“A Gross Breach of Trust” — Whistleblower Alleges Surreptitious Evaporation of "Contaminated Water" at Pilgrim

A Breaking and Developing Story

[Readers, though I am a member of the Duxbury Nuclear Advisory Committee as well as Save Our Bay MA, the views expressed below are my own. — Ben Cronin.]

(PLYMOUTH) – An August 18th letter from an anonymous whistleblower at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth alleges that management of the plant has ordered the surreptitious evaporation of radioactively and chemically contaminated wastewater from the plant, in what the anonymous author characterizes as “a gross breach of trust.”

“I am writing this letter to inform you of a breach of trust regarding the promise made by Pilgrim Station Management to not discharge 1 million gallons of contaminated water to the local environment,” begins the whistleblower’s letter, with a return address of 600 Rocky Hill Road (i.e., Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station), and postmarked in Brockton on August 18, 2023 (underlined emphasis in original).

(Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, at left, from High Pines on Duxbury Beach; credit — J. Benjamin Cronin.)

The letter was sent to environmental group Cape Cod Downwinders, based in Harwich and headed by long-time activist Diane Turco [note: Ms. Turco is a member of Save Our Bay MA], as well as to Jack Priest, the Director of the Radiation Control Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In addition, Mr. Priest sits as a member of the Massachusetts Nuclear Decommissioning Advisory Committee (NDCAP).

“A Gross Breach of Trust”

“As you will recall, this promise was made following a previous 2022 public, ‘open-house’ meeting, at which Pilgrim’s intent to discharge the contaminated water to Cape Cod Bay was proposed by Pilgrim Station Management, and challenged by Local and State officials. Despite the ‘promise’ to the public, Pilgrim Station Management again petition for permission to discharge contaminated water to the Cape Cod Bay in 2023. This latest petition was also challenged and rejected a month ago by Local and State environmental officials,” wrote the anonymous whistleblower.

The letter’s author refers to the July 24, 2023 tentative determination by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to deny Holtec’s proposed modification of its existing NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System) permit to allow the discharge, on the grounds that the proposed discharge of over a million gallons of industrial wastewater plainly violates the Massachusetts Ocean Sanctuaries Act (M.G.L. c. 132A Secs 12A-16J inclusive and Sec. 18) and its prohibition on the discharge of industrial waste (Sec. 15(4)) into any Ocean Sanctuaries. Cape Cod Bay, including Plymouth, Kingston, and Duxbury Bays, is defined as an Ocean Sanctuary at Section 13(b) of the Act.

A public hearing on the matter will be held by MassDEP on August 24th in Plymouth, and public comment is open through 5 pm on August 31st via email.

The whistleblower continued: “Since the time of their 2022 ‘promise’ to Local and State officials, and the Public at-large, Pilgrim Station Management had received and evaluated a number of proposals for disposal of the contaminated water. The most practical and effective disposal pathway considered was to ship the contaminated water to an off-site waste processing facility that possesses the necessary systems and expertise to safely process Pilgrim’s contaminated water volume.”

“Note that this was the disposal pathway for contaminated water that was selected and utilized by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station’s Management during their decommissioning process. However, Pilgrim Station’s Management balked at the costs associated with this particular disposal pathway,” continued the whistleblower.

“As a result, Pilgrim Station’s Site Vice President directed Plant Engineering staff to devise a plan to install ‘evaporators’ in the Dryer-Separator Pit (DSP ) on the Refuel Floor (RFF), and boil-away the water volume. The heating elements raise the temperature of the contaminated water in the DSP to a temperature of approximately 117F. The evaporative water vapor is drawn up into the Reactor Building Ventilation (RBV) System, and discharged through the RBV Stack as an airborne release to the environment,” wrote the whistleblower.

According to Holtec’s website, John Moylan is the Site Vice President of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.

“I believe this ‘sleigh[t]-of-hand’ in directing contaminated water discharge towards the airborne pathway versus the liquid discharge pathway to the environment, represents a gross breach of trust in the intent of Pilgrim Station's Management to assure the Public, and the State and NRC Regulators, that they are decommissioning the facility in a manner which assures public and environmental safety, is consistent with State and NRC regulations, and Pilgrim[’]s own Facility License Bases documentation,” the whistleblower wrote.

“In order to process the contaminated water by evaporation, an Engineering Change (EC) had to be generated to permit (as per the Plant’s License Basis documents) such a system to be designed and installed,” continued the whistleblower.

“At present, forced evaporation is not a ‘designed’ liquid radwaste processing method, and so, is not an approved method of processing liquid radioactive waste. Furthermore, the EC Design Review feedback document submitted by Plant Radiation Protection personnel to Plant Engineering, was very critical of the proposed design and its implementation,” wrote the whistleblower.

Concerns for Workers and Public; Erosion of Trust in DPH

Specific concerns raised, according to the whistleblower, included the fact that “Radiation Monitors inside the RBV System are not capable of detecting and measuring radioactive Tritium in the discharge flow up the RBV Stack,” wrote the whistleblower. Rather, the quantity of “Tritium radioactivity” must be measured and calculated manually by plant personnel.

Second, the whistleblower alleges that this process is dangerous for workers employed at the plant. “Plant personnel working on the Refuel Floor during the evaporation process would be exposed to high ambient temperatures approaching 100F, as well as the radioactively contaminated airborne water vapor. This process presents a radiological and industrial safety concern to the Refuel Floor workforce,” wrote the whistleblower.

Finally, the whistleblower alleges that “the radiation exposure to the General Public from releasing Tritium in the form of water vapor discharged up the RBV Stack, would be many times greater than the radiation exposure that would be received by the General Public, had the Tritium-contaminated water been discharged into Cape Cod Bay.”

The whistleblower noted in closing that “although Pilgrim Station Management is not required to provide prior [emphasis in original] notification to the USNRC [United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission] of their intent to process and discharge Tritium-contaminated water in this manner, the USNRC is expected to review the EC [Engineering Change] and the comments from impacted work groups upon their next scheduled on-site inspection. Given the USNRC’s comments and critique of Pilgrim management[’]s original intent to discharge contaminated water to Cape Cod Bay, they can be expected to be particularly critical of Pilgrim Station Management’s latest plan to process and discharge the contaminated water up the RBV Stack in the form of water vapor.”

I contacted Holtec spokesman Pat O’Brien this afternoon, seeking comment on the allegations contained in the whistleblower’s letter. He replied to The Plymouth County Observer with the following statement: “The use of heaters to support habitability and solid waste packaging from vessel segmentation was referenced in the most recent NRC inspection report. Evaporative releases are monitored and part of our annual environmental reporting and have occurred continuously since the plant began operations in 1972,” said Mr. O’Brien.

If the whistleblower’s allegations are true, this represents, according to knowledgeable observers, a very serious and tripartite breach of trust, not only on the part of Holtec, but also on the part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), which are supposed to be protecting the rights of the public in this matter.

In particular, it stands in direct contrast to what the Healey Administration’s Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Robert Goldstein, stated was his goal upon taking over at the DPH: “I want to make sure that the people of Massachusetts see us, trust us, and know that we are sharing information with them for their good and for their health,” Dr. Goldstein told The Boston Globe’s Kay Lazar, in a May 16th story.

If trust is the chief desideratum at the Department of Public Health, its actions — or lack thereof — in this matter appear to have had the opposite effect.

Holtec Must Follow Massachusetts Laws and Regulations

It is also important to note that even though Holtec appears in part to have switched from attempting to violate water pollution laws of the Commonwealth (e.g., The Massachusetts Ocean Sanctuary Act, M.G.L. c. 132A Secs. 12A-16J inclusive and Sec. 18, as well as c. 271 Section 16) to attempting to violate, or actually violating, air pollution laws of the Commonwealth (see, e.g., The Massachusetts Clean Air Act, M.G.L. c.111 Secs. 142A-142J, with associated regulations at 310 CMR 7) it nevertheless still must follow our laws, as it agreed to in its June, 2020, Settlement Agreement with the Commonwealth (see Settlement Agreement, III (10)(l)).

In particular, the Massachusetts Clean Air Act, at Section 142A, states that “the department of environmental protection … may from time to time adopt regulations, pursuant to this section and sections one hundred and forty-two B through one hundred and forty-two M, inclusive, to prevent pollution or contamination of the atmosphere. Whoever violates any such regulation or any permit or plan approval or order issued thereunder: (a) shall be punished for each violation by a fine of not more than twenty-five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both such fine and imprisonment; or (b) shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than twenty-five thousand dollars for each violation. Each day or part thereof that such violation occurs or continues shall be a separate violation. The civil penalty may be assessed in an action brought on behalf of the commonwealth in the superior court. The commonwealth may also bring an action for injunctive relief in the superior court for any such violation, and the superior court shall have jurisdiction to enjoin such violation and to grant such further relief as it may deem appropriate.”

The Massachusetts regulations, at 310 CMR 7.00, define “air contaminant” as follows: “any substance or man-made physical phenomenon in the ambient air space and includes, but is not limited to, dust, flyash, gas, fume, mist, odor, smoke, vapor, pollen, microorganism, radioactive material, radiation, heat, sound, any combination thereof, or any decay or reaction product thereof.”

The regulations define, in the same section, “air pollution” as “the presence in the ambient air space of one or more air contaminants or combinations thereof in such concentrations and of such duration as to: (a) cause a nuisance; (b) be injurious, or be on the basis of current information, potentially injurious to human or animal life, to vegetation, or to property; or (c) unreasonably interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property or the conduct of business.”

Contrary to what is sometimes erroneously asserted, there is no issue of federal preemption here. Not only is the Settlement Agreement a contract, and not preempted, but there is also a broad corpus of legal precedent that affirms the Commonwealth’s power to take action in this matter.

Indeed, the United States Supreme Court, starting with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission (1983), and continuing through the 2019 decision Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, has been clear: states retain their legitimate authority to regulate their economies and environments under the U.S. Constitution. The field granted by Congress to the NRC relates to the construction, maintenance, and safe operation of nuclear power plants; it did not cede to the NRC every matter tangentially relating to nuclear matters (thus Justice Blackmun’s tart comment in English v. General Electric (1990), that the absurdly extravagant breadth of nuclear industry claims regarding Federal preemption are such that, if the Court were to accept their logic, they would forbid a state from passing laws prohibiting child labor in a nuclear plant. This plainly absurd result was not Congress’s intention in passing the Energy Reorganization of 1974, which created the NRC, Justice Blackmun noted).

A public hearing on MassDEP’s final determination on Holtec’s request to modify its existing surface water discharge permit will be held on Thursday, August 24th, at 6 pm, at Plymouth Town Hall. Information on remote participation and watching live may be found here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massdep-permits-approvals-for-comment#open-for-comment:-permits-&-approvals-; speakers will be limited to three minutes each.

Public comments will be accepted until 5pm on August 31st, 2023, and may be emailed to massdep.npdes@mass.gov.