The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday fielded an onslaught of complaints from the public about the safety culture at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, following a controversial email leak in December that revealed troubling inspection findings at the beleaguered Massachusetts plant.
At the request of a host of officials from the state, NRC staff held a public meeting in Plymouth to discuss an ongoing “special inspection” at the plant. The inspection stems from the site’s 2015 downgrade to Column 4 of the agency’s Action Matrix, the lowest safety rating a plant can have while remaining in operation. The 44-year-old facility, which has experienced numerous unplanned shutdowns and other operational issues dating to 2013, is scheduled for permanent closure in 2019.
On Monday, 10 NRC staffers met with several dozen state officials and lawmakers in what agency spokesman Neil Sheehan described as a “government-to-government” meeting. On Tuesday, about 300 people traveled to the NRC’s public event, despite a snowstorm, with many calling for the plant’s immediate shutdown. The NRC staffers explained that operator Entergy will refuel Pilgrim in the spring as scheduled. Refueling outages occur every 18 months to two years at nuclear plants.
“That was like a slap in the face across the hundreds of people who were there saying shut it down,” Diane Turco, president of the Cape Downwinders, a group of residents from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, said over the phone Wednesday.
She also voiced transparency concerns about Monday’s “closed-door” meeting, arguing that it detracted from public officials’ participation at Tuesday’s meeting. Turco said the closed-door meeting pre-empted the public meeting, resulting in canned statements from officials.
An NRC project engineer mistakenly forwarded the message to Turco on Dec. 5, disclosing candid observations from inspection team leader Don Jackson, most notably concerns about Entergy’s safety culture. Turco said Pilgrim is a failed reactor under failed oversight, run by a failing corporation, which is a “recipe for catastrophe,” resulting in a safety threat to the 5 million people who live in the metropolitan area surrounding the plant.
The special inspection includes 20 agency officials and is a relatively rare occurrence. While the evaluation was originally expected to wrap up on Jan. 13, Sheehan said the exit meeting has not yet been scheduled and the NRC is monitoring operations closely at Pilgrim. The NRC has 45 days to issue an inspection report following the exit meeting.
“We have not identified any immediate safety issues that would lead to a change from the plant’s current status in Column 4 of our Action Matrix,” Sheehan said. “In other words, it will remain under the highest levels of NRC scrutiny for the foreseeable future. We also said our formal report will be issued in a few months that will provide details on exactly what the inspection team found.”
NRC Regional Administrator Dan Dorman wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to state Sen. Vinny deMacedo that the NRC understands that “inadvertent disclosure” of the inspection details has caused public concerns.
“Let me assure you that Pilgrim is operating safely,” Dorman wrote. “Our inspectors continuously evaluate plant safety. As issues are identified, they are evaluated to determine their impact on Pilgrim’s ability to fulfill safety functions that protect the reactor and spent fuel. Based on all of the information developed to date, there remains substantial safety margin in the design and operations of Pilgrim. We will continue to comprehensively inspect Entergy’s performance to ensure our assessment remains accurate.”
