The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set a date for hearing an anti-nuclear group’s case against the proposed decommissioning of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant, according to agency documents.
NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board planned Jan. 19 to hold an oral argument session on Three Mile Island Alert’s (TMIA) petition against a proposed license amendment for Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, according to a scheduling order dated Monday.
NRC is considering whether to grant TMIA’s Nov. 4 request for a public hearing on EnergySolutions’ proposed license amendment, which the agency has said would alter certain administrative controls and surveillance requirements at the Dauphin County, Pa., plant to “support the transition” to decommissioning.
According to the scheduling notice, NRC will consider “standing and contention admissibility issues presented in the hearing request” during the oral argument session.
EnergySolutions subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions is currently decommissioning the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island, a two-reactor nuclear plant located near Harrisburg, Pa. TMI-2 suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 — one of the worst nuclear accidents in U.S. history.
The oral argument should be held in-person at NRC’s Rockville, Md., headquarters, starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. Telephone access will also be available for members of the public.
In its November petition, TMIA argued that the proposed license amendment “will reduce safety margins, and increase the likelihood of ‘significant hazards’ during … the cleanup.” It would also allow the decommissioning company to store radioactive waste at the TMI-2 site “for an indefinite period of time,” the organization said.
EnergySolutions has countered, arguing in a Nov. 28 NRC filing that TMIA “fails to allege a particularized injury that could plausibly flow” from the proposed license amendment, “as is required under traditional standing.”
EnergySolutions, which acquired TMI-2 from FirstEnergy in 2020, has said that it could finish decommissioning the site by 2037 or so. Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor is owned by Constellation Energy.
