One of the heads of the advisory group overseeing the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee power plant wants to retract the group’s endorsement to send the plant’s spent fuel to an interim storage facility.
Vice Chair Lissa Weinmann doesn’t believe a letter signed in 2015 by the board’s former chair is representative of the current board’s position on interim storage. Many of the board’s members have changed since 2015, so Weinmann thinks the current board’s consensus could be different.
The 2015 letter was approved only by the chair at the time, not the full panel. At the Dec. 7 meeting, current members will draft an opinion outlining their stance on consolidated interim storage. They’ll vote on the matter at a subsequent board meeting.
Weinmann said at a meeting in November that spent fuel should only be moved once — to a permanent facility — not somewhere temporary, according to Brattleboro Reformer reporting.
Some members have concerns over transportation of the fuel, Anthony Leshinskie, the Vermont Public Service Department’s decommissioning coordinator, told Morning Briefing in a phone call Wednesday. Leshinskie is a spokesperson for the citizens advisory board and helps coordinate their meetings.
The 2015 letter was sent in conjunction with three other New England-area citizen advisory groups concerned with the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee power plant.
