Warning To Massachusetts: Pilgrim’s New Unreviewed Safety Issue

Sept 6, 2015: Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Following Exactly the Vermont Yankee Model?

Oyster Creek represent this perfectly. Exelon notified the NRC many years ago they were going to shut down in 2019. I contend Exelon was throttling funds to the plant for many years…the NRC had to secretly contend with this. Instead of funding a plant for decades, they began funding and putting off work based on a shutdown in a few years. So you had a grossly obsolete plant basically with tons of components grossly gone past their usefull life spans…with maintenance and safety funding being withheld do to a near shutdown. It just not worth it to replace gear and keep up with all the maintenance and replace expensive parts, do the expensive and time consuming surveillance because of the impending shutdown. Then its natural to get a yellow finding on maintenance with the obsolete electromatic relief Valve ( safety relief Valve) and all the preventable shutdowns and scrams. Oyster Creek is the poster boy going into a permanent shutdown withb terrible plant reliability and preventable regulatory actions and violations. The NRC residents becomes exhausted and overwhelmed in  the no-man-lands shadow of a permanent shutdown. How much more overwhelmed will region I be with Pilgrim, Oyster Creek and others being in terrible regulatory shape heading for the grave yards. 

Will we have four terrible years with all sorts of plant reliability and regulatory issues all over the place like Oyster Creek? What will Gov Baker and the NRC do if a yellow finding shows up? Will it really be unforeseen? It’s going to be a terrible shadow over gov Baker and it can severely impair his credibility.  

Do you think even for one second Entergy would protect the credibility of Ma Gov Baker. How have they done so far?