Following nuclear crisis in Japan, Gov. Deval Patrick has made plans to meet with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss safety at nuclear plants in Massachusetts, according to a March 28 article in the Cape Cod Times.
“I’ve been briefed by our own emergency management folks, who are in regular touch with the NRC, but I want to hear it directly from them and I’m looking forward to putting some direct questions to them,” Patrick said after a meeting with State President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
In addition Murray said lawmakers plan on holding a hearing with officials from three nuclear power plants in the region to discuss state preparation for emergencies.
“The Senate President has a lot of experience with the Pilgrim facility, in particular, and facilities like it and also with NRC so I’ve asked her to help me prepare my questions, which I think are going to be pretty direct,” Patrick said.
State lawmakers planned to meet with operators of three power plants on April 6, including the Pilgrim Power Plant about 50 miles away from Boston in Murray’s home district and two New England plants near the state border.
Murray said that a diesel-fueled backup generator, which can power the plant for up to a week, a ventilation system and other safety measures at the Pilgrim plant will prevent a pressure buildup in case of emergency.
“It’s not quite the same. We have a redundancy within the system here that they did not have in Japan,” he said.
Last week Murray and Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a letter to federal regulators asking them to re-examine the safety of the wet storage of spent fuel at the Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee plants.
Murray and Coakley said that regulators should rescind their findings that wet fuel storage does not pose an environmental risk in light of environmental issues at Japanese plants related to wet storage. The two officials suggested mandating dry cask storage for spent fuel.
Murray and Coakley also expressed their concern that the federal government did not finish removing nuclear waste, as dictated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
Murray said funds devoted to the waste removal should be returned to energy customers and used to improve safety.
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