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USA: Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rules that Pilgrim Watch cannot challenge NRC’s safety rulings

Judges rule against nuclear plant foes http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120711/NEWS/207110334/-1/NEWSMAP by PATRICK CASSIDY, July 11, 2012 A panel of three judges on the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has rejected a bid by opponents of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth to be heard on the response of U.S. nuclear regulators to the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster last year in Japan.

Duxbury-based Pilgrim Watch had argued that orders issued after the earthquake- and tsunami-fueled nuclear meltdown did not go far enough.

In their ruling issued Tuesday the judges found that, based on judicial and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission precedent, the enforcement orders issued by the NRC “are not open to challenge in an adjudicatory proceeding on Pilgrim Watch’s claim of inadequacy.”

Pilgrim Watch had challenged two orders from the NRC that required that all boiling-water reactors similar to Pilgrim and Fukushima have reliable venting systems and instrumentation to measure water levels in spent fuel pools.

Pilgrim Watch can appeal the ruling to the five-member NRC, according to agency spokesman Neil Sheehan. A group of 14 opponents of Pilgrim’s operations who were arrested for trespassing during a protest there in May are scheduled to appear today in Plymouth District Court.

July 12, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA