Federal nuclear officials faced public questions Monday in Plymouth about health and safety risks tied to the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
Six staffers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — five in person, one on video — spoke before the state Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens’ Advisory Panel.
They fielded questions and comments from the panel and audience about issues such as long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, safety inspections at the plant, and the idea that Pilgrim could be the target of a terrorist attack.
Questions about inspections came in light of an order by President Donald Trump, last May, to reduce Nuclear Regulatory Commission staffing.
Elise Eve, acting chief of the commission branch responsible for Pilgrim, said one or two inspectors visit the plant once or twice each quarter.
Asked by a member of the panel if the number of NRC staff involved at Pilgrim would be cut, Eve replied, “Not at this point.”
“We schedule our inspections based on significant activities ongoing at the site,” she said. “From our experience, as stations go further along, when there's less … significant radiological activities, we typically will not visit the site as often.”
The number of NRC visits to Pilgrim “could change down the road, depending on the status of the site,” she said.
CNN reported earlier this month that to meet Trump administration goals, commission staff have proposed cutting overall inspection hours by 40 percent. That number comes from an internal document viewed by CNN and is not specific to Pilgrim.
Scott Burnell, spokesperson for the commission’s northeastern region, told the Massachusetts panel that the NRC has 500 fewer employees than before the inauguration.
On the issue of terrorism, panel member Mary Lampert, a Duxbury resident and longtime activist on Pilgrim safety, said advancements in drone-carrying missiles are a significant concern.
Burnell responded.
“We can say that we have considered that, and even if such a malevolent act occurs, the possibility of radiological contamination beyond a small radius around the cask is highly unlikely.”
Lampert called that assertion “blatantly incorrect.”
Spent radioactive fuel from Pilgrim is stored on the site in steel-reinforced concrete drums, called casks.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said national security agencies take the primary role on issues of terrorism at the plant.
“The NRC does coordinate with the U.S. intelligence community, the military, and the Department of Homeland Security to understand any changes to the threat environment, including the capabilities of the adversaries,” said Kristina Banovac of the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards.
No new options are forthcoming for storing the used Pilgrim fuel out of state, Burnell said.
“The NRC did issue licenses for consolidated storage facilities — one in eastern New Mexico, the other in west Texas,” he said. “Both of those licenses were challenged in court, and at the moment, there is no current plan to utilize those licenses.”
During a period for audience questions, members of the public expressed their concerns about Pilgrim inspections, cancer rates near the plant, and the evaporation of radioactive water into the outdoor air, among other issues.
“We know we're in a cancer zone, and it's got to stop,” said Diane Turco, director of the citizens’ group Cape Downwinders.
Rosemary Shields, of the League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod area, asked how often federal regulators inspect the fuel storage casks, as opposed to inspections by Holtec International, the owner of Pilgrim.
The interval can be one to five years, Banovac said.
And Shields asked why Pilgrim does not have “hot cells,” a type of radiation containment chamber, in case a cask starts leaking.
Banovac said stress corrosion cracking takes a long time to develop, and the commission’s aging management programs look for precursors to it, such as localized corrosion and pitting.
Repairing cracks, rather than repackaging the spent fuel, would be the immediate response, she said.
Citizens’ nuclear panel member Andrew Gottlieb, who is executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, asked if federal regulations allow evaporation to serve as the primary means of disposal of water from a nuclear plant.
The regulations do allow that, said Greg Chapman, a senior health physicist at the commission.
Evaporation of what was once more than 1 million gallons of radioactive water from Pilgrim has been the subject of years of public concern and debate.
As of March 19, remaining water has fallen below 800,000 gallons — to 797,652 — according to Holtec representative David Noyes, a member of the panel.
