Thursday, January 31, 2013
Another Pilgrim Watch request for a hearing was denied by the NRC this week, unholding a ruling made last July by an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that denied a Pilgrim Watch hearing on two post-Fukushima orders issued by the agency.
- GOVERNMENT
-
Thursday, January 31
According to a release from NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan, one of the orders Pilgrim Watch sought to challenge deals with reliable hardened vents at Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Mark I and II plants. Pilgrim is a BWR Mark I facility. The other requires enhanced spent fuel pool instrumentation. Both orders were issued in March 2012. Oral arguments on the hearing request were conducted by the ASLB panel last year in Boston. The Commission, in upholding the ASLB panel, points to a 1983 decision that found a party can challenge an order on the basis that its implementation would diminish plant safety but not to argue that the order is in need of improvements. (The full decision is attached) The first challenged Order requires certain licensees of …
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Another Pilgrim Watch contention has been dismissed by the NRC, but the NRC has frozen all construction and licensing processes after court decides agency's nuclear waste management plan was inconsistent with federal environmental standards.
For the third time since a majority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a new license to Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, Pilgrim Watch and the Jones River Watershed Association have moved to reopen the proceeding on the grounds that Entergy, Pilgrim's owner, lacks necessary approvals for the plant from various federal and state government agencies under a variety of regulatory requirements, and that the NRC must supplement the plant's environmental impact statement to reflect the missing permits and approvals. Pilgrim and the JRWA claim that Entergy circumvented state and federal environmental regulations for the plant and that the NRC must supplement its final environmental statement to reflect that. The NRC dismissed the …
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has denied a hearing request from Pilgrim Watch on two post-Fukushima orders.
Another Pilgrim Watch request has been denied by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Last month, Pilgrim Watch went before the ASLB in a Boston courtroom to argue for a hearing on two post-Fukushima orders issued by the NRC in March. One of the orders requires the owners of boiling water reactors (including Pilgrim) to ensure the reactors have reliable hardened vent system for the facility's containment structure. The second order requires all U.S. nuclear power plant owners to demonstate a reliable means of monitoring spent fuel pool levels. Pilgrim Watch of Duxbury argued that the NRC's orders are insufficient. According to the ASLB's order, Pilgrim Watch alleges that the two orders adversely affect its members, many of whom, according…
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Pilgrim Watch of Duxbury has had another petition denied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The NRC has rejected another Pilgrim Watch contention claiming that studies ignored the Endangered Species Act in the relicensing process of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. The five-member, presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC has upheld an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel ruling rejecting a Pilgrim license renewal contention. The contention was filed by the Pilgrim Watch organization and deals with Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives analysis for the plant as part of its license renewal application. Petitioners proffer evidence of procedural and substantive violations of the ESA with regard to the roseate tern by showing: (1) that the NRC staff was required to conduct a biological assessment and it did not…
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Pilgrim Watch will argue that the NRC's post-Fukushima safety orders are not adequate to an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Other local anti-nuke groups will rally outside the courthouse.
- GOVERNMENT
-
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Citizens will rally tomorrow show their concern that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not making nuclear power plants safe enough in light of lessons learned from the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan. The rally will be held June 7 at 9:15 a.m., outside the John W. McCormack Post Office and Court House, 5 Post Office Square, Boston. Pilgrim Coalition of Mashpee, Clean Water Action and other public health, environmental, and watchdog groups will rally outside the courthouse before a 10 a.m. hearing with a NRC Atomic Safety Licensing Board. The hearing was requested by Duxbury-based Pilgrim Watch, an opponent of the recent relicensing of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. After the March 2011 nuclear disaster at …
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Pilgrim Watch argues that the NRC's directives regarding lessons learned from Fukushima are not stringent enough.
A three-member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hear oral arguments regarding two NRC post-Fukushima orders, after Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station opponent, Pilgrim Watch, filed a hearing request. The session will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, June 7, in Courtroom 1 at the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse, 5 Post Office Square, Boston. The hearing was requested by Pilgrim Watch of Duxbury in response to three orders issued by the NRC meant to enhance the safety of U.S. nuclear reactors using lessons learned from the disaster at Fukushima, Japan in March 2011. Pilgrim Watch argues that the orders do not adequately meet concerns about spent fuel pools and containment vents and the ASLB assigned to review the request concluded …
41.940008
-70.574722
Entergy Nuclear Generation Company
600 Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, MA
/articles/nrc-to-hear-arguments-on-post-fukushima-orders
201179
/locations/7120658
42.357516
-71.056361
5 Post Office Sq, Boston, MA
John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse
/articles/nrc-to-hear-arguments-on-post-fukushima-orders
/locations/7120659
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The NRC made Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's new license official today.
The NRC gave Entergy a new license to operate Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station for another 20 years today, when the members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put their signatures to a 16-page letter to ichaei A. Balduzzi, Entergy's Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the New England Region. Entergy received approval last week after six years of studies and despite opposition from local groups, and concerns from Plymouth's delegation in the State House, the governor, secretary of state and Massahusetts senators and congressmen. The full letter is attached.
41.940008
-70.574722
Entergy Nuclear Generation Company
600 Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, MA
/articles/pilgrim-license-officially-renewed
201179
/locations/7111849
Friday, May 25, 2012
With two weeks left before Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's license to operate expires, Entergy has won approval from the NRC to renew the license.
Entergy Corp. won U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval to renew the operating license for its Pilgrim power plant, with agency Chairman Gregory Jaczko the lone dissenter, according to Business Week. Pilgrim’s license is scheduled to expire on June 8 after 40 years. The relicensing process has taken six years to complete. Outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko has voted against NRC staff’s proposal to renew Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license. R. W. Borchardt, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Executive Director of Operations, had submitted a memo last month asking that the power plant be granted its license, according to The Manomet Current. In his response, Jaczko noted several matters were still …
Monday, May 21, 2012
In the continuing saga of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's relicensing application, 14 protestors from the Cape were arrested Sunday afternoon after allegedly
Fourteen members of the group Cape Downwinders were arrested Sunday while demonstrating at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, after alledgedly trying to get past security to deliver a letter. Monday, they pleaded not guilty today at their arraignment in Plymouth District Court. The protesters were charged with trespassing on the property of Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Pilgrim. Judge Rosemary Minehan entered the not guilty plea on behalf of the protesters and ordered the case held over for a July 11 hearing. The demonstrators said their message is simple. “The Pilgrim nuclear facility is a dangerous facility and it should be shut down,” Paul Rifkin, a member of the group, told CBS Boston. The group wants to deliver a letter to …
41.940008
-70.574722
Entergy Nuclear Generation Company
600 Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, MA
/articles/14-nuke-protestors-arraigned
201179
/locations/7068311
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has denied a motion from Pilgrim Watch requesting new analysis in light of the Japanese nuclear accident that occurred last March.
- GOVERNMENT
-
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The three-judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) panel handling the Pilgrim nuclear power plant license renewal proceeding has denied a motion from the Pilgrim Watch organizing seeking the submittal of a late-filed post-Fukushima contention. The contention, filed Nov. 18. 2011, requests a new Severe Accident Mitigation Analysis (SAMA) for the Pilgrim plant (as part of a review of its license renewal application) in light of the Fukushima accident last March. In a 46-page statement, the ASLB denied the motion because it "fails to meet the criteria for late-filed, or non-timely, contentions in such proceedings, as well as the admissibility criteria." The ASLB has denied several of Pilgrim Watch's contentions since the re-licensing …
41.945083
-70.584814
Pilgrim Nuclear Station
Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, MA
/articles/pilgrim-watch-fukushima-contention-denied
1835542
/locations/6166095
H Shamir
1:06 pm on Friday, February 1, 2013
This is unconscionable!! They are abrogating their responsibility to the public. more ›