Several organizations and individuals from Cape Cod and the South Shore have filed paperwork to seek legal standing in a case involving the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
Pilgrim owner Holtec International is appealing the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s denial of a modified permit that would have allowed the plant to discharge radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
The administrative appeal, which will go before a state appeals officer, is similar to a court case.
James Lampert, chair of the state advisory panel on Pilgrim, said local residents who want to establish standing to be part of the case can use a few different strategies, including joining as an intervenor — someone who participates, but not as a party to the case.
Lampert himself is part of two petitions to participate in the appeal.
Mary Lampert, a longtime activist and member of the advisory panel, said an easier way for the public to participate in environmental cases is to gather a group of 10 or more people who want to get involved.
“[With] the motion to intervene, you have to show specific harm,” she said. “And that is … more difficult to accomplish than the 10-person, [for] which you just have to show the real or potential environmental damage.”
She said her Duxbury-based organization, Pilgrim Watch, wants to highlight reasons to deny the permit that were not included in the state’s determination.
“[The Department of Environmental Protection], in its final decision, only referred to the Ocean Sanctuaries Act,” she said. “They didn't bring forward important discussion of the other environmental laws that Holtec had agreed to follow in the settlement agreement.”
Other local organizations seeking standing in the Pilgrim appeal include the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, and Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.
