We often forget that we live 30 miles from an aging nuclear reactor that isn’t doing so well. Pilgrim Power Station has long been slated for decommissioning but was recently re-fueled. There is a highly radioactive dumpsite onsite. The ultimate costs and procedures for decommissioning the plant and disposing of radioactive materials should be decided by taxpayers and overseen by the state. Many Cape residents worry that the company’s Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) will stick taxpayers with the bill and they worry about safe decommissioning.
Even if you don’t live on the Cape, consider this. In case of an emergency, everyone in a 50-mile radius of the Pilgrim plant will have to evacuate — that’s close to 5 million of us. And that almost certainly includes you. So please send an email in support of Senator Julian Cyr’s bill “An Act to Improve Oversight of the Closure of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station,” S.2206.
The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy needs to hear from you ASAP (preferably today, but definitely before 2/7) asking them to report S.2206 favorably out of committee.
The Pilgrim Legislative Advisory Coalition has made it super easy to compose an email message to get Cyr’s bill out of committee. Click on this link. You can then customize or simply send the message, which will look something like this:
[SUBJECT:] I respectfully request your support for S.2206 [BODY:] As presently constituted, I believe that the Nuclear Decommissioning Advisory Panel is unlikely to achieve it’s goal. For the long-term well-being of the Town of Plymouth and the surrounding region, and for the economic interest of the Commonwealth and it’s taxpayers, please report S.2206 favorably out of committee. Thank you.
Additional details for your information or to help customize your message…
- It will add the MA Attorney General to the Panel to provide expertise on some of the legal issues arising in the decommissioning process.
- It will add the Inspector General to provide oversight of the financial aspects of decommissioning.
- It will add a representative from Barnstable County with responsibility for emergency planning to help ensure that our interests are addressed.
- Specifically, it will task the Panel with annually examining and making recommendations on the totality of the impacts of the decommissioning and closure of Pilgrim, including on issues such as workforce impacts, economic development, decreased or lost revenues to state agencies, emergency response, public safety, environmental impacts, municipal finance, job retraining and placement, land use, transport of spent fuel, the storage of hazardous waste and the duration of environmental monitoring activities.
- Currently the Panel has no funding for hiring experts to help perform its highly technical work. This bill would provide a mechanism for funding the Panel from sources such as grants, Federal funds, donations or bequests; it does not provide any direct funding from the Commonwealth.
Thank you for taking a few minutes do this!
Visit the PLAC website — click here to join their mailing list — or email PLAC at: plac.leg.advis@gmail.com
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