Join Us Feb. 6 for a "Plug-In" Workshop
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Action Alert from Pilgrim Watch
To Filter or Not to Filter Pilgrim's Vent, That is the Question with Only One Sane Answer
Action To Take: Contact the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Ask Your Elected Officials To Do Likewise
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Graphic from Page 5 of Pilgrim Watch Comments. See link below.
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Why: The NRC soon will decide whether to require filters in reactors designed like Pilgrim on the vent from the primary containment where the largest amount of radioactivity will be released in a severe accident. Filters are available, tested, and in place at reactors around the world. The NRC technical staff says, "Yes." Industry says, "No." What do you say?
Action: Email your request to the Commissions Executive Secretary at NRCExecSec@nrc.gov. Either create your own message or simply say that you wish to sign on to the attached,
Pilgrim Watch Comment Regarding Additional Requirements For Containment Venting Systems For BWRs With Mark I And Mark II Containments In Support Of Filters And Rupture Discs (November 19, 2012). Click here to read.
Click here for more information.
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Entergy, Pilgrim Nuclear Named to the "Dirty Dozen" List
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Pilgrim Coalition members joined the Toxics Action Center to announce the
awards at Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset. Holding the sign are Pine duBois and David Agnew. Bill Maurer is in the red jacket and Sylvia Broude, executive director of the Toxics Action Center, is on the far right.
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Did you hear that the Toxics Action Center gave Pilgrim Nuclear Station one of its Dirty Dozen awards last week? For years, the Boston public health and environmental non-profit organization has annually "celebrated" the Dirty Dozen Awards, profiling twelve of New England's egregious polluters.
Entergy made the list twice with Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and its Vermont Yankee operation. It was the third year Pilgrim has been named since 2001. In its report, "25 Years of the Dirty Dozen: Past and Current Pollution Threats in New England", the Toxics Action Center wrote,
"Entergy Corporation owns and operates two nuclear power stations in New England: Vermont Yankee and Massachusetts' Pilgrim Station. Both reactors are beyond their design life" and are not operating in a manner which "ensures the protection of the public health, safety and the environment."
It specifically cited Pilgrim for leaking radioactive tritum into the groundwater since at least 2010, the plant's destructive once-through cooling system and the General Electric Mark I reactor, the same flawed design as Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.
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Our Message to Local Officials: We Want to be Kept Informed About Dry Cask Storage
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Photo Courtesy Paul Rifken
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One of the biggest safety risks at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is spent fuel storage. Entergy has been storing over 3,000 "fuel assemblies" in a pool of water built for 880. This overcrowded "wet storage" is dangerous and the federal government has no place to store the spent fuel rods.
It needs to be stored on site. A newspaper reported last summer that the company had broken ground on a special pad, believed to be the first step toward transferring the rods to dry cask storage. We want to know more about what is happening in our backyard. Neither Entergy nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have offered answers. So we continue to ask local officials, who must provide the company zoning approval. Now is the time to ask a Plymouth selectman, zoning board member or Nuclear Matters Committee member.
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Attend Plymouth Nuclear Matters Committee Meetings
Ask questions about the nuclear waste storage at Nuclear Matters Committee meetings. The Plymouth Board of Selectmen appoints this committee of residents to make recommendations on key topics such as safety procedures and Plymouth's payment in lieu of taxes agreement (PILOT) with Entergy. The town is currently negotiating a new PILOT agreement.
The committee meets monthly, usually on Monday nights at the Plymouth PAC-TV station on Collins Avenue. There are no meetings currently scheduled, but you can keep up with the committee's schedule by clicking here for the town's online meeting calendar. You can also contact the Plymouth Town Clerk at (508) 747-1620 ex. 169.
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About the Pilgrim Coalition. We are a non-partisan network of citizens and organizations dedicated to raising awareness of - and reducing - significant risks to public safety, health and our environment arising from the continued operation of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, located in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
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