Officials from Vermont on Wednesday requested a public meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss the potential sale and license transfer of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, as Entergy prepares for decommissioning.
The Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, which consists of local and state officials and lawmakers, penned the letter to NRC Chairwoman Kristine Svinicki. The group said it specifically wants to discuss Vermont Yankee’s site-specific decommissioning cost estimate and post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR), which are scheduled for submission in February and March 2017 as part of Entergy’s license amendment request.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said by email Thursday that the agency is considering the request. NRC counsel is reviewing whether a public meeting is required in light of the revised PSDAR that nuclear decommissioning specialist NorthStar will file with the agency. A PSDAR lays out the planned decommissioning operations, schedule, and cost.
“We earlier conducted a public meeting in Vermont regarding the PSDAR that Entergy submitted for the plant,” Sheehan said. “The question is whether the changes to the PSDAR are so extensive as to warrant another meeting.”
Entergy requested a license transfer in November to New York-based NorthStar, which in November agreed to buy Vermont Yankee and assume ownership of the estimated $600 million decommissioning trust fund for the plant that closed in 2014. This week NorthStar announced that it had entered into a joint venture with the U.S. branch of French multinational nuclear company to pursue decommissioning work at Amercian reactor sites. The group will start with Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, which is scheduled to close in 2019, and the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan, scheduled for shutdown in 2018.
The trust fund and decommissioning timeline have been subjects of fierce debate in Vermont. The state Attorney General’s Office has filed numerous challenges against Entergy’s use of the trust fund. The NRC in October denied Vermont’s request for a hearing concerning Entergy’s use of the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund, ruling the utility can use money from the account for spent fuel management expenses. The state had filed a hearing request in April with the NRC, challenging Entergy’s license amendment request to use $225 million from the trust fund for managing spent nuclear fuel and other expenses. The state considered those costs, including insurance and property taxes, to be unrelated to decommissioning.
Meanwhile, Entergy’s original PSDAR called for decontamination and dismantlement to start in 2068, but Vermont officials have argued the Vernon plant could be decommissioned starting in the 2020s. Entergy has since shortened the timeline to fully decommission the facility from 2075 to 2030, saying spent fuel at the site will be transferred from wet to dry storage by the end of 2018, four years earlier than originally expected. The $145 million project involves moving nearly 3,000 spent fuel assemblies into 45 dry casks. The total cost of decommissioning is currently projected at $1.2 billion.
“We believe it is imperative that the citizens of Vermont and the neighboring states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire be afforded an opportunity to engage locally and directly with the NRC by providing comments in person to representatives from your agency,” the panel’s letter to Svinicki reads, suggesting a meeting in Vermont.
Fifteen officials signed the letter, including June Tierney, commissioner with the Vermont Public Service Department; and William Irwin, the Department of Health’s radiological health chief, who oversees environmental testing at the plant.
The NRC recently granted a similar request to officials in Massachusetts, following an email leak that revealed preliminary findings from an ongoing special inspection at the troubled Pilgrim Nuclear Power Nuclear Power Station. Hundreds of people showed up this week for that meeting.
