Holtec International announced this week it would increase the minimum wage for employees at its U.S. manufacturing facilities to $15 per hour.
“This pay raise is a small measure of my appreciation for the hard-working individuals at all Holtec campuses,” President and CEO Kris Singh said Tuesday during a nuclear industry event.
The energy technology provider will institute the change on Jan. 1, 2019, at its three domestic production plants, at Turtle Creek, Pa.; Orville, Ohio, and Camden, N.J. In a press release, along with a follow-up email from a spokesperson, Holtec did not cite the current lowest hourly wage for employees at those locations.
Holtec’s products include systems for wet and dry storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel. Its Ohio site, under subsidiary Orrvillon, provides aluminum goods and services.
The Camden-based company has been moving aggressively into new nuclear waste storage and decommissioning businesses. It has filed a license application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate a facility in southeastern New Mexico for temporary storage of up to 173,000 metric tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors. The company also has announced plans to buy three nuclear power plants that are at or approaching retirement; it would then partner with Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin to decommission the facilities.
Asked whether the $15 base pay level would apply to the new anticipated operations, Holtec spokeswoman Caitlin Marmion reaffirmed that the base salary would apply to personnel at the three U.S. production plants. Holtec also operates a manufacturing site in India.
In its release, Holtec knocked the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, announced in May. The tariffs “on our raw materials … [have] hurt our global competitiveness and will likely crimp our business growth in 2019,” Holtec said.
The release does not provide details on the impact of the tariffs. “Holtec does not have a comment on this business sensitive information,” Marmion said by email Thursday.
The FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it no longer intends to file a license renewal application for its Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio.
The company had said in May 2017 it would file the application in the fourth quarter of 2020, ahead of the March 2026 expiration of the license for the boiling-water reactor. However, parent company FirstEnergy Solutions said earlier this year it would clsoe the Perry facility by May 31, 2021, with two other plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania also to close that year.
“As requested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Regulatory Issue Summary 2009-06, ‘Importance of Giving NRC Advance Notice of Intent To Pursue License Renewal,’ FENOC hereby notifies the NRC that, with the planned permanent cessation of power operations in May 2021 … FENOC no longer plans to submit the LRA for the PNPP,” the company said in a Nov. 27 letter to the NRC.
The Michigan Senate on Tuesday approved two bills addressing disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) in state landfills.
Senators voted 29-8 in favor of Sen. Tom Casperson’s (R) legislation that would make changes to the 1994 state Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. Among those are specific caps on landfill disposal of TENORM exceeding: a radium-226 concentration exceeding 50 picocuries per gram; a radium-228 concentration exceeding 50 picocuries per gram; or a lead-210 concentration exceeding 260 picocuries per gram.
Under the bill, landfill operators or owners could ask Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality to amend the facility’s operating license to allow for disposal of TENORM up to 500 picocuries per gram of each radionuclide. But there would be several conditions on approval, including the landfill establishing a radiation safety program that addresses personnel training, radiation surveys, emergency protocols, and other measures.
Also by a 29-8 vote, the Senate approved an accompanying bill from Sen. Rebekah Warren (D) that would provide a $5 per ton fee on landfill operators for disposal of TENORM. The money would pay for state regulation and oversight of TENORM disposal, monitoring equipment for local municipalities and landfills, and refunds to generators. The bill would take effect only if Casperson’s legislation passes the Michigan Legislature.
Both bills were referred to the Michigan House Natural Resources Committee.
TENORM can be generated by hydraulic fracturing for extraction of oil and gas, which has been used widely in Michigan. Three facilities in the state are known to receive the material for disposal: two landfills and a disposal site operated by US Ecology. As of November, they together had received over 50,000 cubic yards of TENORM in 2018.
