VERNON — Starting June 28, an outside contractor will provide armed, round-the-clock security for Vermont Yankee and its radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
Entergy announced Tuesday that it is outsourcing protection of the Vernon plant to Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services, a subsidiary of Securitas AB — a Swedish company that bills itself as “one of the world’s largest providers of security services.”
Officials say the five-year deal will save millions of dollars and will ease Entergy’s “administrative burden” at the shut-down plant
SCIS President Ron Hickie explained that SCIS expects to retain all of Vermont Yankee’s current security force, so the move is not expected to spur any additional layoffs.
Hickie also touted his company’s record in guarding other decommissioning nuclear plants, including Connecticut Yankee, Maine Yankee, and Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts.
“We’ve actually done six of these,” he said. “We bring a great deal of experience to the table.”
Vermont Yankee ceased producing power in December 2014. Ten days prior to shutdown, Entergy submitted a lengthy decommissioning report that included mention that the plant’s security force would be “transitioning to a contracted organization.”
That was expected to happen only after all of Vermont Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel was moved from a cooling pool into more stable, more secure dry-cask storage. That fuel move is expected to be complete by the end of 2020.
Tuesday’s announcement means Entergy has decided to switch to contracted security four years sooner than initially planned. Officials said that will decrease the company’s previously disclosed $12.4 million cost estimate for post-shutdown security.
While not providing specific contractual numbers, Vermont Yankee spokesman Marty Cohn noted that “implementation of the plan ahead of schedule will provide economic benefits to the [decommissioning trust] fund in the millions of dollars over the next four years.”
Much about the plant’s security plan — including the number of guards currently employed by Entergy — is kept out of the public eye. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved security changes at Vermont Yankee, but officials would not specify what those changes were, citing the need to keep sensitive information out of the hands of “potential adversaries.”
Not a novel arrangement
Entergy made the announcement that SCIS has been retained on Tuesday.
The company noted that its planned arrangement with SCIS must comply with the requirements of the NRC, FBI, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security — requirements that include “intrusion detection and alarm systems, an armed response security force to defend the facilities and other measures not shared with the public.”
The NRC did not have to sign off Vermont Yankee’s security outsourcing, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
“We have clearly established security requirements that the plant owner is responsible for adhering to, whether via its own staff or contractors,” Sheehan said.
“We carry out inspections to ensure those requirements are being met. It would continue to be incumbent upon Entergy, as the owner of record, to address any deficiencies identified during these reviews,” he said.
Sheehan added that “the use of security contractors has occurred at numerous operating and decommissioning nuclear power plants.” In fact, it’s not a novel arrangement at Vermont Yankee: Security Manager Patrick Ryan said it wasn’t until 2009 that Entergy brought the plant’s security “in house.”
Institutional knowledge
After SCIS takes over, Ryan and four other plant security administrators will remain employees of Entergy Vermont Yankee. That’s primarily for “oversight and execution of the contract,” Ryan said.
But the remainder of the plant’s security contingent will be employed and managed by SCIS. Ryan said those guards know the plant well, as more than half have been protecting the site for 15 years or more.
“I’ve got a very experienced security force,” Ryan said. “I’ve got members of my security force that have been here for 25 for 30 years.”
Hickie said that institutional knowledge is a key reason for his company to retain Yankee’s current security personnel. “Also, it’s the cost savings in training,” he said. “The training cycle is very long — it’s a three-month process to train new people [at Vermont Yankee], and it’s very costly.”
SCIS brings to Vernon an extensive background in high-level, federally certified security. The company maintains more than 12,000 security and fire personnel in the U.S., and it specializes in protecting nuclear, petrochemical and defense/aerospace facilities.
In addition to the company’s prior work at the three Yankee nuclear plants in New England, SCIS has overseen security during nuclear fuel transfers at the Big Rock Point plant in Michigan, La Crosse in Wisconsin, and Zion in Illinois.
In announcing the new deal with Vermont Yankee, Hickie said his company “has led decommissioning and fuel-transfer activities at more than half of the independent spent fuel storage installation locations in the U.S.”
Given the company’s history, Entergy is expecting “a seamless transition, with security remaining a top priority for us at Vermont Yankee,” Cohn said.
The same goes for Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark, whose department provides police protection in Vernon. Clark on Tuesday said he hadn’t yet spoken with Entergy about the upcoming changes in plant security, but he was not concerned about that.
“During the transitioning process we will meet with the new security provider to ensure we will have the same level of communication we currently have,” Clark said.