Opinions

OF NUCLEAR INTEREST: Using local zoning for local control over nuclear waste

Posted on    September 12, 2014      Meg Sheehan    Wicked Local

The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth is storing more than 40 years worth of lethal radioactive waste in a “short term” storage pool built in 1974. Pilgrim is owned by Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation, the second largest power producer in the U.S. In order to keep running Pilgrim, in 2012 Entergy started building a new storage facility for the nuclear waste. Before construction, Entergy failed to apply for zoning approval from the town of Plymouth for the new, long-term nuclear waste storage facility. Once this failure was exposed by local residents, a permit was issued but the residents claim it violates local zoning.

Plymouth has a comprehensive system of zoning for land uses throughout the town. Zoning is a way for a community to ensure that land uses are conducted in a way that does not harm public health, safety and welfare, including the value of real estate. This way, local communities retain and exercise control over development and other activities carried out within their borders. Plymouth’s zoning laws are carefully crafted and are intended to ensure that large developments and industrial uses are allowed only under certain conditions set forth in the zoning law’s “special permit” provisions. The special permit laws give the public the right to participate in the zoning process by requiring a public hearing and the opportunity for zoning officials to impose conditions on the proposed use.

Local residents claim that Entergy’s new nuclear waste storage facility needs a “special permit” under Plymouth’s zoning laws. They claim that the 2013 decision by the building inspector to issue a zoning permit “as of right” without a special permit was wrong. When the citizens’ appeal of that permit to the Zoning Board of Appeals was rejected, they went to court. The goal of the citizens’ lawsuit over Entergy’s nuclear waste storage facility is not to stop the project. Instead, they say Entergy should apply for a special permit, which would result in a better project. They say the public and local officials should have the chance to thoroughly review the plans, including siting plans, and a public hearing should be held. The special-permit process requires the Zoning Board of Appeals to impose conditions to protect public health, safety and welfare, and gives the public a chance to suggest conditions that the Zoning Board of Appeals may adopt.

Entergy asked the court to dismiss the citizen lawsuit, claiming the 18 local residents who are plaintiffs did not have standing. That is, Entergy said the plaintiffs did not make an adequate claim that they would be harmed by the project, so the case should be dismissed. On Aug. 14, the Land Court judge rejected Entergy’s attempt to dismiss the entire case. The court found that Entergy’s nuclear waste storage facility may harm the economic value of those citizen plaintiffs residing within two miles of Pilgrim. This means these plaintiffs now proceed to trial on this and other issues.

Pilgrim’s nuclear waste has nowhere to go but Plymouth. It is likely to remain here forever. While this problem may seem too big to comprehend, enforcing local zoning laws meant to protect our health, safety and welfare is an important tool for local residents to use. Local laws, enforced by local officials for the benefit of local communities, give Plymouth the power and control it deserves in this situation.

Meg Sheehan is a public interest attorney who grew up in Plymouth. She is co-counsel on the zoning appeal lawsuit.

OF NUCLEAR INTEREST: Pilgrim’s Cancers – ‘Tobacco Science’ versus fact

Posted on    April 25, 2014      Mary Lampert, Pilgrim Watch    OCM/Wicked Local

Industries that can harm the public have “tobacco scientists” and lobbyists to promote their message. The Pilgrim nuclear plant is no exception, and denies the pattern of radiation-linked cancers and disease around it.

Industries that can harm the public have “tobacco scientists” and lobbyists to promote their message. The Pilgrim nuclear plant is no exception, and denies the pattern of radiation-linked cancers and disease around it.

Pilgrim’s spin doctors choose to rely on fiction, not facts. We rely on the National Academies (our nation’s premier scientists). The National Academies’ latest report said there is no safe dose of radiation and that exposure to even very low levels of radiation is three times more dangerous than previously expected – and more so for children and women. We rely also on statistics from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry. In 1982 it began recording data showing a continued increase in radiation-linked cancers in communities around Pilgrim.

A review of Massachusetts Cancer Registry data shows that Plymouth (from 2002-2009) has a statistically significant increased level of leukemia, at a 95 percent probability level. This means that there is, at most, a 5 percent chance that the difference between the observed and expected cases of leukemia is due to chance. There also is a statistically significant increased level of prostate cancer, another radiation-linked disease.

For the previous two decades, the Massachusetts Cancer Registry shows the “footprints” of radiation-linked disease (leukemia, thyroid cancer, multiple myeloma and prostate cancer) in the seven towns most likely to be impacted by Pilgrim – Carver, Duxbury, Kingston, Marshfield, Pembroke, Plymouth and Plympton. The Cape is downwind from Pilgrim much of the year. It, along with Southeastern Massachusetts, has the highest cancer rates in the state. There has not yet been a study to determine whether radiation emissions from Pilgrim are the missing variable to explain the high cancer rates there.

A major case-control study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in 1990 found a four-fold increase in adult leukemia the closer one lived to or if one worked at Pilgrim. Pilgrim did not like the results and cut a political deal allowing it to appoint a second peer review panel to re-review the study and write a report. Even Pilgrim’s handpicked panel concluded that, “The original study team adhered to generally accepted epidemiological principles… [And] …the findings of the study cannot be readily dismissed on the basis of methodological errors or proven biases… [and last]…the association found between leukemia and proximity to the Pilgrim nuclear facility was unexpectedly strong.”

Pilgrim apologists say radiation from Pilgrim is closely monitored and controlled. Not so. Pilgrim collects its own environmental samples, fewer now than previous years; analyzes the samples in their own lab; and writes its own reports – the equivalent of letting students write and grade their own exams. MDPH has a very limited offsite monitoring program due to lack of finances. Since 2007, there have been onsite monitoring wells to detect radioactive tritium leaks before they enter Cape Cod Bay. Leaks of tritium are evident but not the source. If more wells were installed, would more releases be detected?

Pilgrim place real-time air monitors in off-site communities. Pilgrim refused to do so. MDPH began its own, very limited offsite air-monitoring program in 2010.

Pilgrim’s operational history affects us today. Pilgrim began operations with bad fuel and without filtration. In 1982, Pilgrim blew its toxic filters, spewing hot particles into neighborhoods. A state-sponsored study showed that weather conditions then were worst-case for holding contamination over local communities and Cape Cod. Environmental samples showed Cesium-137 in milk samples from a close-by farm was 1 million times greater than expected; no Cesium-137 was found in control samples. A similar pattern was recorded by Pilgrim in other environmental samples. Pilgrim claimed it was due, not to it, but to Chinese test bombs. You decide. Did the Chinese have “smart” test bombs that targeted Pilgrim’s indicator samples but not their control samples?

Spin doctors cannot raise the dead or make the sick well. If the dead and sick with radiation-linked diseases are significantly more prevalent near Pilgrim than in communities distant, the conclusion seems obvious.

Mary Lampert is a resident of Duxbury, founder and director of Pilgrim Watch, and co-chairman of the town of Duxbury’s Nuclear Advisory Committee.

12 Protesters Found Guilty Of Trespassing At Pilgrim Nuclear

Posted on    March 21, 2014      Bruce Gellerman    Source (WBUR)

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Twelve Cape Cod residents were found guilty Friday in Plymouth District Court for illegally entering the grounds of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant.

The defendants admitted to trespassing at the Plymouth facility, but used the seldom argued necessity defense, declaring they were innocent because they were trying to prevent an imminent public danger.

Diana Turco, co-founder of Cape Downwinders, a group of Cape Cod residents who want the plant shut down, was one of 12 defendants.

“There are cancers caused by the nuclear power plant. There is no assurance of public safety in the evacuation plans. Those are huge issues,” Turco said.

The judge ruled the standards for the necessity defense were not met.

The 12 defendants were found guilty and each was sentenced to a day in jail, or time served.

APCC calls for Pilgrim closure

Posted on    March 17, 2014      APCC

The Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod has released their study:
http://www.apcc.org/documents/pdfs/statements/2014/March/Pilgrim-3-17-14.pdf

“Based on the importance of Cape Cod’s natural resources and the impacts and threats posed by Pilgrim, APCC calls on public officials and regulatory agencies to revoke Pilgrim’s permits and to require that Pilgrim be decommissioned in the shortest time and safest manner feasible. We also recommend additional measures to safeguard the Cape’s environment and human population.”

OF NUCLEAR INTEREST: Radioactive waste storage facility being built in Plymouth

Posted on    September 14, 2013      Sara Altherr    Source

Last year, without fanfare, Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation started work on a nuclear waste storage facility, using “dry casks” to store radioactive spent nuclear fuel at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station (PNPS). Various estimates put the cost of the facility between $165 million and $400 million.

In Pilgrim’s reactor, nuclear fuel assemblies heat water to make steam that turns turbines to create electricity. Pilgrim’s reactor holds 580 fuel assemblies. After a few years, the fuel is “spent,” and needs to be replaced. However, the spent fuel is highly radioactive and will remain dangerous for thousands of years.

PNPS needs a new storage place for spent fuel assemblies; it is running out of room in its spent fuel pool. There is currently no place to send the spent fuel. In 2010, the federal government abandoned the proposed Yucca Mountain geological repository, and no headway has been made on another site. Thus, producers of nuclear power throughout the U.S. expect to store their spent nuclear fuel onsite for a long time; estimates run as high as 300 years. Keep reading…

Fukushima – weighing risks, offering options

Posted on    March 9, 2013      Sara Altherr (Kingston resident)    Letter to the Editor, Kingston Reporter

March 11 will be the second anniversary of the devastation of the nuclear power facility in Fukushima, Japan. I hope all Kingstonians will take a minute to contemplate how that disaster – half a world away – holds important lessons for us.

The nuclear reactor at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth is the same design as those in Fukushima. This reactor sits only 10 miles from most of our homes in Kingston. Although a great tsunami initiated the disaster, the actual cause of the explosions and enormous release of radioactivity at Fukushima was the lack of electricity – electricity needed to operate pumps which cool the reactor itself and the nuclear waste reservoir.

Plymouth’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station – owned and operated by Entergy Corporation of Louisiana – is 40 years old and was recently relicensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for another 20 years. The facility was originally planned to operate for 40 years, but, despite concern from local residents and town officials, the NRC decided to go ahead and re-license it without requiring Entergy to abide by new safety guidelines developed since Fukushima.

Kingston Town Meeting approved an article last April that asked the NRC to require Entergy to suspend approval of Entergy’s new license until full implementation of safety improvements based on the Fukushima experience had occurred. Ten other towns in the region also approved similar town meeting articles or ballot questions. Despite those requests and others from state, federal and local officials, the NRC granted Pilgrim’s license renewal.

Since that time, many of us who are concerned about the risks of continued operations at the Plymouth facility have been meeting and continuing activities to try to protect our area from a fate similar to Fukushima’s. I work with the umbrella group Pilgrim Coalition. Various member organization have been working to get the NRC to do its job of “protecting people and the environment.” We have worked with federal, state, and town officials, relevant state and federal agencies and others to lessen the chances that such a disaster happen here.

Keep reading…

Another close call at Pilgrim

Posted on    March 4, 2013  

For the second time in two weeks, Entergy’s Pilgrim nuclear reactor experienced an “event” requiring notification to the NRC. The scram discharge volume valve (valve CV-302-22B) failed on March 1, 2013 and February 18, 2013. NRC Event Notification Reports

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “The scram discharge volume is a large metal tank that collects the water vented from the control rod’s hydraulic pistons during a scram. It is sized to contain all the water vented during a scram. CV-302-22B is one of the valves on the drain line from the scram discharge volume. When a scram signal occurs, this valve automatically closes (or is designed to do so, whether it does so is another matter).”

Keep reading…

Another legal avenue closed for Pilgrim safety advocates, but…

Posted on    February 27, 2013  

It’s no surprise and it’s not over yet!

On February 26, 2013, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office lost a bid to force the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to consider new information about the risks to the public safety and the environment from Entergy’s Pilgrim nuclear reactor. View the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals decision here

The Attorney General tried to argue that Fukushima nuclear disaster revealed new information about high level nuclear waste spent fuel pool fires and core damage events that should be considered before Pilgrim was allowed to be relicensed for another 20 years. These “events” would release large amounts of radioactive material throughout the region, with unimaginable consequences.

The Court ruled in favor of Entergy and the NRC, and would not let the AG proceed with the challenge. No surprise there! Winning a court case against the NRC and the nuclear industry is extremely difficult. This is because the law that created the NRC, called the Atomic Energy Act, gives the NRC expansive powers to make the rules about who can challenge their decisions. As the Court said, the Atomic Energy Act is “a regulatory scheme which is virtually unique in the degree to which broad responsibility is reposed in the administering agency [the NRC]….” The Act is pro-industry, and the NRC, in making more rules (called regulations) on who can challenge its decisions, has taken that mission to heart: protect the industry, shut out public interest advocates.

In the February 26 decision, the Court said the AG did not meet the standards of the NRC procedural laws for getting a hearing on the safety issues. The Court also said the AG could not challenge the Pilgrim relicensing under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires the NRC to take a “hard look” at environmental impacts.

The Court’s decision by no means says Pilgrim is “safe.” In fact, the Court said the NRC still has to make Entergy fix numerous defects at Pilgrim, even though Pilgrim has been relicensed until 2032. There are three types of defects at Pilgrim the NRC is thinking of making Entergy fix as a result of Fukushima: lack of filtered vents for emergencies, inadequate ways to figure out the water level in the spent fuel pool, and inadequate core cooling containment. As we speak, industry is lobbying the NRC to say no fixes, claiming they are too expensive and unwarranted. Today, the New York Times wrote about this: Post-Fukushima, Arguments for Nuclear Safety Bog Down

The NRC isn’t the only one who gets to say how Pilgrim operates, however. State and local officials have a say, too. Entergy must meet state and local environmental and zoning laws. Admittedly, state and local authority over Pilgrim is limited, but it does exist. Unfortunately, Massachusetts state regulators are taking a hands off approve on Entergy’s water pollution. Other officials are looking the other way while Entergy is building a $165 million nuclear waste storage facility without proper permits. Vermont and New York officials have been much more active in trying to protect the public from Entergy’s nuclear reactors in those states.

Politicians at the state and federal level are discussing new laws to address the nuclear waste and other issues. Today, The Hill reported that Ohio Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden expects a draft nuclear waste bill shortly. Sen. Wyden is quote as saying, “I call the nuclear waste issue one of those issues that feels like the longest running battle since the Trojan War, and I think it’s time to get on with it.” Massachusetts state legislators have also announced legislation to deal with Pilgrim. Let’s hope these legislators can “get on with it.”

Meanwhile, back in Manomet, Entergy is going to being refueling Pilgrim in March or April. This means Entergy is going to bring in more nuclear fuel rods so that it can continue to run — and make even more nuclear waste.

Concerned residents across the region are telling federal, state, and local officials that enough is enough… and its time to act.

Find out more:
www.capedownwinders.org
www.pilgrimwatch.org
www.capecodbaywatch.org

Goodbye Entergy-Louisiana

Posted on    May 25, 2012      Cape Cod Bay Watch    Source

While Pilgrim was in the middle of a shut down due to a cooling system malfunction, the NRC decided it was time to reissue the 20 year operating license. This is an outrage, and groups vow to continue the fight against the dangerous, polluting reactor in Plymouth.

“Sometimes equipment doesn’t operate as you would hope.” — Entergy spokesman Jack Alexander, Entergy Manager of Government Affairs (in State House News Service, Andy Metzger, May 23, 2012)

Well, that about says it, Jack! You’ve admitted Pilgrim isn’t safe and that you can’t ensure that it will operate for another 20 years “the way you would hope”!

Entergy’s accident on May 22 sent superheated water from a backwash operation into Cape Cod Bay. The U.S. EPA and the state DEP are AWOL and refuse to answer our questions about what happened with this outdated cooling water system that’s falling apart.

Meanwhile, Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard CEO and lobbyists got their Republican buddies in the House to chastise the NRC for being “unfair” to Entergy. Pilgrim Coalition wrote back, blasting Fred Upton and his cronies on the House Energy and Commerce Committee for doing the bidding of Entergy, a Louisiana carpetbagger making $1-million a day off the backs of Massachusetts ratepayers: PC Letter to US House (May 24, 2012)

And then the NRC decides to issue the new license – but the outgoing Chairman of the Commission blasts the decision as unfair to Massachusetts residents who have valid concerns over safety and the environment that have not been addressed. Read the Chairman’s Comments here: Jaczko blasts NRC (May 21, 2012)

The NRC’s decision is ILLEGAL and we will pursue the many other avenues available to us to shut Pilgrim down. The fight to shut down Pilgrim has just begun!

Nuclear safety should be a concern

Posted on    April 14, 2012      Anna Baker    Source (Letter to the Editor, Marshfield Mariner)

I put forward an article regarding nuclear safety before the forthcoming annual Town Meeting. If you feel strongly about a new high school, seawall improvements, a community center, etc., you should feel similarly compelled to understand an issue that protects you from a nuclear disaster.

To be clear, the article up for town vote is neither anti nor pro-nuclear. It is simply focused on safety improvements at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. The nuclear reactor’s license expires this June and the Entergy Corporation, its owner, applied for a new 20-year license. The reactor was originally designed to operate for 40 years, which has already lapsed!

Pilgrim has many safety shortfalls. The largest threat is that the reactor was originally designed to hold 880 spent fuel assemblies; it now has more than 3,200 in an overcrowded pool. If the reactor loses electricity (used to cool rods), the fuel can combust and cause a meltdown. Keep reading…

Designed to Fail: An Overview

Posted on    March 24, 2012      Mary Lampert, Pilgrim Watch

Pilgrim’s 40-year license to operate expires on June 8, 2012; and despite its age, failed design, and unresolved safety and environmental issues, there is concerted pressure to rubber-stamp Entergy’s application to extend its license another 20 years, to 2032.

We believe that the license extension should be postponed until the lessons learned from Fukushima are fixed and all the unresolved safety and environmental issues are fully examined in hearings before the Atomic Safety Licensing Board.

Pilgrim is a carbon copy of the Fukushima reactors and could easily fail for the same fundamental reasons: loss of electrical power, serious design flaws, and human error.

Further, Pilgrim is an “antique.” It was designed and built when the Ed Sullivan Show introduced the Beatles to America. The risks for catastrophe change as reactors age, just as the risk for accident and death due for people as they get older. How many household appliances or cars do you use that are over 40 years old?

An accident can destroy not only “America’s Hometown,” but the entire region, just like in Japan; but unlike the spread of dangerous radiation in a disaster, emergency plans to evacuate or shelter the population stops at 10 miles.

Additionally, the effects from daily operations need to be considered and mitigated, as required.  Pilgrim emits radiation into our air and water daily.  Allowable releases have not been lowered to match today’s scientific understanding of radiation’s harmful health effects, and offsite monitoring is insufficient to provide a reliable “Neighborhood Watch.”

Last, Pilgrim directly impacts our marine environment. It uses an outdated method to remove excess heat that it generates by drawing in over 500 million gallons of water daily from Cape Cod Bay, along with fish eggs and smaller fish. The water passes “once through” the reactor and back into the bay heated as a thermal plume, scalding our ecosystem. Unlike our fishermen, Pilgrim has an “unlimited fishing permit.” In addition, Pilgrim steam cleans the intake screens to keep mussels from clogging the works, spiking the temperature even higher. The net effect is harm to both our valuable marine economy and to our endangered species by depleting their food supply – this is not necessary. Technology exists to lessen the impact; like everyone else, Pilgrim should be required to employ the “best technology” available to minimize adverse environmental impact.

There is no reason to rush through the relicensing process. The NRC rules allow Pilgrim to operate on its original license until a decision is made on its application; there’s time to do it right.

We don’t need Pilgrim!

Posted on    March 24, 2012      Robert R. Holt    Letter to the Editor (Cape Cod Times)

After describing the recommendations of the NRC’s post-Fukushima task force, your editorial of March 21 then assumes that they are already improvements, neglecting the fact that the industry has five years to adopt them! It’s also an elementary error to treat “safe” as an all-or-none term. When NRC declares that all U.S. nuclear reactors are safe, they mean “safe enough for Americans,” even though Germany realizes that one disaster every dozen years (the industry’s present record) isn’t safe enough for them. Why should Entergy assume the right to put at risk many millions of people all over the world, who don’t benefit from nuclear power, so they can enjoy big profits? Because nuclear spews less greenhouse gases than fossil fuel plants? Several experts, notably Amory Lovins (www.reinventingfire.com), demonstrate a better alternative: adopting easily available, cost-effective ways of using energy efficiently creates more good jobs than lost by abandoning fossil fuels, saves enough money to accelerate renewables, and cuts CO2, avoiding catastrophic climate change. We can do more with enough less electricity to close down, not build more, coal plants while phasing out nuclear power as well. Pilgrim can’t be made safe enough to extend its license; let it die now!

Entergy “Cowardly” in Refusing to Attend Upcoming Nuclear Forum

Posted on    March 15, 2012      Wedge Bramhall (Letter to the Editor)    Source

Plymouth resident Wedge Bramhall urges the NRC and Entergy officials to attend an upcoming forum on Pilgrim nuclear plant, and the nonbinding referendum opposing the plant’s relicensing.

The Pilgrim Nuclear Station hidden from most peoples view has been operating for nearly 40 years. Every ounce of high level nuclear waste that has been produced by this plant still sits in Pilgrims spent fuel pool. This plant now holds well over 1,200 tons of high level waste. The waste is stored in what most industry experts say is the most vulnerable spent fuel pool in the business. The pool is well over three times denser than originally designed back in the sixties.

About six years ago Entergy began a process to relicense the plant for an additional 20 years beyond its designed life. So not only do we have a tired old poorly designed plant we now have a high level nuclear waste dump attached to it. Keep reading…