After nearly a year of deliberations, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has finalized a settlement agreement with the company set to take over Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
The settlement document, dated Tuesday, withdraws Massachusetts’s objections to the Cape Cod-based plant’s license transfer to Holtec International from Entergy for decommissioning. The commonwealth in 2019 filed petitions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as a federal suit against the agency, all aimed at halting the sale. The new agreement nullifies those proceedings.
In the settlement, Holtec agreed to report the balance of Pilgrim’s decommissioning trust fund to the NRC annually. If the balance falls below a certain amount Holtec must replenish it, the settlement said. The company also has to send a yearly report on its finances as well as decommissioning and site remediation activities to the Massachusetts government and state agencies.
Tuesday’s agreement has been pending since last June, when Massachusetts along with Entergy and Holtec got NRC to hold off ruling on the state’s petition while they worked on a settlement. At the time, the parties said that only “discrete final issues” needed to be sorted out.
Holtec’s faced other legal challenges in recent months as it buys up retiring nuclear plants for decommissioning and spent fuel management. An ongoing suit filed by the state of New York in D.C.’s court of appeals challenges the nuclear services company’s purchase of Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station. The case was still awaiting a decision at deadline Wednesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
Meanwhile, a N.J. judge in February signed off on a settlement between the Camden, N.J.-based Holtec and the the host township of the Oyster Creek Generating Station, which the company also plans to decommission.
