Schuyler Gould is a board member of Citizens Awareness Network in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, which promotes the safe regulation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants in New England. He is a past president of New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution in Brattleboro.
BRATTLEBORO-The Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) is chartered by the state "to encourage open communication and community involvement in matters related to the decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station" and to "advise the Governor, General Assembly, the agencies of the state, and the public on issues related to decommissioning."
A regular attendee of the panel's quarterly meetings, I was taken aback at its last meeting on May 13 by a remark by panel member June Tierney, commissioner of the Department of Public Service, directed toward fellow panel member Lissa Weinmann, a former chair of NDCAP and current chair of the panel's Federal Nuclear Waste Policy Committee (FNWPC).
Ms. Weinmann had just provided the panel with a review of the committee's work in 2023, as well as plans for the upcoming year.
Referencing "jurisdictional limitations" to the panel's duties and prerogatives, Ms. Tierney said, "We're not here to have a platform to involve ourselves in every aspect of national policy well beyond the borders of the state of Vermont."
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A little history here: Maine Yankee, a nuclear power plant in the coastal town of Wiscasset, was retired in 1995, after 24 years of operation, after a safety review of the plant by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission revealed deficiencies too costly to repair. The dismantling of the physical plant was completed in 2005.
The plant's own Community Advisory Panel continues to meet once a year. Several years ago, I asked its chair, Don Hudson, to describe the panel's main focus.
"All we talk about is nuclear waste," he said.
I'm sure other issues are addressed, but point taken.
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And here is the point: There is every indication that Vernon and the state of Vermont will be saddled with 56 canisters of high-level nuclear waste, arguably the most toxic substance on the face of the planet, for decades to come.
National policies that govern this waste will remain at the core of NDCAP's oversight responsibilities until the waste is safely removed from the site and Vermont Yankee is finally decommissioned.
There are no "jurisdictional limitations," as Commissioner Tierney puts it, on the activities of the waste policy subcommittee or the panel as a whole regarding national waste policy.
Indeed, the committee has been exploring multiple aspects of such since its first meeting in 2021.
The "sprawling mandates" that Commissioner Tierney cautions the committee against taking are, in fact, clearly and simply stated, as noted above, as prerogatives of the NDCAP panel.
Vermont stands at the forefront of a growing national wave of nuclear power plant closures. Instead of attempting to limit the discussion and dissemination of ideas on nuclear waste policy, Commissioner Tierney, whose department hosts NDCAP, should instead be encouraging the panel to step up and take the lead in helping the nation cope with the legacy of nuclear power - high-level nuclear waste.
She should do so by understanding - and even contributing to - the discussion of national waste policy from the perspective of a host community.
It is a discussion that we Vermonters are destined to be having for decades to come.
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