Activists who oppose a plan by the owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to discharge radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay have been looking to Vermont as an example. CAI’s Jennette Barnes talks with Morning Edition host Patrick Flanary about how the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station handled its water.
Patrick Flanary: So, what to do with 1 million gallons of radioactive water at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station? Dump it, evaporate it, ship it somewhere else? This has been debated for years, and now some local activists are looking at how the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has been handling a similar concern. Jennette Barnes has been looking into the Vermont model and whether it could work at Pilgrim. She’s joining us now. Good morning, Jennette.
Jennette Barnes: Hi Patrick. Good morning.
Patrick Flanary: So first, tell us more about those concerned about the radioactive water at Pilgrim are so interested in what happened in Vermont.
Jennette Barnes: Sure. The activists here say that in Vermont, the water was shipped to out-of-state disposal facilities instead of being released into the Connecticut River. What Holtec, the owner of Pilgrim, is proposing here is to discharge the radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay. That water would be treated, but no treatment removes everything. So, local activists want Holtec to ship it out, most likely to Texas. I went on a fact-finding mission to determine what was done at Vermont Yankee. One difference is Vermont closed about four-and-a-half years earlier, in 2014, so it’s further along in the decommissioning. And the work by the decommissioning company NorthStar, has been praised by federal inspectors – one inspector called it the best example in the country. That was reported in a Vermont newspaper, the Brattleboro Reformer.
Patrick Flanary: And what did you learn, Jennette, about Vermont’s process? Did Vermont ship all of that water? I know Pilgrim has about a million gallons they’ve got to deal with.
Jennette Barnes: Well, after talking with three Vermonters who’ve worked on this issue, plus the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I believe the short answer is yes, they did ship out the water from the reactor system at Vermont Yankee. Amy Polaczyk, who is a wastewater program manager at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, described it this way:
Amy Polaczyk: They have shipped out the majority of the water that has come from the decommissioning of the facility.
Jennette Barnes: She was one of two people I talked with who are Vermont state employees. The third Vermonter is a citizen member of the state’s nuclear advisory panel, similar to the panel we have here. And I also checked with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan says Vermont Yankee and the decommissioning company, NorthStar, have not done any radioactive water discharge to the Connecticut River during the decommissioning. And even when it was operating, Vermont Yankee was considered a zero-discharge plant, with respect to radioactive liquids, although the definition of “zero” does allow some trace amounts. In 2010, while the plant was still operating, radioactive water was found leaking from an underground pipe. The State of Vermont says the only detectable radioactive material to reach the river was Tritium. And that was not part of the decommissioning.
Patrick Flanary: I understand groundwater also leaked into a building at Vermont Yankee and became contaminated. What happened with that?
Jennette Barnes: That’s right – and it was millions of gallons. That was shipped out as well. Last year’s annual report from the Vermont nuclear panel shows more than 3 million gallons of in-leakage water has been shipped away. Plus about 2 million gallons of radioactive water from the nuclear reactor system. In comparison, Pilgrim has about 1 million gallons — a fifth of that — to deal with.
Patrick Flanary: Do you know, Jennette, why the decommissioning company, NorthStar, chose to ship the water from the reactor system in Vermont? Because, of course, what’s happening with Pilgrim, in Plymouth, is still uncertain here in Massachusetts.
Jennette Barnes: Well, it wasn’t community outcry that made that decision, according to the people I spoke with. Lissa Weinmann, who is the vice chair of Vermont’s nuclear panel, said most of the public concern there has been about thermal pollution – hot water in the river. But that was a separate issue. Let’s listen to what she had to say about the decision to ship the radioactive water – which she says went to Idaho and Texas.
Lissa Weinmann: There hadn't been public protest about releasing any kind of irradiated water, because the policy was never to release such water. The policy has always been to contain any kind of contaminated water and ship it to a third party facility. … My understanding is that was not something that was promulgated by law, but a business decision that was made by the company itself.
Jennette Barnes: Unfortunately, NorthStar refused to be interviewed, so I couldn’t get their take on that. The NorthStar spokesman said their CEO does the interviews, and he wasn’t going to give us the time for a piece that was more about reflecting on Pilgrim than about Vermont Yankee itself. But according to a news report in Vermont Digger, NorthStar did consider asking the state for permission to discharge some of the groundwater into the Connecticut River, but then the company decided against it, in part because of how complicated the permitting would be.
Patrick Flanary: We’re speaking right now to Jennette Barnes, here, of CAI. She’s been following the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station story for years. Jennette, what’s the status of the Vermont Yankee decommissioning, and the demolition? I know you said the decommissioning started a few years before Pilgrim’s, so I guess I’m wondering now what might be coming down the road.
Jennette Barnes: Well, in Vermont, they’ve finished shipping water from the reactor system. Polaczyk from the State of Vermont says the majority of the buildings have been torn down; the nuclear reactor building, though, has not. And tearing down buildings creates a way for rain water to be exposed to radioactive material, and then end up in the environment. Here’s what Polaczyk had to say about stormwater in the nuclear turbine building at Vermont Yankee.
Amy Polaczyk: That building now is open to the environment, and it's getting some stormwater in it, and still some groundwater. So … the progression of the removal of the buildings is also leading to the need for discharge permits in order to deal with stormwater more than in anything else, is my understanding.
Jennette Barnes: The Brattleboro Reformer reports that once the reactor building is gone, workers will be excavating part of the property four feet down, and it is not unusual for more contamination to be discovered at that point.
Patrick Flanary: Jennette Barnes, reporting in depth for us on the decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, and how the Vermont model might serve us well here in our region. Thanks for being here, Jennette.
Jennette Barnes: Thanks for having me, Patrick.
