April 29, 2006 - PLYMOUTH - Town officials aren’t the only ones playing hardball with Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.

Plymouth’s state delegation, Sen. Terry Murray, D-Plymouth; Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth; and Rep. Tom O’Brien, D-Kingston; are pushing a bill through the Legislature that would allow the town to tax Pilgrim for the radioactive spent fuel rods stored on-site. The three testified before the state’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Tuesday, April 25.

 

“One of the town’s most frustrating fiscal burdens is the growing public safety costs associated with the storage of spent nuclear fuel,” Murray said. “The purpose of this legislation is simply to have the owner of Pilgrim, Entergy Nuclear Power Generation Company, compensate the town of Plymouth for those additional public safety costs.”

Today, the power plant houses its spent fuel rods in a spent fuel pool, which will fill to capacity by 2012. After that, the plant must switch to dry cask storage. Originally, those spent fuel rods were meant to go to Yucca Mountain, Nev. Federal court hearings have delayed the creation of a national spent fuel storage solution for years.

“Ultimately, Plymouth has become a repository for spent fuel rods, so to ask for compensation to address the public safety concerns is not unreasonable,” deMacedo said.

The assessment, calculated on the tonnage of spent fuel rods stored at Pilgrim, would charge a minimum of $2 million annually. Entergy would pay the assessment quarterly, as long as the company stores spent fuel in Plymouth.

According to Murray’s Communications Director, Samantha Dallaire, the Joint Committee will discuss this testimony in executive session.

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Old Colony Memorial
By Genevieve Wheeler, MPG Newspapers