By John Stang
There was no word early Friday afternoon on an anticipated memorandum of understanding among the parties authorized to intervene in the state of Vermont’s regulatory review of the sale of the shuttered Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
A number of the parties said last week they anticipated an agreement addressing remaining points of contention in the deal – financial assurance and site restoration – would be filed with the Vermont Public Utility Commission (PUC) by March 2. At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor, the document had not been posted on the PUC website. Representatives for several of the parties, including plant owner Entergy and prospective buyer NorthStar Group Services, could not be reached or declined to comment.
Entergy closed Vermont Yankee in December 2014, and aims to sell the plant to NorthStar for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management. The New York City company intends to complete decommissioning as early as 2026 at a cost of roughly $811 million. It would keep a portion of whatever remains from the plant’s decommissioning trust fund when the work is complete.
The Public Utility Commission must approve the sale, and it has authorized intervention by a number of governmental and nongovernmental organizations – meaning they can participate in the PUC’s proceeding. NorthStar’s financial capacity to carry out its cleanup pledge, and the state the property will be left in once decommissioning is complete, have been key issues for the intervenors.
Details of the talks have not been made public.
Entergy and NorthStar hope to close the sale by Dec. 31, pending approval from the Vermont PUC and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. During a Feb. 23 status conference with the commission, attorney Sanford Weisburst, representing Entergy, reaffirmed that the companies are seeking a state decision by June 30 in order to complete the sale by the close of the year, according to a transcript of the meeting. The NRC has said it expects to complete its review of the Vermont Yankee license transfer request in the first quarter of this year.
The memorandum of understanding would reset the clock on the PUC review of the deal, which has been largely suspended for several months while the parties negotiated.
NorthStar, Entergy, three Vermont state agencies, and two other interveners agreed to the same two potential schedules of upcoming actions — one if everyone agrees and one if some parties don’t sign on to the MOU.
If all the parties sign the memorandum, prefiled testimony would be submitted by March 12, followed by the second and last commission public hearing on the sale sometime from March 13 to 23 and evidentiary hearings starting on March 26 in Montpelier.
If only some of the parties sign today’s memorandum, prefiled testimony would be submitted by March 9, written discovery would be submitted by March 16, and depositions would be taken as needed from March 27 to April 2. The public hearing would take place between April 5 and April 9, with evidentiary hearings to begin April 10.
Two other intervenors, the New England Coalition and the Conservation Law Foundation, want the commission to adopt different timetables, according to documents filed with the PUC.
During last week’s status conference, Public Utility Commissioner Margaret Cheney worried the Entergy-NorthStar-Vermont proposals do not leave enough time for the commission to ask questions and get answers from the parties.
“The point is that we don’t see time built in here for the commission to ask questions,” she said, according to the transcript. “And so we would like the parties to take that into consideration when they file a new suggested schedule, and we hope they are done in tandem.”
Other parties to the PUC proceeding are the Associated Industries of Vermont, the town of Vernon’s Planning and Economic Development Commission, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 300, and the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi.
