,” including leaving the roughly 270 personnel at Pilgrim uncertain about their future for an extended period. Specifically, they will not know whether they will be potentially be laid off or will transition to Holtec Decommissioning International, which would be the licensed operator at Pilgrim, or Comprehensive Decommissioning International, the Holtec-SNC-Lavalin joint venture that would conduct the actual decommissioning, according to the companies.
Holtec and Entergy’s motion also argued that the watchdog organization Pilgrim Watch will continue to request intervention in the proceeding no matter what Massachusetts officials decide.
“The public interest militates strongly against the stay,” according to their filing. “As Commission policy recognizes, ‘applicants for a license are . . . entitled to a prompt resolution of disputes concerning their applications.’”
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office this week declined to discuss the settlement talks.
Holtec and Entergy have not contacted Pilgrim Watch, Mary Lampert, director of the watchdog organization, told RadWaste Monitor on Friday.
Pilgrim Watch’s position is that not enough money has been set aside in the decommissioning trust fund to do the job and a more through environmental impact study is needed for the project. Pilgrim Watch also wants the NRC to determine Holtec, SNC-Lavalin, and affiliates are reliable enough to complete the project. If its goals are not met, Pilgrim plans to move ahead with its intervention request, Lampert said
