Every so often events conspire to give people a chance to put their actions behind their words. The recently announced findings of the hearing officer recommending that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s denial of the application by Holtec to discharge wastewater to Cape Cod Bay is one such opportunity. We are all watching Holtec’s next move. History and Holtec’s recent behavior all indicate that Holtec will not do the right thing and drop its single-minded pursuit to use Cape Cod Bay as a dumping ground.
Talk, unless backed up by action, is cheap. Back in 2022, Kris Singh, CEO and founder of Holtec, said the following at a Senate hearing in Plymouth chaired by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey: “I said we will not dump contaminated water anywhere. I also said that the water is not contaminated by its definition, but we will not discharge any water in the Cape Cod Bay unless we have major stakeholder concurrence.” After that statement, Holtec was denied permission to discharge by MassDEP. Holtec appealed that denial and is now facing a hearing officer’s recommendation that the appeal be dismissed based in part on a finding that the discharge water is in fact contaminated wastewater, which is prohibited by the Ocean Sanctuaries Act.
Holtec now has a choice. It can give meaning and credibility to the words of CEO Singh by accepting the denial, forgo additional appeals and dispose of the wastewater legally and responsibly. Or it can continue serial appeals that give it time to continue to induce evaporation by heating the water so that long before the appeals are done the water and its contaminants evaporate into the air breathed by the residents of southeast Massachusetts and the Cape.
I am pretty sure that additional appeals, more induced evaporation and continued obfuscations from Holtec are in our future. It doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s see what Holtect does. Let’s be clear that Holtec doing the right thing here would be the surprise. We hope for the best, but are prepared for more of what we have experienced to date from Holtec.
