Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Your RadWaste reporter is out of town this weekend for some much-needed vacation at Anna Maria Island, Fla., but before the beach, here are some other stories that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week.
Holtec won’t transport Pilgrim wastewater offsite, CEO tells Markey
After weighing its options, Holtec International has narrowed down how it will eventually deal with wastewater from Massachusetts’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, the company’s CEO said in a recent letter to the state’s senior senator.
Although Holtec had considered shipping Pilgrim’s irradiated wastewater offsite for disposal, the company determined that such a practice would “run counter” to environmental justice principles, CEO Kris Singh told Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in a June letter, local paper The Provincetown Independent reported Wednesday. A transport operation of that size would also cost around $20 million, Singh said.
News of the Holtec CEO’s comments comes amid months of opposition to the company’s plan to discharge irradiated wastewater from the Plymouth, Mass., Pilgrim plant into the nearby Cape Cod Bay. Even some federal agencies have stepped in; the Environmental Protection Agency in June raised concerns about Holtec’s interpretation of the agency’s pollutant discharge permit for the plant.
Meanwhile, Singh in May told Markey during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that Holtec would seek community consent before it moved forward with a wastewater discharge.
Holtec has said that it would review alternatives for disposing of Pilgrim’s wastewater, such as evaporation and offsite shipping, but Kelly Trice, president of the company’s decommissioning business, said in January that discharges would “likely” be part of any final plan and that radiation in the water would be well below limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
DOE Hiring Fuel Cycle R&D Chief
The Department of Energy said this week that it is looking for someone to direct its nuclear energy fuel cycle program, according to a Tweet from the Office of Nuclear Energy.
The successful candidate for DOE’s new deputy assistant secretary for nuclear fuel cycle and supply chain will “direct R&D on advanced nuclear fuel cycle technologies to help enhance fuel performance, reduce waste generation, and limit proliferation risks,” the Office of Nuclear Energy said in a Tweet posted Friday.
The position requires Q-level security clearance and is part of the Senior Executive Service. The deadline for applications is July 27.
Andrew Griffith currently serves as DOE’s nuclear fuel cycle R&D chief, according to the Office of Nuclear Energy org chart.
