In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Vermont
legislators lodged their opposition to a long-term waste-storage
plan known as SAFSTOR at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
The Vermont Yankee’s license expires in 2012, and plant owner
Entergy has indicated it will use SAFSTORE to defer decommissioning until the
company collects enough money in a special fund for that purpose. Under the
associated NRC regulations, owners have 60 years to complete decommissioning –
a fact that is not sitting well with Vermont’s congressional delegation.
In a letter to NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko dated Monday
and reported by northeastern media Wednesday, Senators Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,
and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. said:
“We write to you today to urge the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to ensure a safe and expeditious decommissioning process at the
Vermont Yankee nuclear plant at the time the plant ceases operations. Immediate
decommissioning will assure Vermonters that the plant is being disassembled
safely and will provide an opportunity for current plant employees who are most
knowledgeable about the facility to work to safely decommission it. The idea
that Entergy, owner of the Vermont Yankee, will seek decades of delay before
fulfilling their commitment to cleaning up Vermont Yankee is unacceptable.”
Sanders sits on a Senate panel that oversees the NRC. All
the same, the delegation holds little power to force the NRC or Entergy to choose
one type of decommissioning over another. On Wednesday, the Brattleboro
Reformer newspaper quoted David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists
as saying “Any entreaty upon NRC to induce a plant owner into one of the three
options when that owner likes another option is not likely to be successful.”