VERNON — NorthStar Group Services, the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, has withdrawn its 1,000-page license termination plan after questions and criticism raised by federal regulators.
NorthStar told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it was withdrawing the document in order to answer the questions in the 16 areas of concern raised by the NRC, in a letter dated Feb. 29. NorthStar had submitted the plan last October and asked for an answer by September 2024.
By federal law, the plan has to be submitted two years before final decommissioning is completed, and NorthStar has until 2030 to complete decommissioning, but it is on track to complete the demolition and clean up by 2026, four years ahead of schedule.
During a meeting earlier this week of the Federal Nuclear Waste Policy Committee of the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, it was disclosed by congressional staffers that the plan had been withdrawn.
An aide to Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., Juliet Walsh, who was participating Monday's meeting along with representatives from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., were updating the panel on federal legislation affecting the decommissioning and nuclear waste policy.
Also on the virtual call was a representative from NorthStar, Steven Naeck, who confirmed the NRC had issues with the document.
"They had a number of questions and we did opt to withdraw," said Naeck. He said once the company has reviewed and responded to the NRC, it will resubmit the license termination plan.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan, who was also in the virtual meeting, said the NRC would be issuing a letter detailing its concerns in the future.
But in a follow-up exchange on Thursday, he characterized the concerns as lack of information.
"I can tell you that as part of its acceptance review of the Vermont Yankee license termination plan license amendment request, the NRC review team identified 16 areas where information was insufficient, including items associated with site characterization and how the information will be used to inform subsequent phases of decommissioning," Sheehan wrote in an email Thursday.
"The plan did not describe the approach to meeting the radiological criteria for unrestricted use for an individual who could potentially be exposed to multiple contaminated media," he said. "The site characterization information provided in the plan did not provide information in sufficient detail to provide reasonable assurance that an adequate characterization was conducted to fully understand the residual radioactivity in soil, structures, piping, etc.," he added.
Additionally, he said, "the plan did not provide technical information in sufficient detail for NRC staff to understand how the company intends to utilize site characterization results for designing final surveys or supporting dose modeling in areas with existing, remaining or potential contamination."
"The site characterization data provided was insufficient for staff to begin a detailed technical review of the plan. Specifically, a full characterization of all accessible areas was not provided. For example, the company recently identified additional site characterization information that was not provided or summarized in the plan."
"The lack of site characterization data and sufficient descriptions of how the company intends to use the results directly impacts the staff’s ability to understand and evaluate how NorthStar uses the results to inform the remediation planning, estimate waste streams, design the final status survey, establish area classifications, determine radionuclides of concern, determine radionuclide mixtures/fractions, determine insignificant contributors, calculate modified DCGLs (Derived Concentration Guideline Levels) and gross activity DCGLs, request sample analyses and determine instrument efficiencies," he wrote.
Scott State, NorthStar's chief executive officer, released a statement Thursday afternoon about the issues raised by the NRC.
"Thanks to the NorthStar team’s safe and efficient work, we continue to anticipate completion of decommissioning activities by the end of 2026 — more than four years ahead of schedule. Recognizing this substantial progress, NorthStar initially opted for early submission of its license termination plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," State wrote in his statement.
"License termination plans, like the early submittal by NorthStar for Vermont Yankee, span more than a thousand pages of highly technical information about the decommissioning site and process. Because NRC regulations appropriately require plans to include such vast amounts of detail, it is common for the NRC to request additional data from the licensee before approving a plan. As with plans submitted for other sites around the country, the NRC did have follow up data requests regarding NorthStar’s early submittal," State noted.
State said that since the plan is governed by "rigid timelines," once it is submitted to the NRV, NorthStar opted to withdraw its early submittal.
"This decision does not affect NorthStar’s ability to continue with all planned work at Vermont Yankee, which the NRC has identified as one of the best ongoing decommissioning processes in the country," State noted.
