Coakley calls for reassessment of Pilgrim's onsite spent fuel storage

[janet118]

From Boston Globe

March 21, 2100 - Federal officials have underestimated the potential danger posed by radioactive spent fuel storage pools at the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plants, the Massachusetts attorney general charged yesterday, underscoring five years of legal challenges the state has waged to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine the risks more thoroughly. . .

Massachusetts has long argued that the lack of a federal repository where plants can send spent fuel rods, coupled with plans by plants such as Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee to operate 20 years beyond the 40 years they were originally licensed for, will ramp up the number of radioactive rods in pools on site — and the risk from an accident, natural disaster, or terrorist attack.

“Since 2006, we have urged the NRC to consider alternative storage at these plants, but the NRC concluded that further study was unnecessary because the risk of breach and subsequent fire was ‘insignificant.’ We believe it is surely worth reconsidering that assessment,’’ Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a statement.

Go, Martha

Note to all local anti-Pilgrim Station activists: The 20-year re-licensing of the plant is set for 2012. Now is the time to put pressure on the so-called regulators to listen to us. Go here for more information.