PLYMOUTH — Despite concern over the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, Holtec is forging ahead with plans to transfer radioactive spent fuel from a large pool above the reactor at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station to steel-lined dry casks.
Workers from other parts of the state as well as from around the country arrived in Plymouth earlier this week.
Some plant employees and area residents say fuel transfer should be delayed until the threat of the virus passes.
Pilgrim permanently shut down in May and was subsequently sold by Entergy Corporation to Holtec International for decommissioning.
The company’s timetable calls for moving 3,000 spent-fuel assemblies now in the pool to dry casks by the end of 2021.
Seventeen previously loaded casks sit on a cement pad outside the reactor building. The transfer this spring will result in 748 assemblies being moved from the pool into 11 more casks. Work is scheduled for April and May.
Thirty new workers arrived at the site and began a two-week training period Monday.
According to a Pilgrim employee who wished to remain anonymous, he and fellow plant workers are extremely concerned about the possibility of contracting the coronavirus from those newly arrived at the Plymouth site.
Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien sent an email regarding the measures being taken: “We understand and appreciate the concerns raised by our employees, brought (to) us by local elected officials, and have worked to clarify a number of different rumors and help everyone understand the decisions being made, and the rules they fall under.”
O’Brien said not all the new workers are from out of state. The group includes 16 from Massachusetts; four from Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire; three from Florida; two from Arkansas; and one each from North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Michigan and the state of Washington.
“We did identify one worker from Buffalo, that had previously used a Massachusetts home address, and three individuals (two Massachusetts residents and a North Carolina resident) who had worked a refuel outage in upstate New York within the last 14 days,” O’Brien wrote. “These people were sent home and requested to self-quarantine for two weeks prior to beginning the in-processing to the site.”
Holtec has taken “extra precautions to ensure they are not a risk to our on-site staff, as well as our staff not being a risk to them,” O’Brien said. Workers are required to fill out questionnaires to assess risk and are evaluated by on-site medical staff, he said.
The Pilgrim employee argued he and fellow workers believe the company “is not doing enough.” Nine out-of-state workers were present at Monday’s kickoff training session, he said. “One was from Washington, drove across the country and stayed in New York before coming to Pilgrim,” the employee said.
O’Brien pointed out that Gov. Charlie Baker’s exemption for essential workers “covers both the work and those traveling for essential work.”
“In addition, the governor’s guideline for self-quarantine specifically states that ‘designated essential workers are exempt from this requirement.’”
“We are not taking the concerns of the staff or the community lightly,” O’Brien said. Transfer of spent fuel is essential, he said. Regarding the influx of workers, O’Brien said: “The reality is, if they were not essential, we would not be bringing them to the site.”
Diane Turco, president of Cape Downwinders, was critical of Holtec’s decision to move forward.
“It is extremely irresponsible to do the dangerous work of transferring high-level waste from the pool to dry casks if the workers are at risk to become ill,” Turco said. “At this time, a prudent action would be for Holtec to postpone spent fuel transfer until the threat of contamination and illness has passed. Moving the fuel now is not an urgent action, but we know from past experience that money moves the decisions at Pilgrim.”
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an email: “Pilgrim has a plan and procedures for pandemic response and has reported to us that they are implementing them.”
The federal agency also has an on-site inspector at Pilgrim, Sheehan said.
Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch and a resident of Duxbury, sent a letter to state officials expressing her concern over bringing in outside workers during a pandemic. Lampert said the plan “greatly increases the risk not only to Pilgrim’s current workers but also to their families and the broader Plymouth community. To negatively impact the workers on-site and more broadly the area, all it would take is for one of these contractors to bring the virus with them.”
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