AG seeks hearing on storage of radioactive spent fuel rods

AUGUSTA – Attorney General Steven Rowe asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday to conduct a hearing on plans to store highly radioactive spent fuel rods at the site of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant.

Rowe said his petition seeks to clarify state and local responsibilities for providing public safety and emergency response services, and to find out who the NRC expects to bear the cost.

The attorney general also raised questions about the time frame for removal of the spent fuel from Maine, saying the state expects the work to be completed before the storage facility’s 20-year license expires. The petition was backed by Gov. Angus King and all four members of the state’s congressional delegation.

“Our purpose is simply to ensure that the NRC applies a new set of standards when considering the management of high-level spent fuel at local facilities such as Maine Yankee,” King said. The congressional delegation said a public hearing would provide a forum to air measures undertaken to protect public health during storage and once the waste is relocated.

Rowe and King emphasized that the state’s petition was not intended to alarm Maine residents about the current safety of the Maine Yankee storage site. The spent fuel will remain at an aboveground, dry-cask storage facility pending its removal to an approved government site.

“Our concern is longer-term,” Rowe said. “The federal Department of Energy has stated that it may be 50 years or more before the fuel can be removed from Maine. That doesn’t add up. It is clearly unacceptable.”

Maine Yankee recently announced that decommissioning of the plant, which began in 1997, is about two-thirds complete. The reactor vessel was removed from the site in September.