Members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, including both of its U.S. Senators, in April sent Holtec International CEO Krishna Singh a list of 13 questions, some of them with multiple parts, about the evaporation of irradiated wastewater at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., which the Jupiter, Fla., company is decommissioning.
Locals in Plymouth, and the state government, have criticized Holtec for letting the wastewater evaporate instead of treating it and having it disposed of offsite. Massachusetts has also effectively outlawed the discharge of irradiated water from nuclear decommissioning into its state waters. Pilgrim routinely discharged irradiated water while it was operating.
The letter, dated April 30 and written on congressional stationary, was signed by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabath Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. William Keating (D-Mass.), who represents Massachusetts’ ninth district, where Pilgrim is located.
Navajo Nation politicians in April signed a resolution that asks President Joe Biden (D) to prevent transport of uranium ore through native lands, according to a Navajo Nation press release dated April 30.
The resolution asks Biden “to use executive authority to halt uranium transportation on Navajo land before it is attempted,” according to the press release. Navajo Nation is mostly in northern Arizona, northeast of Flagstaff and Interstate 40. Parts of the reservation extend into southern Utah and western New Mexico.
CPS Energy this week said it agreed to acquire another 2% ownership stage in the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station in Bay City, Texas, from Constellation. If the deal closes, CPS Energy’s total stake in the nuclear plant would rise to 42%, according to a press release.
In 2023, Constellation, Baltimore, bought a 44% stake in the plant from NRG Energy for $1.75 billion. The South Texas Project Unit 1 reactor is licensed to operate until Aug. 8, 2047. Unit 2 is licensed to operate until Dec. 15, 2048.
A Japanese minister this week visited the mayor of a town in the nation’s Saga prefecture, on the western coast of the archipelago’s southernmost Island of Kyshu, to discuss the possibility of building a disposal site there for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, the English-language Japan News, a Yomiuri Shimbun publication, reported this week.
Ken Saito, minister of the economy, trade and industry, met Tuesday with Genkai Mayor Shintaro Wakiyama in Tokyo, Japan News said. The meeting followed the Genaki local government’s April 26 vote to allow the Japanese government to survey the town for a disposal site, Japan News said.