The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station plans to drain radioactive water from two areas of the plant in April, leading to reduced evaporation of the water.
Community activists have long been concerned about public exposure to evaporative material from the plant.
Water from the reactor cavity and dryer-separator pit will go into a more enclosed space, called the torus. How much the evaporation would be reduced is not clear.
“We haven't estimated it,” said David Noyes, compliance manager at Holtec, during a meeting Monday of the state advisory panel on Pilgrim. “It would be considerably less. The surface area is less to begin with, and there are only two openings to the torus compartment — two manway hatches.”
But the hatches in the doughnut-shaped torus are left open and do allow the exchange of air, he said.
Evaporation has reduced the volume of water inside Pilgrim by hundreds of thousands of gallons. As of March 20, the plant held 844,037 gallons of water, according to Noyes. That’s down from 1.1 million gallons in early 2023.
The upcoming drainage of water into the torus will not include the spent-fuel pool, which shields workers from radiation emitted by submerged materials. Approximately 400,000 gallons of water remain in the pool.
At Monday's meeting of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, members debated what the group’s priorities should be, now that the plant is getting closer to demolition.
Panel member James Lampert, of Duxbury, said safety issues related to the storage of spent nuclear fuel are paramount, because unless the federal government opens consolidated storage, spent fuel will remain on the Pilgrim site once the plant is demolished.
“I think that is probably the most important issue,” he said. “What is the long-term picture on potential risks from what is unfortunately going to be a long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel?”
Jack Priest, who represents the state Department of Public Health on the panel, disagreed.
“I think we need to stay focused on getting the plant decommissioned, destructed, removed from the site, and turned back over to the town of Plymouth,” he said.
Demolition of the reactor building is projected to be about a decade away.
Holtec has blamed delays in the decommissioning on community opposition to the discharge of radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay.
The company proposed releasing treated, but still radioactive, water into the bay. Community residents have been fighting it.
The state denied Holtec a permit to discharge the water. The company’s appeal is ongoing.
