The decision by the Commonwealth to deny Holtec permission to use Cape Cod Bay as a dumping ground validated the legal case APCC presented to the Healey administration in 2023. Not only is this an important victory for APCC and Cape Cod Bay, it also validates that the rules mean something. Holtec acts as though the residents and communities have no voice. It claims impunity arising from federal preemption of state and local authority. The reality is that state laws do apply and we do have a say. APCC refused to back down and made the case that this denial was not only right but required by the law.
We expect Holtec to appeal. APCC has retained is legal team and will defend the Commonwealth’s denial in whatever appellate venue Holtec chooses. It is impossible not to point out that Holtec’s appeal is the only thing creating uncertainty about the outcome of the permit process that Holtec cynically cites as the reason for the eight-year delay in the clean-up process. Were Holtec to accept the denial, all the permit uncertainty is eliminated and years could be shaved off the schedule to clean up the site. I don’t think Holtec will accept the denial because the appeal buys it time to evaporate the water into our air and solve its problem at little cost other than the public health; something about which Holtec appears not care about.
It is our view that Holtec will continue to induce evaporation during the colder months by heating the water under the ruse of keeping workers warm (Holtec removed the tanks that fueled the conventional air heaters so that heating the water was the sole remaining option and Holtec has the gall to say it was a better climate solution). Because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not see the forest for the trees and recognize evaporation for what it is, a means of disposal as opposed to a side effect, Holtec may well get away with it. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection air quality permits don’t apply to the radioactivity and the conventional pollutant load is below threshold and doesn’t trigger a permit.
APCC did its part in motivating and enabling the regulators to say no to the use of the bay for disposal purposes. We are very grateful to the Healey administration for taking the right stand for the bay. Maybe it is too much to ask, but there is the possibility that Holtec could do the right thing: accept the permit denial, stop inducing evaporation, implement a responsible disposal option for the water and speed up the clean-up of the site. I doubt this will happen, and we are fully prepared for it not to, but there have been many unforeseen surprises of late, so…
