5/20: Action to Deliver Citizens’ Demands to Entergy

Concerned citizens from across New England will march to the main gate of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to deliver our demand that Entergy Corporation cease putting our lives, livelihood, property and the environment at significant and growing risk.

󰀿May 20, 2012 | 1:00 – 3:00 pm

󰀽1 Elliot Lane, Plymouth, MA 󰀪Share

Contacts:
󰀍Cape Downwinders:
󰀟David Agnew, info(at)capedownwinders.org
󰀍Cape Codders for Peace and Justice:
󰀟Diane Turco, tturco(at)comcast.net

󰀓Event flyer

“Better Active Today than Radioactive Tomorrow”

Pilgrim should NOT be relicensed for another 20 years as planned. It’s aging GE Mark 1 reactor, designed for 40 years use, is the same as the four reactors that failed in Japan. Loss of offsite electricity was the cause, and NRC officials report that a similar event could happen here.

Federal regulators have known since 1972 that Pilgrim’s containment structure was unable to withstand a severe accident. Designed to hold 880 highly radioactive fuel bundles, it now contains over 3,270.

Entergy does not have a valid state permit to operate its cooling water system. Pilgrim takes about a half-billion gallons per day of water from Cape Cod Bay—for free—to use to cool the reactor. The water is discharged back into the Bay about 32 degrees hotter and polluted with toxic and radioactive materials. The destruction of marine life and impacts to endangered species are inconsistent with state water quality standards.

During the Fukushima disaster last year, the State Department recommended all US citizens within 50 miles evacuate. Pilgrim’s emergency “plan” stops at 10 miles. Millions in the metro-Boston area could be stuck in a gridlock, and the entirety of Cape Cod will have nowhere to escape. The population within 10 miles of Pilgrim is over 75,000; and within 50 miles is nearly 5 million.

Pilgrim is a radioactive waste generator, with the fleeting byproduct of energy production. It’s operations should expire with its current license: by June 8, 2012.

Get informed, be involved, and spread the word. Join us in standing up for energy safety!

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May 08

The Naked Truth About Nuclear Accident Insurance

󰀃Miles Benson, linktv.org 󰀍Link TV →

Going without insurance is described as “going naked” in insurance industry lingo. Going without insurance for the worst hazards in the nuclear power industry is business as usual.

One need not look back very far to see the problem. In March 2011, the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, triggered by an earthquake followed by a tsunami that overwhelmed all of Japan’s safeguards, melted down three reactors, displaced 160,000 people and caused an estimated $250 billion in damages and other still-unfolding economic consequences.

Today, in the United States, we have 104 operating nuclear plants producing electricity. The owners, operators, and government regulators who oversee them say an event like Fukushima will not happen here. And even if it did, they insist, there is enough liability insurance in place to cover the damages. The actual amount of that insurance coverage: just $12.6 billion.

You don’t need an advanced degree in calculus or risk analysis to see that something doesn’t add up, and to start feeling a bit…naked. But when it comes to nuclear insurance, naked is the fashion designed for the American public. Read more of this →

Apr 30

Local Residents Challenge Entergy’s Zoning Permit for Nuclear Waste Storage at Pilgrim in Plymouth

PLYMOUTH – A group of local residents has appealed a Plymouth zoning permit granted to Entergy Nuclear Generating Corporation (Entergy). The zoning permit, granted without any public hearing, gives Entergy the right to have a long-term high-level nuclear waste storage facility at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Pilgrim’s operating license will expire in 2032. The proposed nuclear waste dump will store all of the radioactive fuel rods that Pilgrim has generated since 1972, for many, many years after Pilgrim itself shuts down.

The appeal, filed with the Plymouth Zoning Board of Appeals on April 25, 2013, asks the ZBA to revoke the permit because the long-term, outdoor, dry cask storage of nuclear waste is not a “permitted use” under the Plymouth zoning laws, and because such storage also is not what the zoning permit calls an “accessory use.” The appeal also asks the ZBA to require Entergy to obtain a special permit. Under the special permit process, the ZBA can set conditions that will insure that the nuclear waste dump is built and operated as safely as possible; the special permit process also allows for public input.

Meg Sheehan, spokesperson for EcoLaw, a group of volunteer lawyers representing the residents, said, “We support dry cask storage, but think the residents of the area are entitled to the safest, most secure storage facility that can be built. Entergy apparently did not give critical facts to the Plymouth Director of Inspectional Services. The real fact of the matter is that, without a special permit, Plymouth zoning does not allow long-term nuclear waste storage.”

Ms. Sheehan went on to point out that the 1967 special permit for Pilgrim did not allow either the construction or the long term operation of a nuclear waste storage facility. That special permit was limited to “a nuclear-powered generating plant and associated buildings, roads, and transmission facilities”; and in requesting the special permit Pilgrim’s original owner, Boston Edison, said “The project will not include a repair station or outside storage of supplies.”

“Coincidentally,” Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch commented, “in mid-April the NRC said that spent fuel storage cask structures and components were prematurely degrading from moisture and weathering, especially in marine environments, and pointed to the need for enhanced monitoring and adequate drainage. A Special Permit would allow the Town to have a ‘say’ to assure that these measures, and more, are done to better protect both the public’s and worker’s health and safety.”

“In the past,” said Ms. Sheehan, “Pilgrim’s owners have asked the ZBA for special permits when they wanted to make changes at Pilgrim. Why is Entergy now trying to avoid the special permit process and get away with doing the minimum possible? That’s not OK.”

The next step in the appeal process is for the Zoning Board to schedule a public hearing, which will be held in the next 2 to 3 months.

For more information and copy of appeal: http://www.ecolaw.biz/nuclear-power

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Apr 12

Newsletter: April 2013

󰀓PC News Update: April 12, 2013 → Cape Downwinders Ballot Initiative / Case for Expedited Transfer of Spent Fuel to Dy Casks / Save Our Bay Flotilla / Ira Wood on Pilgrim / Marshfield Town Meeting To Vote on Nuclear Advisory Committee