The company that owns the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, Holtec, has applied for a federal permit to discharge water from the spent nuclear-fuel pool into Cape Cod Bay. The application would modify an existing permit.
Although the water contains radioactive material, the application filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deals only with non-radiological pollution.
Radioactivity in the water is regulated separately, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said the water already meets radiation limits.
“It's up to [a] 3 millirem dose to the public annually,” he said. “Our radiological releases have been fractions of a millirem annually, so we would be well within compliance of our current technical specifications for discharge.”
Local residents and organizations, including a coalition of several groups called Save Our Bay, are fighting the proposed release of radioactive water.
Diane Turco, director of Cape Downwinders and a member of the Save Our Bay steering committee, said the application confirms that Holtec intends to discharge the water, even though other options are available.
Holtec has said it may use four disposal methods: discharge into the bay, trucking to an off-site disposal facility, evaporation, and storing water on the Pilgrim property.
Environmental authorities say the permit modification is necessary for Holtec to discharge the water because the company’s current permits do not allow release of wastewater as part of the decommissioning. That water includes the contents of a pool used to shield workers from radiation from spent fuel rods.
The company must also file a permit application at the state level, for a surface-water discharge permit, O’Brien said. He said Monday he wasn’t sure if the document had been filed, but that Holtec intends to pursue the state and federal permits at the same time.
“We've had conversations [with the state] at a high level … very similar to what we did with the EPA before we filed,” he said. “But I think we anticipate the process would be kind of parallel.”
Meanwhile, Holtec says it will not comply with a request from Sen. Ed Markey to pay for third-party scientific testing to assess the risks of discharging a million gallons of water from Pilgrim into Cape Cod Bay.
Markey sent the company a letter March 17 in which he sought to hold Holtec CEO Kris Singh to a commitment he made last May to cooperate with the study. Markey said refusing to use the ratepayer-funded decommissioning trust fund to pay for the study “would violate its commitment to an independent review of any potential waste discharge into Cape Cod Bay.”
Holtec responded Friday in a letter from Kelly Trice, president of Holtec Decommissioning International, a subsidiary. Trice said Singh agreed to provide data and access to the plant, but not money.
Asked for comment, Markey’s office sent a written statement. In it, the senator said Holtec “can’t pretend it’s meeting its commitments while dodging its debt to the community and trying to push the bill for an independent study back on ratepayers.”
“I'm calling on Holtec to put money where its mouth is and fund this study using the money meant to decommission this site safely,” Markey said.
Turco, of Save Our Bay, said paying for the study would help build public trust.
“Kris Singh said that he would listen to stakeholders and do what they ask,” she said. “And Senator Markey's a stakeholder, Senator [Elizabeth] Warren's a stakeholder, Representative [Bill] Keating is a stakeholder, the public are stakeholders. And we have all said no dumping in the bay, and yet he ignores our requests.”
Save Our Bay contends that a previous state settlement with Holtec makes the discharge illegal, because the company agreed to abide by state regulations on human health and the environment.
Tomorrow, samples of radioactive water from Pilgrim are scheduled to be collected for testing commissioned by the state. Senior staff from the Department of Public Health and Department of Environmental Protection will oversee the collection of samples.
The goal is to compare independent results with Holtec’s own water testing.
Results are expected in two to three weeks, according to David Noyes, a compliance manager at Holtec.
