The Vermont Public Service Board has authorized 11 entities, from a labor union to several state agencies, to intervene in Entergy’s proposed sale of the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to a New York company for expedited decommissioning.
The latest, and seemingly last, approved intervenor is the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, on March 24. That follows Public Service Board OK of intervention by stakeholders including the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, state Agency for Natural Resources, the town of Vernon Planning Commission, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 300, the Elnu Abenaki Tribe, the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, and the Windham Regional Commission.
The PSB authorizes intervention by individuals or groups that can show a significant interest in the matter. This gives them the ability to participate as full parties in the board’s review of the sale, including offering testimony and submitting requests for information during the discovery process, according to T. Michael Twomey, vice president for external affairs at Entergy Wholesale Commodities.
Vermont Yankee closed in 2014, and Entergy had planned to place it in SAFSTOR, under which it would complete decommissioning in 2075. However, the utility in November announced its intention to sell the plant, and its nearly $600 million decommissioning trust fund, to NorthStar Group Services.
Entergy hopes to complete the sale by the end of 2018, pending approval by the PSB and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The prospective new owner would start decontamination and decommissioning by 2021 and wrap up work no later than 2030. NorthStar would then only be responsible for management of the plant’s spent fuel storage until national interim or permanent repositories are built.
The two companies only opposed intervention in the Vermont PSB review by the Abenaki Nation, noting that its motion was filed after the March 1 deadline for timely participation. “In our opinion, the Missisquoi Abenaki tribe was seeking to intervene on topics that were outside the scope of the proceeding, given that we and NorthStar are not seeking approval for any particular future use of the site in this proceeding,” Twomey stated by email.
Entergy and NorthStar as of Wednesday had received the first discovery requests from five intervenors and officially have until April 5 to submit their responses under the schedule set by the Public Service Board. However, on Wednesday they requested an extension to April 26.
“The ground for this motion is that the first round of discovery requests are extremely voluminous, totaling nearly 1,000 requests (including sub-requests). A substantial number of these requests seek some information from the Entergy petitioners and other information from the NorthStar petitioners, which requires coordination between the Entergy petitioners (and their counsel) and the NorthStar petitioners (and their counsel),” according to the motion from Entergy and NorthStar.
An information session and public hearing on the sale is scheduled for April 6 at Vernon Elementary School in Vernon.
While the sale is pending, Entergy is moving ahead with its accelerated transfer of spent fuel from Vermont Yankee to the plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation.
Work is due to begin two years early, by the end of April, and wrap up early in the fourth quarter of 2018, Joseph Lynch, Entergy’s senior government affairs manager for decommissioning, said by email.
Thirteen dry-storage casks are already loaded at the plant, and Entergy plans to load nearly another 3,000 fuel assemblies into 45 additional casks. Total cost for the work is estimated at $143 million, covering construction of a second ISFSI pad and the actual used fuel transfer. The company has already received 12 new casks and should get another eight by May, Lynch said: “The delivery of the remainder of the casks is coordinated with the loading campaign.”
