Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York on Friday co-signed a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking the agency to eliminate its 60-year option for nuclear power plant decommissioning and require operators to complete the work within a decade.
Current NRC regulations allow decommissioning plants to opt for SAFSTOR, which allows 60 years for decommissioning or until the plant’s trust fund has accrued enough money to cover the cost of the work. Power provider Entergy has chosen the SAFSTOR option for its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, which closed in 2014. The company is also scheduled to close power plants in Massachusetts and New York state in coming years.
The four states submitted the 103-page letter before Friday’s deadline for public comment on the NRC’s 2019 decommissioning rulemaking.
Vermont state officials have raised previously concerns about Entergy’s use of its now-$600 million decommissioning trust fund, as well as NRC’s allowance of safety exemptions at the plant.
The letter suggests that NRC invite host states to file an opinion of support, opposition, or conditional support once a plant owner files its post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR), which is required within two years of a plant shutdown and includes cost estimates and scheduling for decommissioning. The letter also suggests a public hearing for PSDAR approval, where host states can raise objections to the decommissioning plan. The states also suggested that spent nuclear fuel be moved from spent fuel pools to dry storage before the cessation of power generation, or “as soon as possible” after. Furthermore, the states would like to see emergency protocols remain in place until all fuel is in dry storage.
At the end of 2015, Entergy announced plans to expedite wet-to-dry fuel transfer at Vermont Yankee by two years, with completion expected in 2020. An NRC-granted safety exemption of the facility will take effect on April 15, shrinking the plant’s 10-mile emergency planning zone to within the site’s boundaries and eliminating the requirement that Entergy pay millions of dollars annually to surrounding jurisdictions for emergency planning and groundwater monitoring.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan has said the agency is carefully considering all comments on the decommissioning rulemaking, which is an effort to improve the decommissioning process, with particular focus on eliminating the need for regulatory exemptions.
