Pilgrim protesters win promise from PatrickMar 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - C. Ryan Barber Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.
After missing their charter bus home to stake out Gov. Deval Patrick, members of the Cape Downwinders nuclear watchdog group left Boston on Monday with the governor's promise to officially reiterate his concerns about the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth. "I'm going to write a letter, yes," Patrick told reporters when asked if he would call on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to shutter the 42-year-old plant. His comments followed a brief meeting with Diane Turco, founder of the Cape Downwinders, who packed into the governor's temporary second-floor office with fellow activists. "She and I share the concerns about safety for Pilgrim, and I will express that in a letter as I have in the past," Patrick said as he rushed to an event at Logan International Airport in Boston. In the hours leading up to Turco's minute of gubernatorial face time, a crowd of about 75 activists rallied in a Statehouse auditorium, demanding that Patrick call on the NRC to close Pilgrim. The rally came a day before today's three-year anniversary of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster -- an event that galvanized protests against the Plymouth plant, named one of the nine worst-performing reactors in the country for its several unplanned shutdowns last year. "Fukushima blew away the myth that nuclear power is safe," Turco said at the rally against the backdrop of a sign that read "No More Fukushimas." She and other activists marched to Patrick's office to deliver the resolutions each of the Cape's 15 towns has passed in support of closing Pilgrim. And she refused to leave for two hours until she had an answer. The crowd thinned as the afternoon wore on. As authorities cleared a path through the lobby, Helen Grimm looked at the congestion and said, "This could be Cape Cod" in the event of an emergency at the nuclear plant. At 3:30 p.m., just as Patrick was preparing to leave, Turco was ushered into a room and spoke privately with Patrick as he put on his coat. "He's going to call for the NRC to shut down the reactor because the public safety cannot be assured," Turco said. "We got our answer." During the rally, she and other activists criticized Patrick for not heeding the resolutions passed by the Cape towns. They were under no illusions that the state has jurisdiction over Pilgrim, which is regulated under federal laws that pre-empt any passed by the state. But after seeing Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Peter Shumlin call for the NRC to shut down plants in New York and Vermont, respectively, the Cape Downwinders want Patrick to follow suit. In 2012, Patrick joined a chorus of other state lawmakers in asking the NRC to take a closer look at the plant's safety issues. Patrick later criticized the NRC for re-licensing the plant for another 20 years before resolving the state's safety and environmental concerns. More recently, Patrick has publicly questioned whether Pilgrim is needed to fulfill Massachusetts' energy needs. But on Monday, he noted the state's jurisdictional challenge. "It doesn't matter what I think," he told reporters. "I'd rather we didn't have it, and I've expressed that publicly before, and I've expressed it to the (NRC), and I'll do it again." Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said Monday that the plant is currently under closer scrutiny for the mechanical complications and unplanned shutdowns of last year. "We would only act to shut down the plant if we identified significant and pervasive problems that could call into question the facility's safety," Sheehan said in an email. "We have not seen issues of that magnitude or prevalence at Pilgrim." However, Sheehan also said the NRC will engage Entergy this year in looking at the "root causes" of the drop in the plant's performance rating to ensure the company has put in place "thorough and comprehensive corrective actions." State Sen. Daniel Wolf, D-Harwich, attended the rally and raised concerns about the plant becoming a "nuclear waste dump" holding more than 5,000 spent fuel rods that will be passed on to future generations. Wolf said Patrick has been "good on this issue relative to what he said." "I think the point of this event is to move it up on the priority list," he said after the rally. "This is really, I think, a loud voice to say we think you get it but we really want you to prioritize it." Wolf said the state has some oversight over emergency management and the plant's use of seawater drawn from Cape Cod Bay to cool the water circulating around the reactor. Before the meeting, Wolf said there is a "legitimate claim" that Pilgrim should adopt a "closed cycle" rather than use seawater and release it back into the bay. When it came time for Wellfleet residents to speak at the rally, 9-year-old Ella Grimm said the obligation will fall to younger generations if the plant is not shut down soon. "We should really shut Pilgrim down," she said, "because if the older generation doesn't, the younger generation has a big problem on its hands." http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=31797146& |