The EnergySolutions-led group in charge of dismantling the Three Mile Island nuclear plant didn’t get required waivers to ignore federal environmental rules and therefore violated the law when it purchased the plant this year, an environmental group alleged this week.
State and federal regulators said they are looking into claims made by Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA) in a Tuesday statement, in which the citizens group argued that decommissioning manager TMI-2 Solutions violated a new “certification rule” in Section 401 of the 1972 Clean Water Act when they purchased the Pennsylvania plant from the FirstEnergy companies in January.
The certification rule, which the Environmental Protection Agency put into effect in September, would require state authorities to give TMI-2 Solutions documented permission to ignore the water quality certification requirements laid out in the Clean Water Act, TMIA said in a letter sent Tuesday to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Andrew Dehoff, executive director of the SRBC, told RadWaste Monitor in an emailed statement Wednesday that his organization was looking into the watchdog group’s allegations.
“An essential, express requirement of TMI’s water use approvals with the [SRBC] is that TMI be in compliance with all other state and federal laws, including the Clean Water Act,” Dehoff said, and noted that his organization doesn’t have any regulatory authority under that law.
TMIA said in its letter that since the Three Mile Island Unit-2 transfer was federally approved 120 days after the new certification rule went into effect and that “it does not appear” that any legal waiver was provided to TMI-2 Solutions, the action violated the Clean Water Act.
Dehoff said the SRBC would contact plant personnel to ensure that they are in compliance with the law. If a discrepancy is found, Dehoff said, the site “will be directed to submit a modification request to SRBC to appropriately align the required approvals.”
Jamar Thrasher, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, told RadWaste Monitor in an email Thursday that the agency “has been actively engaging in discussions with the new owners TMI 2 Solutions and a team of entities involved in the transition with the ownership.” The Department, the SRBC and the NRC are cooperating in this effort, Thrasher said.
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in an email Tuesday that issues involving the Clean Water Act were not under their jurisdiction. The EPA did not return a request for comment by deadline for RadWaste Monitor Friday.
Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor shut down in 1979 after a partial core meltdown. EnergySolutions announced their plans to purchase the plant from the FirstEnergy companies for decommissioning in 2019.
