Massachusetts rift offers clear example of nuclear division

Mark D. Preston

Wednesday, April 14, 1999 | 10:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Dotted across the New England landscape at nine active and inactive nuclear power plants are water-filled vaults holding more than 2,500 tons of high-level nuclear waste.

The nuclear industry and most people near the plants want to move the waste, but environmental groups, for safety reasons, want it to stay put. And as Congress again grapples with the question of how to deal with the nuclear waste issue, that split is reflected in the Massachusetts delegation.

Legislators are preparing for a showdown this year on whether to create a temporary waste-storage facility in Nevada. In 1982 and 1987, Congress passed legislation that required the government to remove radioactive waste from commercial plants and place it in a centralized storage facility. The deadline passed last year, but 40,000 tons of waste is still stored at 72 sites in 33 states.

In New England, such waste has accumulated for more than 30 years. About 20 percent of the electricity in Massachusetts is produced by nuclear plants, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth and Yankee Rowe in Rowe, store about 430 tons of nuclear waste, according to the Department of Energy. Rowe was shut down in 1991. Pilgrim still produces electricity for Boston and towns on Cape Cod.

Russ Bailey, town manager for Seabrook, N.H., home to North Atlantic Energy's Seabrook nuclear power plant, said most people are not aware that waste is stored at the plant. But Bailey, who describes the plant as a "good neighbor," said town leaders are concerned it might become an issue unless the government takes steps to remove the waste.

Last month, the government opened its first permanent nuclear-waste site in Carlsbad, N.M., but it is limited to government-generated nuclear waste, mostly plutonium from defense-related facilities. Federal law prohibits the site from accepting radioactive waste from commercial nuclear power plants.

The federal government's failure to meet the deadline has prompted some federal lawmakers to try to move the waste temporarily to the Nevada Test Site. Legislation is working its way through the House and Senate to require the Test Site to begin accepting waste by June 30, 2003. Votes are expected on the issue this summer.

In the meantime, the Energy Department is studying Yucca Mountain, situated in a barren stretch of land 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to determine whether it could be a permanent repository for nuclear waste. The Energy Department is expected to make its decision by 2001, and if Yucca is chosen, it could begin accepting waste no earlier than 2010.

Both the nuclear industry and some lawmakers argue that sending nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site is logical because an Energy Department report last December found no reason to disqualify Yucca as a permanent facility. They argue that because the two sites are so close, it would be easy to move the waste to the second site.

But President Clinton and a coalition of lawmakers, including Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., oppose a temporary storage facility, saying it would siphon funds from the permanent program.

Markey also accused the nuclear power industry of trying to rid itself of responsibility for the waste after reaping the rewards from its use.

"Many nuclear utility executives want to punt this question intergenerationally to babies being born today to figure out how to find a permanent solution to the problem," Markey said.

"In the same way this generation has a responsibility for ensuring that Social Security will be solvent 75 years from today, this generation ... has a responsibility for finding a permanent solution to the storage of the nuclear waste."

Opinions on the nuclear-waste storage do not necessarily follow party lines on Capitol Hill, and the Massachusetts congressional delegation does not agree on a solution. Representatives John I. Olver and Barney Frank, both Democrats, are the only two members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation who support temporary waste storage.

"I think one well protected depository makes a heck of a lot of more sense than having it spread ... around the country, which will make it much more difficult to protect and secure," Olver said. "I am certainly for the fastest possible decision, even if it is an interim decision."

Frank said the government should live up to its responsibilities to accept the waste.

"We need a permanent place for it, and obviously leaving it where it is is not useful," Frank said. "Leaving it separated is costly and I think unfair to the utilities who did pay for a permanent site and shouldn't have to keep having the responsibility for it."

But members of Congress who oppose temporary storage, coupled with the threat of a veto from Clinton, have blocked attempts to move the waste to the Test Site for the past four years.

That has pleased Nevada politicians and casino operators who are concerned that a permanent repository would harm the Las Vegas tourist economy. And environmental groups say the Test Site has had more than 600 earthquakes since 1976 registering at least 2.5 on the Richter scale. The most recent earthquakes in January registered 4.5 and 3.5.

Some scientists speculate that thermal water located below the proposed repository could suddenly rise during an earthquake causing the waste-storage casks to corrode and leak.

Deborah Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness Network, an antinuclear watchdog group based in Massachusetts, with 1,400 members throughout New England and New York, also argued: "There are still accidents that can happen in terms of the removal of the fuel from the pools, including the release of radioactivity if there is a problem in the handling of the fuel."

Representative James P. McGovern, D-Mass., said another concern is transporting nuclear waste.

McGovern said the waste would travel through Mansfield, Foxboro, Hopkinton and many other communities before reaching the Nevada desert.

"This is not garbage," McGovern said. "This is stuff that if there was an accident would do incredible damage."