Pilgrim Watch Loses One More Round, Entergy Wins Approval from NRC

Entergy Corp. won U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval to renew the operating license for its Pilgrim power plant, with agency Chairman Gregory Jaczko the lone dissenter, according to Business Week.

Pilgrim’s license is scheduled to expire on June 8 after 40 years. The relicensing process has taken six years to complete.

Outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko has voted against NRC staff’s proposal to renew Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license.

R. W. Borchardt, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Executive Director of Operations, had submitted a memo last month asking that the power plant be granted its license, according to The Manomet Current.

In his response, Jaczko noted several matters were still pending before the board, noting “the current approach that my colleagues on the Commission support is unprecedented in license renewal proceedings.”

Congressman Ed Markey criticized the decision, saying the agency “shouldn’t be short-circuiting the process and short-changing residents by moving forward with license approval before all the efforts to improve nuclear and environmental safety at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station have been resolved,” Markey said in an email.

Thursday, the Pilgrim Coalition reports that it sent a letter to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce opposing the Committee’s May 21 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking speedy relicensing of Entergy-Louisiana’s Pilgrim nuclear power station over significant objections by the public.  The Committee, chaired by Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan, claims the NRC’s relicensing process is :unfair" to the Louisiana-based company, and that concerns of local Massachusetts residents and groups do not deserve a full airing before the license is issued.

Pilgrim Coalition is also calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to provide a complete explanation of any impacts from the accident this week involving the cooling water system. Tuesday, the Pilgrim reactor was shut down and taken off line when the cooling water system shut down discharging backwash into Cape Cod Bay. As of TEhursday afternoon, the reactor had not yet been restarted.

Also Thursday, the three-judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel that has handled the Pilgrim license renewal hearing announced it has denied a contention submitted by Pilgrim Watch of Duxbury and the Jones River Watershed Association of Kingston. The contention involves potential aquatic impacts of the plant’s continued operation.

The ASLB panel has denied the contention for

1.) failing to satisfy the criteria for reopening a closed record; and

2.) failing to satisfy the (late-filed) contention admissibility criteria.