Brattleboro Reformer
April 14, 2005
By CAROLYN LORIE
BRATTLEBORO -- In a letter to Gov. Jim Douglas, five Massachusetts legislators voiced their concerns about dry cask storage at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
The April 5 letter asked the Vermont Legislature to "effect safe, secure, limited and temporary storage of nuclear waste" at the plant. It was signed by Massachusetts Reps. Christopher Donelan, Stephen Kulik, Denis Guyer, Stephen Brewer and Mass. Sen. Stanley Rosenberg.
Brattleboro's nuclear watchdog group the New England Coalition released the letter in a press release on Wednesday.
Vermont's Legislature has been weighing whether or not to allow the plant to store some of its spent fuel in dry casks at the Vernon site. There will be a hearing on the matter at Brattleboro Union High School tonight at 6.
The plant currently stores all of its spent fuel in a pool in the reactor building, but will need additional space by 2008 or 2007, if power production is increased.
While the plant is in Vermont, Massachusetts residents are affected by what happens at the site, especially those living within the 10-mile emergency planning zone.
Seven Massachusetts towns -- Leyden, Bernardston, Northfield, Colrain, Warwick, Greenfield and Gill -- are either entirely or partially within a 10-mile radius of the plant. All residents within the EPZ would be part of an evacuation and/or shelter-in-place plan if there were an accident at Vermont Yankee.
The representatives and senators who signed the letter made five specific requests:
* that cask radiation emanations are minimized;
* that the casks are protected from line-of-sight targeting from missiles, ballistics or aircraft;
* that the casks are protected from assaults from explosives;
* that sufficient fuel is moved to dry cask to ensure density of fuel storage in the spent fuel pool is substantially reduced;
* that dry cask storage is not used to enable license renewal.
According to Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-2nd Franklin, Massachusetts legislators and residents are frustrated by their inability to take part in the decision-making process regarding Vermont Yankee matters.
"A significant amount -- if not the majority -- of the impact of an accident falls on those in the communities downwind or down river, most of which are in Massachusetts," said Kulik.
Though elected officials to the south cannot play a formal role in legislating policy around Vermont Yankee, they have consistently lobbied Vermont and federal officials to listen to the concerns of their constituents.
At a public meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2004, several letters from Massachusetts selectboards and state representatives were presented to the federal regulator.
When fuel was reported missing from the plant in April of last year, U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., joined Vermont's congressional delegation in urging the U.S. Government Accounting Office to investigate the matter.
Kulik said that there is a "significant level of concern" among Massachusetts residents in Northern Franklin and Worcester counties, not only about dry cask storage but about the possibility of increased power production at the plant.
"We can beat the drum, try to raise awareness and get our feelings on the record and hope that officials in other states and in Washington D.C. do the right thing," said Kulik.
Vermont Yankee agrees with the Massachusetts lawmakers who feel that dry cask storage is an important part of Vermont’s energy future. Dry cask storage is necessary for Vermont Yankee to provide clean and low cost power to the region.
In addition we are focused on providing the townships that lay within our emergency management zone the best and most secure plan available. We have recently offered new tone alert radios to anyone within the EPZ and issued over 1,300 of them. We are also upgrading sirens and exploring new technologies to best serve and protect our neighbors.
