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From “The Enterprise” News: http://www.enterprisenews.com
“Opinion
JAM SESSION: Pilgrim Station transfer
Posted Aug 24, 2019 at 6:00 AM

What are your thoughts about the decision to transfer the Pilgrim Station license?

Jam session is an opinion forum offering comments on issues from a group of Plymouth residents. It appears on the Forum pages in the Weekend edition of the OCM.

The newspaper poses a question to the group each week, and participants choose whether to comment. This column is designed to bring the voices of well-informed residents into the Forum page to address issues, one at a time.

Participants cross the local political spectrum and live throughout the town. Some are current or past Town Meeting representatives, and all are active in the community. W e hope their diverse points of view will encourage discussion of the issues Plymouth faces.

This week’s question

The NRC announced last week that it would approve the transfer of license for Pilgrim Station from Entergy to Holtec International. This, after the town and interest groups have expressed considerable concern at a lack of communications about the proposed sale of the plant with the town by Holtec. Motions for stays locally and by the attorney general have been filed. What are your thoughts about the situation?

Pat Adelmann

As of this writing the Aug. 21 date has passed and I do not know if the license transfer from Entergy to Holtec has been finalized by the NRC. I do know that the NRC has announced a meeting for Sept. 11 “To assist the NRC staff in identifying best practices and lessons learned for establishment and operation of local community advisory boards (CABs) associated with power reactor decommissioning activities.”

If the NRC has approved the license transfer in spite of requests from Attorney General Healey, U.S. Senators Markey and Warren, and Congressman Keating, to delay the decision until local community and state concerns for safety, financial liability, and Holtec’s corporate integrity have been fully vetted, then Congress should call for an investigation and legislate a complete overhaul of the NRC’s authority.

Pat Adelmann has been a Plymouth resident since 1977 and is a mother of five Plymouth Public School graduates, a proud grandmother of 12, a former School Committee member and a former Town Meeting representative.

Jeff Berger

As chair of Plymouth’s appointed Nuclear Matters Committee for many years until I retired a few years back, I had an opportunity to learn a great deal about Boston Edison, then about Entergy, and most of all about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Ultimately, it became crystal clear that the NRC was in bed with the nuclear industry in a “good ol’ boy” back-slapping way. They never met any nuclear plant they didn’t love. They were created to be a watchdog over the nuclear industry but instead were and are its docile, toothless, and brainless lapdog.

The fact that they approved the sale to Holtec — which has never decommissioned any plant — proves that they are not only incompetent, but quite possibly also criminally negligent: they are endangering every person and every thing in Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island through this psychotic abuse of power. They could not care less about us.

Are they getting paid off? That possibility ought to be seriously investigated by the FBI. At the official announcement of the closure of the plant I said things would go from bad to worse when the plant actually closed. Readers, our real nightmare has not even begun.

A Plymouth resident for more than 40 years, Jeff Berger is founder and owner of JMB Communications / websitesthatworkusa.com and everythingsxm.com as well as Northeast Ambassador for SkyMed International, http://www.getskymed.com. He is a former chairman of Plymouth’s Nuclear Matters Committee and its Cable Advisory Committee.

Karen Buechs

I fear we lost the conversation and ultimate outcome a long time ago. And it’s not for a lack of trying.

NRC and Holtec have our fate in their hands and they could care less. Instead of doing what’s right for our community, the almighty buck and crony network is alive and well.

Take the gloves off Plymouth! Fight! Continue to fight for our safety. I’m in your corner. As are thousands. Just tell me what needs to be done and I will do everything possible.

Karen Buechs is a Town Meeting representative and serves as chair of Precinct 7. She sat on the Manomet Steering Committee, Manomet Village Common Inc., Capital Outlay Committee and the Revenue Idea Task Force. She also served as Charter Commission member and on three Charter Review Committees. Karen has been a resident of Plymouth for 46 years.

Rick Caproni

NRC and the federal government have shown no interest in the welfare of the citizens of Plymouth.

Our attorney general is late to the party and has only shown interest in advancing her political career as she prepares to run for governor. The same can be said of Rep. Keating (on a six week vacation) and Senators Warren and Markey.

These last minute efforts will fail and our town will be home to a nuclear storage facility forever.

Rick Caproni is a Town Meeting representative from Precinct 15, a retired equipment leasing executive and a self described political activist.

Heidi Mayo

A big Thank You to Mary and Jim Lampert of Pilgrim Watch and AG Maura Healey for filing those motions to allow us to research this shady deal we were being railroaded into. Thank you, Senator Warren, Senator Markey, and Congressman Keating for you letter in support of the motions. Thank you for representing us! We need to stay on top of the NRC. We need to stay on top of Entergy and Holtec. And now that the extension has been granted, I feel just a little bit less powerless.

Heidi Mayo is an award-winning author, artist and teacher of fine art. She has served on many boards including the Recycling Committee, Rising Tide Charter School, Plymouth Guild for the Arts, and PACTV, and is currently active with the League of Women Voters and the Patriots of Indivisible Plymouth.

David Peck

I’m disappointed but not surprised that the NRC has approved the sale to Holtec. The nuclear industry is incestuous and self serving, and takes care of its own, not the local community in which a nuclear plant and storage are located.

All we can do is keep up the full court press, at the national and state level, on the NRC, Entergy and Holtec to require the highest safety standards on the decommissioning and nuclear waste storage. Our governor, our U.S. Senators Warren and Markey, and all of the state’s representatives need to push for the long promised national nuclear storage site. Every presidential candidate should discuss this issue. Every one of the lawsuits should forge ahead, and appealed to the Supreme Court if necessary. At the state and local level, perhaps the owners of nuclear storage sites (ours and others if they exist) should have a special tax assessed on the stored nuclear waste, and the proceeds shared with the region, not just Plymouth. This special tax could expire when the last of the nuclear waste is moved to the approved federal waste storage area. From a local assessment point of view, the dry cask storage units could be assessed at a very high value, to generate substantial real estate tax revenue, instead of relying on payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) negotiations. Continuous full court press on multiple fronts.

David Peck is the retired director of Facility Planning at Boston Children’s Hospital. He serves as the chairman of the Plymouth Building Committee and vice-chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals. He is a Town Meeting representative from Precinct 4.

Roger Silva

The NRC has regulated nuclear power plants since the beginning. Tavares is right that the waste issue has and is a federal government fiasco. Holtec should be held to all the contractual covenants as required to decommission. This is not rocket science. Yankee Rowe, Maine Yankee and the test reactor at Watertown Arsenal have been safely put to bed. Nuclear is still the safest energy source from cradle to grave!

Roger Silva is a former five-term Plymouth selectman who began public service as an elected Town Meeting member. He has served on the Advisory and Finance Committee and two charter commissions.
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