The electricity that Entergy generates at Pilgrim is merely a fleeting by-product of nuclear power production.  The real legacy of Pilgrim is the high level radioactive waste left over from the nuclear fission process that will be around for up to 10,000 years.  The industry has no way to get rid of it, and has been counting on taxpayers to foot the bill and the government to devise plan to get rid of its radioactive waste. 

Here in Plymouth, Entergy has about 3,000 highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies in temporary storage on the roof of the reactor - they are in "wet storage" - in bathtubs in an unshielded, unprotected area.  This spent fuel contains Cesium-137, a fission fragment, that is extremely dangerous and has a half life of 30 years.  It takes 200 years to reduce it to 1% of its former level of radioactivity.  Cesuium-137 is what is in nuclear bombs.

When Pilgrim went on line in 1972, it was slated to close after 40 years in 2012, and the high level radioactive waste was supposed to be shipped off to long term storage at someplace like Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert.  After decades of trying to get the Yucca Mountain storage site up and running, plans were cancelled in 2011, so there is no where for Entergy's radioactive waste to go.

Instead, Plymouth is now Entergy's de facto permanent nuclear waste dump.  There is more Cesium-137 in the fuel pool at Pilgrim than was ever released by all the nuclear bombs ever exploded in the atmosphere.  It's a serious situation.

In May, 2012, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended Entergy's license for another 20 years, past the design life of the reactor and the storage pools, and over the objections of the Massachusetts Attorney General and citizens, it was not required to tell Entergy what to do with the nuclear waste.  Instead, as Entergy continues to make a $ 1 million a day of Pilgrim, the community is left in the lurch, living with a dangerous pile of nuclear waste.

Recently, Plymouth Selectwoman Belinda Brewster stepped up to try to address this untenable situation.  She formed the  "Coalition of Nuclear Communities" to unite Plymouth with about 104 other communities that have also become de-facto nuclear waste dump sites.  Brewster joins other groups, like Pilgrim Watch, in calling for legislation that would release federal funds to deal with this nuclear waste.   There are billions of ratepayer dollars sitting in the fund created for a long  term storage site under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Since there is no plan for a long term storage site, the Act should be changed so the billions of dollars in the fund can be reallocated to put the waste into safer "dry cask storage" at the 104 nuclear reactors like Pilgrim. 

Since the waste storage bathtub on top of Pilgrim was only built for 40 years, Entergy is running out of storage space, since it now plans to run for another 20 years, thanks to the NRC. Entergy recently unveiled plans to put some of the radioactive waste from the bathtub into dry cask storage - but not all the eligible waste will go into the dry cask storage.

While supporting the need to reallocate funds from the Nuclear Waste Policy Act Fund to make them available to local communities, long-time Pilgrim watchdog "Pilgrim Watch" says Brewster's group, Nuclear Communities, should not be pushing for reprocessing the spent nuclear or interim offsite storage. Pilgrim Watch says these solutions are not supported by experts in nuclear waste safety, major nuclear watchdog groups, or the Massachusetts Attorney General.

Instead, Pilgrim Watch says that the federal funds should be made available to Entergy if, and only if, it commits to the immediate and complete transfer of the spend full to hardened dry casks when they have been out of the reactor for five years.  (Five years is how long it takes the assemblies to cool off in the bathtubs and have low enough radioactivity so they can be put in dry cask.)