Changes are needed in the nation’s management of spent nuclear fuel at reactor sites, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said late last week in a letter to Senate leaders. Healey wrote a letter in support of legislation introduced earlier this year by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) that would require nuclear reactor sites to move fuel from wet to dry storage. According to Healey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s failure to address spent fuel safety has left the public at risk to an accident. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has long had an obligation to develop meaningful long-term solutions to the current on-site storage of nuclear waste in facilities across the country, yet it has failed to do so,” Healey wrote. “Its failure to act poses risks to public safety and the environment.” She added, “More than 40 years after the federal government licensed the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, MA and the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT (located less than ten miles from the Massachusetts border), a permanent nuclear waste repository remains out of reach. It is unacceptable.” The NRC, in early 2014, voted not to require the expedited transfer of spent fuel from wet to dry storage, citing the relatively minimal safety impact the change would have.
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