YOUR TURN: Stand firm against contaminating Cape Cod Bay
The hubris of Holtec International has been revealed in their business plan to dump a million gallons of radioactive wastewater from decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station into Cape Cod Bay. This ecocide exposes their complete disregard for our community health and safety, and highlights the fact that the government and nuclear industry have no real plan to manage this most dangerous substance known to humankind.
These dangerous radionuclides don’t “dilute” as Holtec claims, but accumulate in the environment and are transmitted up the food chain. They can cause cancers, birth defects, autoimmune conditions and genetic damage that impacts generations to come.
Pilgrim owners have always used our environment as their dump. But there is a rising tide of opposition. The people now realize the irreparable damage Holtec plans to create. What we have here is a corporation trying to protect its bottom line and a community trying to protect the health of our families, the livelihoods of our coastal communities, and the habitat of marine life.
Holtec has lost the public trust. Holtec came to town promising “openness and transparency,” but it took state Attorney General Maura Healey’s legal action to get minimal safety and financial concessions from Holtec.
In New Mexico, Attorney General Hector Balderas has filed a suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the NRC’s unlawful proceedings that involve Holtec and illegal activities. Balderas' office charges that "terrible misrepresentations and deficiencies of Holtec’s submittals strongly suggests collusion between the NRC and Holtec.” Holtec is planning a Centralized Interim Storage Facility against the consent of the state, the Pueblo Council of Governors, and federal and state officials.
Back here in Massachusetts, are we left to trust Holtec to do the right thing? The fact is, Holtec does not need NRC approval to dump nor is there any oversight of radioactive water releases until after the fact, when the company files its report. So much for the NRC mandate to protect the people and environment.
Holtec does not control the narrative, the people do. With our collective power, let’s turn this ship around.
Delaying the dumping decision past 2022 still doesn’t make it right. We call for Holtec to be responsible and immediately announce a commitment to remove dumping into our bay as an option for radioactive water management. We support responsible and environmentally sound containment of the radioactive wastewater.
Diane Turco is director of Cape Downwinders.
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