Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. NRC
August 12, 2008
Attorney General, Martha Coakley Office of the Attorney General One Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108 Re: Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. NRC To The Honorable Martha Coakley: On behalf of Massachusetts citizens who will be directly impacted by the proposed renewed operation of the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Stations, and who live in the area of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station (for which a license extension application is anticipated), we are writing to thank you for your advocacy on behalf of public health and safety and environmental protection in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) license renewal proceedings for the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee plants, including your appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Last year, the First Circuit ordered the Commonwealth to go back to the NRC and await NRC’s decision on the rulemaking petition before proceeding further. The Court appeared sympathetic to the safety concerns but first wanted to tidy-up procedural issues. Not surprisingly, the NRC continues to blind itself to safety concerns, and last week it denied the Commonwealth’s petition for rulemaking. We hope that we can count on you to take this matter back to the First Circuit so that the NRC will finally be forced to address the significant public health and environmental risks posed by high-density pool storage of spent fuel at plants such as Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee. We are proud that you have taken a national leadership role on the issue of spent fuel pool safety and security. Following your example, the State of New York submitted a hearing request in the license renewal proceeding for the Indian Point nuclear power plant, raising the same concerns that you have raised regarding the vulnerability of the spent fuel pools to accidents and terrorist attacks. The State of California also followed your lead and submitted a rulemaking petition (that the NRC also denied on August 8, 2008) virtually identical to your August 2006 rulemaking petition. Four days before the NRC’s recent refusal to reconsider its rules, Congressman Ed Markey and Senator Hillary Clinton filed a bill to require that spent fuel from nuclear reactors be stored in the safest manner possible while in the spent fuel pool, that the fuel to be moved to dry storage as soon as possible, and that securing requirements for spent fuel storage facilities be upgraded. On the House side, the legislation has been introduced as H.R. 6816. Unlike the NRC, you, the Attorney Generals of New York and California, and Congressman Markey and Senator Clinton understand that the NRC has ignored new and significant information regarding the severe consequences and environmental impacts of spent fuel pool accidents, and the increased risks of such an accident. Spent fuel pools like Pilgrim’s and Vermont Yankees are especially vulnerable to attack because they are located in the attic of the reactor, outside primary containment with the thin roof overhead. Moving the spent fuel to an off-site repository such as Yucca Mountain is unlikely to become a viable option anytime in the foreseeable future We believe your hearing request in the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee cases constitutes the single most important opportunity to challenge the risks posed by these above-ground pools. Thus, we commend you for applying the significant legal and expert resources necessary to ensure a full vetting of the spent fuel storage issue, and for your persistence in the Court of Appeals. You have assembled a superlative team of environmental lawyers to work on the case, including Assistant Attorney General Matthew Brock and Diane Curran, one of the country’s foremost experts on nuclear safety and security litigation. On December 6, some of us attended the oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. NRC. We thought Mr. Brock did an outstanding job of persuading the Court not to accept the NRC’s attempt to side-line the case through procedural maneuvers. We trust that the case will now proceed back to the First Circuit Court for consideration of its merits. Again, we thank you for protecting the interests of the Commonwealth by vigorously pursuing this case, and providing national leadership on the critically important issue of spent fuel pool vulnerability to accidents and terrorist attack. Now that the last procedural hurdle erected by the NRC has been cleared, we look forward to a full airing of the environmental and public health risks posed by high-density pool storage of spent fuel at the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee nuclear plants. Sincerely on behalf of the undersigned, Mary Lampert Pilgrim Watch, Director/Town of Duxbury Nuclear Advisory Committee 148 Washington Street Duxbury, Massachusetts Sandra Gavutis, Executive Director C-10 Research and Education Foundation 44 Merrimac St., Newburyport, MA Deb Katz Citizens Awareness Network Box 83 Shelburne Falls, MA David Agnew, Coordinator Cape Downwinders 18 Marthas Lane Harwich, MA Cindy Luppi, New England Program Director Clean Water Action Boston, MA Alyssa Schuren, Executive Director Toxics Action Center Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont 617-747-4389 (p-MA) 802-223-8422 (p-VT) David Lochbaum Director, Nuclear Safety Project Union of Concerned Scientists Cambridge, MA Paul Burns Executive Director VPIRG/VPIREF 141 Main Street, Suite 6 Montpelier, VT 05602 Richard Clapp, D.Sc., MPH Professor, B.U. School of Public Health Boston, MA Rebecca J. Chin Co Chair Town of Duxbury Nuclear Advisory Committee 31 Deerpath Trail North Duxbury, Massachusetts Pine duBois, Executive Director Jones River Watershed Association Jones River Landing Environmental Heritage Center 55 Landing Road, PO Box 73 Kingston, MA 02364 Richard DiPrima 31 Cove St. Duxbury, MA 02332 Barbara Pye Church Street Duxbury, MA Carol Langford, MD Box 2895 72 Goose Point Lane Duxbury, MA Millie Morrison 83 Bay View Rd. Duxbury, MA Wedge Bramhall Sandwich Road Ply. Ma 02360 Ted Bosen, Esq. 69 Janebar Cir, Plymouth, MA Heidi Mayo 18 Savery Avenue Plymouth, MA 02360 Frederick Paris Rocky Hill Road Plymouth, MA Mark Collins Russell Mills Rd. Plymouth, Ma. Sam Buttlerfield Plymouth, MA Charles Bramhall Sandwich St. Plymouth Ma Martha M. Stone 517 Old Sandwich Rd. Plymouth MA Margo Culley 32 West Street, Wendell MA 01379 Jody Shapiro, Ph.D. Shutesbury, MA Sanford Lewis, Attorney Amherst, MA Ken & Ethel Kipen, 52d John Ford Road Ashfield, MA Thomas Matsuda 888 Shelburne Falls Rd. Conway, Ma. William C. Pearson, New England Coalition Board Brattleboro, VT Arnold Gundersen, BSNE, MENE, RO Nuclear Safety Expert Witness Burlington, VT Jim Warren, Executive Director NC WARN North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network PO Box 61051, Durham, NC 27715-1051 Eric Epstein, Chairman, TMI-Alert Inc. 315 Peffer Street Harrisburg, PA 17112 North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network PO Box 61051, Durham, NC 27715-1051 Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone Nancy Burton, Esq., Director 147 Cross Highway Redding Ridge CT 06876 Raymond Shadis Executive Director Friends of the Coast Earth Day Commitment Post Office Box 98 Edgecomb, Maine 04556 Judith Johnsrud, Ph.D. State College State: Pennsylvania Ben Schreiber Staff Attorney Environment America 218 D Street SE, 2nd Fl Washington DC, 20003 |