For Immediate Release
December 6, 2018
Contact: Raymond Shadis  207-380-5994
New England Coalition Responds to VT PUC Approval of Vermont Yankee
NorthStar has been given the OK to purchase Vermont Yankee from Entergy according to documents which the Vermont Public Utility Commission released late this afternoon. With approval of the sale from the NRC two months ago, purchaser NorthStar, and Entergy, the present owner, intend to complete the sale by year’s end.
The PUC made no substantial changes to the multi-party settlement agreement, so the conditions of the MOU will kick in. “We are rolling up our sleeves to work on decommissioning issues” said Raymond Shadis, Technical Advisor to the New England Coalition. “We are particularly interested in encouraging NorthStar to abide by the environmental conditions of the MOU, including those things for which NEC advocated from the beginning of the Public Utility Commission process.”
NorthStar has agreed to
  • a ban on averaging the radiation dose on buried large-bore piping and tank interior walls and added fill.
  • It has agreed to no “rubblization” of any concrete that contains detectable reactor-derived radionuclides.
  • And it has agreed to perform near off-site radiation surveys in sensitive areas.
 “We are thinking near off-site radiation surveys might include the schoolyard across the street and the Connecticut River bottom and shoreline, which will be subjected to potentially contaminated dust from demolition of the site in addition to residual contamination from four decades of operations” said Shadis.
Also, NorthStar has agreed to try to meet the same stringent residual radiation standard achieved at the other three decommissioned “Yankee” nuclear plants.
New England Coalition is engaged with NorthStar in forming a stakeholder’s advisory group with direct input to the decommissioning in order to assure that community and stakeholder values are considered throughout the process.
VT PUC CPG Amendment 8880 Amendment to CPG 12 6 18
END
The short URL of the present article is: https://necnp.org/06zgi