An inspection at a former Massachusetts nuclear power plant under decommissioning by Holtec International revealed just one small issue related to radiation safety procedures, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the company in a recent letter.
Holtec staff working at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station “failed to survey the levels of airborne radioactivity” inside the plant’s drywell, which houses the reactor coolant system, before allowing NRC inspectors to enter the area, according to a report shared with the company Aug. 12 and made public Monday.
Although such a procedure was required by both Holtec’s radiation protection standards and the company’s federal radiological work permit, NRC said it considered the violation to be of “very low safety significance” because “no spread of contamination or intakes of radioactive material occurred as a result of this event.”
Holtec took immediate action to correct the violation, locking down the drywell area for sampling and evaluating staff to determine the cause of the incident, the report said.
In keeping with NRC’s enforcement policy, the agency told Holtec that it would not issue a formal citation for the violation considering its low safety significance.
Elsewhere in the Pilgrim decommissioning arena, Holtec has been fielding dissent over its plans to release irradiated wastewater from the Plymouth, Mass., plant into the nearby Cape Cod Bay. Most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency in a June letter cast doubt on the company’s claims that such a practice is allowed under the site’s federal pollutant discharge permit.
Holtec, for its part, has committed not to discharge any of the plant’s wastewater in 2022, although it has not ruled out doing so in the future. CEO Kris Singh during a May meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee told Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that the company would not move forward with the process without community consent.
Camden, N.J.-based Holtec purchased the Pilgrim plant from utility Entergy in 2018. The company has said that it could finish dismantling the site by 2027 or so.
