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Group wants board to reconsider waste storage OK
A group critical of nuclear power is asking the Public Service Board to reconsider its approval of expanded radioactive waste storage at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. --A group critical of nuclear power is asking the Public Service Board to reconsider its approval of expanded radioactive waste storage at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
The New England Coalition maintains in a filing at the board that the two members who heard the case failed to give sufficient weight to its request that the new storage area the plant plans to build be protected by earthen mounds.
Board members David Coen and John Burke "ignored uncontroverted evidence that an earthen berm (or its structural equivalent) would provide enhanced radiation shielding and protection against acts of terrorism or aircraft impact; finding instead that a mound would provide no benefit," NEC said in a statement.
Vermont Yankee has been seeking to build "dry-cask storage" for highly radioactive nuclear waste next to its reactor in Vernon, because the 34-year-old reactor is running out of room to store the material in its spent fuel storage pool.
The board last month approved the plant's plan to move the oldest and least radioactive waste from the pool to new, 20-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide concrete and steel canisters on a reinforced concrete pad next to the reactor.
The New England Coalition, which was a party to the board hearings, said it did not object to the dry-cask storage method. But it asked the board to condition its approval in part on a requirement that the plant build earthen mounds on the north and east sides of the pad. The south and west sides are shielded by nearby buildings.
Raymond Shadis, technical adviser with the coalition, said, "We intervened because we wanted the best possible situation for dry cask: protection of the fuel, and protection of people from the fuel," he said. He said the board "ignored evidence presented to them" in finding that the mounds weren't needed.
Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said the plant is still reviewing the board's order and trying to decide whether it might ask the panel to reconsider some of the conditions it placed on its approval.
He said Vermont Yankee believes the board was right to find the mounds unnecessary.
"The Public Service Board carefully considered all views on dry cask storage of spent fuel, and the NEC and their witnesses presented their case, but the berms are unwarranted," he said.
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