Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
10/16/2015
A House lawmaker from Vermont said in a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week that he is “deeply concerned” over the decommissioning of Entergy’s Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) wrote the NRC to raise issue with the lack of state and local stakeholder involvement in the decision-making of the decommissioning process, along with Entergy’s use of the decommissioning trust fund and SAFSTOR.
“The lack of meaningful stakeholder participation in decisions related to Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning is unacceptable,” Welch wrote. “It is essential that Vermonters have a seat at the table throughout this process. The NRC has failed to substantively engage state and local officials and appears to be increasingly relying on the perspective of the nuclear energy industry. I request that you creatively engage local stakeholders in a manner that goes beyond standard regulatory procedures to ensure that their concerns are heard and addressed.”
The lack of state authority over the cleanup has left many stakeholders in Vermont upset. Specifically, state officials have expressed concerns about the reduction of emergency and security requirements for the surrounding area, as well as Entergy’s use of the decommissioning trust fund to pay for costs related to the transfer of spent nuclear fuel to dry cask storage. The state has tried to intervene through appeals to the NRC and via federal lawsuits, but so far it has not been successful.
The NRC maintains jurisdiction over regulating the decommissioning process, and even with that oversight, utilities can choose how and when to decommission a plant. Entergy has decided to enter Vermont Yankee into SAFSTOR, which would enable the reactor to sit for up to 60 years before active decommissioning needs to be completed, compared to DECON, which is active decommissioning. But the company and the state of Vermont have agreed the teardown would start as soon as the trust fund has enough money to cover the estimated $1.24 billion cleanup. The utility estimates the fund would accrue that amount in the 2030s or 2040s.
That timeline raised concerns for Welch. “The use of SAFSTOR will delay clean-up, waste disposal, and remediation of the Vermont Yankee site for generations,” he wrote. “As a result, the community will be unable to redevelop the site for economically beneficial purposes. While SAFSTOR clearly benefits Entergy, its use will render economic harm to the community. As an alternative, the NRC should consider accelerated options for decommissioning such as DECON, which would allow for prompt cleanup, redevelopment, and reuse of the Vermont Yankee site.”
Welch also argued that Entergy’s use of the trust fund for spent fuel management, attorney fees, and other expenditures is only harming the decommissioning. “These unjustified expenditures will further delay an already lengthy decommissioning process. The NRC must be a careful steward of the fund to ensure that these ratepayer dollars are not diverted to pay for inappropriate or unauthorized expenses,” Welch said.
The NRC this week declined to comment on the lawmaker’s letter, saying “it would respond to [Welch] through its regular process.”
The commission earlier this year initiated a rulemaking to address the decommissioning process, with part of the focus on SAFSTOR’s 60-year time frame. Currently, the NRC has no regulations that reflect the decreased security and safety threat posed by a reactor undergoing decommissioning. Instead, a series of license amendments is needed to exempt the plants, a step that can prove costly and time-intensive for both utilities and the NRC.
According to the commission’s staff requirements memoranda, the staff should focus on a wide variety of issues in its rulemaking that affect decommissioning plants, including the appropriate amount of NRC involvement in the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, the role of state and local government in the process, and the need for 60 years under SAFSTOR.
