[B]RATTLEBORO – For the first time since January 2015, Vermont’s citizens’ panel on nuclear issues has new leadership.
Chris Campany, Windham Regional Commission executive director, was elected chair of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel at a meeting in Brattleboro Thursday night. The panel also approved Lissa Weinmann of Brattleboro as the new vice chair.
The elections come as the panel is in a state of flux, both in terms of its membership and its purpose. Members decided on Thursday to hold fewer public meetings, while acknowledging that they may revisit that plan if a New York company is allowed to undertake an unprecedented, accelerated decommissioning project at Vermont Yankee.
If that happens, “I suspect that we would have plenty to discuss,” said Bill Irwin, a panel member and the Vermont Department of Health’s radiological and toxicological sciences chief.
Vermont’s Legislature formed the advisory panel to address decommissioning issues after Entergy announced that it would shutting down Vermont Yankee at the end of 2014. The panel began meeting about three months before the Vernon plant stopped producing power.
The group’s duties include advising the governor and the Legislature on decommissioning. The panel also is supposed to “serve as a conduit for public information and education … and to encourage community involvement” in decommissioning matters.
The 19-member panel is too unwieldy to come to consensus on many issues, but the body has hosted regular public discussions and debates on key decommissioning matters. Staff from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission came to Vermont at the panel’s behest, and the federal Department of Energy gave a presentation on spent nuclear fuel a few months ago.
But the panel runs on a shoestring budget. The state Department of Public Service provides some financial and logistical support, but longtime panel Chair Kate O’Connor – who announced her departure earlier this year – has said the body’s reliance on volunteer work is “not sustainable.”
Holding their first meeting in three months on Thursday, panel members tapped Campany to replace O’Connor.
Campany, who said he intends to serve only a single one-year term as chair, has led Windham Regional Commission for eight years. In that capacity, he has been active in Vermont Yankee issues.
Via his role as regional commission director, Campany has at times been critical of Entergy but also has signed a memorandum of understanding that could clear the way for NorthStar Group Services’ acquisition of Vermont Yankee.
NorthStar has promised a fast cleanup that could be done as soon as 2026, but the company’s deal with Entergy still has not received the necessary approvals from the Vermont Public Utility Commission and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Asked about the panel’s future role, Campany said, “I think we’re going to have to figure that out.”
If the plant is not sold, it could go into SAFSTOR – a period of dormancy under which decommissioning could take up to 60 years. Entergy’s next round of layoffs is scheduled for the end of October, and not much will happen after that if the NorthStar deal doesn’t go through.
On the other hand, the proposed NorthStar project’s “rather aggressive schedule of decontamination and dismantling” would usher in the “biggest industrial activity in the state” since the construction of Vermont Yankee, Irwin said.
The panel on Thursday decided to meet quarterly – the minimum number of meetings required by statute. That’s down from an annual average of six or seven meetings, but members left the door open for more meetings if necessary.
If NorthStar gets the go-ahead for its project, Campany said panel members would have to determine what type of decommissioning reporting is required under state and federal rules and “what approach NorthStar is going to take to sharing information with the public on its own.”
Then panel members will have to decide “how all of this relates to NDCAP’s role in providing public information, education, communication and community involvement,” Campany said.
Campany said panel members have spent the past few years learning about decommissioning and related issues. The focus now, he said, might be on offering “more of a forum to report to the general public – where are we in the decommissioning and site-restoration process, and what questions does the public have?”
But panel members have not resolved the perennial question of how much funding they need to carry out their statutory duties. Weinmann said she wants to ensure that the panel can continue to operate in the way lawmakers intended.
“We are a very important group that is currently not funded,” Weinmann said. “And I think part of what we should be asking for in the year ahead from the Legislature, and potentially from the current or future owners of the plant, is adequate funding to enable us to spend the time to do the job.”
Public Service Commissioner June Tierney, who also is a panel member, disputed the notion that the body is unfunded. But she acknowledged that there’s not much money available at this point.
“We do have funding,” Tierney said. “The problem is, it’s directed through my agency’s budget, and we do not have a source of funds attributed to that budget from the cost driver, which is this plant.”