Voters in every Cape Cod community except Barnstable, plus two on the South Shore, will face a ballot question in May that aims to stop evaporation of industrial wastewater from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
The water contains radioactive material and other contaminants — of which much, but not all, can be filtered out.
The nonbinding question, brought by petition in each community, directs each town to call upon the governor, attorney general, and legislature to make Pilgrim owner Holtec International end the evaporation.
Holtec is decommissioning the Plymouth plant, where the reactor has been shut down since 2019.
In Dennis, East Dennis resident Jo-Anne Wilson-Keenan petitioned to get the question on the ballot.
“I think the most important thing about this is that many people don't realize that this is happening,” she said. “They heard that the permit was denied and thought that the issue had been settled, and that's just not true.”
The state denied Holtec a permit to release the water in liquid form into Cape Cod Bay, but it continues to evaporate into the outdoor air. The plant held 844,037 gallons as of March 20, down from 1.1 million gallons in early 2023.
The state’s denial relied on the Ocean Sanctuaries Act, which prohibits dumping of industrial waste into a designated Ocean Sanctuary, including Cape Cod Bay.
Echoing an assertion in the ballot question, Wilson-Keenan said the same law should apply to air emissions.
“There is gaseous discharge that is a violation of the Massachusetts Ocean Sanctuaries Act and other laws that is going out over Cape Cod Bay and settling on our land and in our water,” she said.
Holtec disputes the wording of the ballot question, which in most communities says the water is untreated and threatens public health. The wording is different in Eastham, where a sample ballot shows an abbreviated form of the question with some material removed.
The company has long maintained that it filters the water and easily meets federal safety standards, but local activists say no level of radiation exposure can be guaranteed safe.
Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said activists are using radiation as a “boogeyman” to push an anti-nuclear agenda.
He wrote in an email, “The ballot questions, set forth by the usual anti-nuclear activists that have continued to fear monger in the community for decades, is just another example of trying to scare the public without the actual facts. The reality is that the language in the question is false and that the water at Pilgrim Station is constantly treated during the decommissioning process to ensure quality and clarity for our ongoing work and to remove as many impurities as possible, the same way we treated public drinking water when it entered the plant for power operations to an ultra pure level.”
O’Brien also pointed to a 2024 letter from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, in which the agency determined that non-radioactive pollutants in the Pilgrim water were not high enough to trigger air quality permitting. Standards for radioactive pollutants are set by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Barnstable is the only Cape Cod community not voting on the question this spring; the town does not have a spring election.
Votes are also scheduled to take place on the South Shore, in the towns of Plymouth and Scituate.
Duxbury Town Meeting passed an article March 8 that also asks state officials to take steps to stop the evaporation.
