The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted an exemption to NorthStar Nuclear Decommissioning Co. on a reporting requirement for transport of low-level radioactive wastes from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
In August 2019, NorthStar requested an extension from 20 days to 45 days to be notified that a waste shipment has arrived at the Waste Control Specialists disposal facility in Texas. The wastes are shipped by rail.
Experience shows that this notification frequently occurs over 20 days after the wastes leave Vermont Yankee, according to a Feb. 11 notice in the Federal Register. The idea is “to avoid an excessive administrative burden as operational experience indicates that rail or mixed mode shipments may take more than 20 days to reach their destination,” the agency said.
The low-level radioactive wastes are generated by decommissioning of Vermont Yankee, which has been underway for about a year.
New Orleans-based Entergy retired Vermont Yankee’s single boiling-water reactor in December 2014, after 42 years of operation. In 2016, Entergy announced its intention to sell the site to New York City-based demolition specialist NorthStar Group Services. That sale was finalized in January 2019. Decommissioning is managed by a new NorthStar subsidiary, NorthStar Vermont Yankee.
In 2020, NorthStar plans to remove a few buildings plus the site’s off-gas system that collects internal gases from the reactor. The turbine building is set to be torn down in 2021. The three-year project of tearing down the reactor systems and building is due to begin in 2022. All of Vermont Yankee’s spent fuel — 58 casks with roughly 3,000 fuel assemblies — is in dry storage.
