Pilgrim Plant to Lay Off Dozens in April

COURTESY PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER STATION

PLYMOUTH – The decommissioning process of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth is underway and Holtec plans on laying off dozens of workers in a few months.

Plant spokesman Patrick O’Brien said staff will be reduced by about 57 employees on April 3, which will leave about 180 on site.

The company recently filed a Worker Adjustment and Retaining Act notice with the state reporting the layoffs.

O’Brien said the reduction was planned as part of decommissioning.

“It is something we laid out to employees,” O’Brien said. “The employees understood that roughly ten months after shutdown there would be another round of layoffs.”

O’Brien said the staff cuts were across the board.

“The majority of it is related to the plant side of the house as opposed to security,” he said.

Pilgrim had 580 employees when the plant shut down last spring.

“We reduced roughly in half back on June 20 of 2019,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien expects the staff level to remain around 180 for the short-term for decommissioning.

“As certain projects come and go we will staff up additional resources as needed through some of our agreements with labor organizations,” he said.

O’Brien said the beginning of decommissioning is moving along well.

The first few years after shutdown are focused primarily on spent fuel management.

“We are in the process of building the new spent fuel installation that is up on the hill,” he said.

At the same time, the plant is preparing to remove more fuel from the spent fuel pool into casks in the spring.

“We’ll be housing those new casks on the current pad while the new pad is under construction,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said the plant is still on track for a decommissioning that should take about eight years or less.

Holtec purchased the plant in August from Entergy to complete an expedited decommissioning in less than 10 years.

The purchase and sale agreement was finalized a few days after the NRC approved the license transfer for the plant from Entergy.

The Cape and Islands legislative delegation, Governor Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey and other top state officials have expressed concerns over the NRC’s decision to approve the license transfer for the plant without gathering public input.

Healey filed a lawsuit against the NRC for its failure to act on a February 2019 petition which requested an adjudicatory hearing before the federal agency to address the state’s concerns with the health, safety, environmental, and financial risks raised by Holtec’s proposal.

The request by Healey was rejected by federal regulators in December.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said the request for an actual hearing on the license transfer is still before the commission and a ruling has not been made.

A bill was filed in October by local legislators to strengthen the Nuclear Decommissioning Advisory Panel for the plant.

Former Plymouth and Barnstable State Senator Vinny deMacedo (R-Plymouth) filed the bill, which was co-sposonored by Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr (D-Truro).

The bill would eliminate two spots on the panel that are reserved for the plant owner representatives. It would also add two spots for residents of Barnstable County.