The seller and buyer for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station should not be allowed to change certain commitments for decommissioning and site restoration at the shuttered plant, the nongovernmental New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution said in a motion filed on May 5 with a state regulator.
The Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) must approve the sale of Vermont Yankee, closed since December 2014, from current owner Entergy to NorthStar Group Services, a New York environmental services company that would decommission and restore the site.
The New England Coalition said the two companies’ joint petition for the sale, filed last November with the PSB, would reverse obligations laid out for Vermont Yankee in state orders dating to 2002: that Entergy not bury rubble from demolished structures on-site; that there be separate trust funds for decommissioning and site restoration of Vermont Yankee; that site restoration (covering demolition and removal of structures) begin “promptly” after completion of radiological decommissioning; and that subsidiary Entergy Vermont Yankee provide a “parent guarantee” from Entergy to cover site restoration costs.
The Public Service Board should instead confirm that those four commitments must be sustained as it reviews the planned sale, the New England Coalition said in its motion for summary judgment.
“The Public Service Board has made clear since the very first case involving Entergy that at the end of the decommissioning process there must be a return to greenfield conditions, which does not include demolishing concrete structures and leaving the rubble on the site,” James Dumont, the attorney representing the advocacy organization, said in prepared comments.
Entergy is evaluating the motion and will file its response within the 30 days allowed by the board, Joseph Lynch, senior government affairs manager for decommissioning, said by email. NorthStar did not respond to a request for comment.
The companies asked the state in the joint petition to approve NorthStar’s proposed site restoration standards, which they noted would revise Entergy’s prior commitment “not to employ rubbilzation at the site.” They also asked for authorization to shift assets in the site restoration trust fund into a sub-account within the decommissioning trust fund and for elimination of Entergy’s mandate to guarantee $20 million for site restoration.
Finally, while Entergy had planned decontamination and site restoration in succession, NorthStar would conduct them concurrently, according to the joint petition. The company aims to complete decommissioning by 2030, more than four decades earlier than Entergy’s prior schedule.
As of March, there was $571.5 million in the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund and $23.4 million in the site restoration trust. The sale price for the facility is a nominal $1,000, but NorthStar would keep close to half of whatever remains of the decommissioning account after it completes the cleanup project.
In filing for the Public Service Board’s certificate of public good for the sale, NorthStar said committing not to bury rubble at Vermont Yankee would fall outside of its “business model,” according to the New England Coalition. However, it separately told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must approve the transfer of the plant license, that “projected savings from rubbilization were not part of their cost estimates,” NEC representative Clay Turnbull said in a press statement.
NorthStar has said it plans to reuse the rubble. While the company recognizes this could conflict with an existing memorandum of understanding between Entergy and the state, management “believes that a more thorough evaluation of this issue will show that the proposal … is integral to an accelerated decommissioning plan and budget and is protective of safety and the environment,” NorthStar CEO Scott State said in prefiled testimony to the PSB.
State also pledged that, if the site restoration trust funds are moved into the decommissioning account, they would remain subject to existing expenditure rules.
The New England Coalition is among a number of state and nongovernmental entities authorized to intervene in the PSB review of the sale. The discovery process is now underway, with a second Public Service Commission meeting on the deal scheduled for Sept. 5 or 6 and Entergy hoping for a decision in the first quarter of 2018.
In a separate message made public Monday, six members of the 19-member Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel also called for close scrutiny of the financials of the sale and decommissioning.
“It is essential that the site be restored in a manner that allows future productive use of this important industrial location,” according to their April 6 letter to the PSB. “This would include agreement on an appropriate site restoration standard that goes beyond the basics of nuclear health and safety, strong assurances regarding the petitioner’s financial ability to complete the agreed upon job within the proposed timeframe, and avoid of any measures that would force Vermont taxpayers to fund any part of the cleanup and restoration, among others.”
The Citizens Advisory Panel is scheduled to meet on May 25, with participation from NRC officials, to discuss the sale.
Other organizations in the state have been kinder recently to the sale. The Selectboard for the town of Vernon, where Vermont Yankee is located, on April 18 formally called on the Public Service Board to approve the sale. That and other documents were made public Monday on the PSB website.
