Eastern Connecticut’s nuclear waste problem

if no national repository is built, the nuclear waste will have to stay there forever and the property will not be marketable.

Public Voices Concerns About More Nuclear Waste In Eastern Connecticut
At a public forum by Dominion, neighbors voiced their concerns about Millstone increasing its capacity for nuclear waste, although said there is little other choice. Groton Patch 17 Aug 12, By Paul Petrone At a public forum Wednesday night, neighbors and an anti-nuclear activist raised concerns about Millstone Power Station’s plans to vastly increase the amount of nuclear waste it can store on site , although most agreed there was no other option.

“I feel bad for the people growing up in this area,” said Ed Saller, who lives within 2,000 feet of Millstone. “We have a dysfunctional government, I don’t know how they can ever solve this issue.”

Dominion, owners of Millstone, are asking the Connecticut Siting Council if they can put on the top layer of a nearly two-acre concrete pad that would hold nearly 60 years of nuclear waste in dry cask storage.

Right now, Millstone has 19 dry cask storage units on site, 18 of which hold nuclear waste, and Dominion is looking to build a cement pad that could hold an additional 116 dry cask storage units.

The town of Waterford and East Lyme had Dominion hold a public forum Wednesday night where they described what they were planning to do and took questions from the audience. Many audience members voiced concerns or asked questions about the project.

“I don’t know how anybody could live within 2,000 feet of this and not be concerned,” Ed Saller’s wife Laurette Saller said. “But there really is no alternative.” The Issue

Millstone holds the majority of its nuclear waste in spent fuel pools within the reactors, which are 40-foot deep pools of boron-infused water. Those pools are filling up, so Millstone has begun to store the waste in dry cask storage containers outside the reactors.

The dry cask storage containers are a passive air-cooled system, meaning they don’t require any motors to cool the nuclear waste. Millstone has already built 19 such structures, and is looking to eventually build another 116 as needed.

The first step in that process is to build a 500-foot cement pad that could hold the remaining 116 units. The Connecticut Siding Council already approved Millstone to do the “underground” work to install such a pad in 2004, and now the company will soon apply to put the top layer of cement on to finish the job.

Then, the company will build the dry cask storage units as needed. ….. Wagner said that no national repository is built, the nuclear waste will have to stay there forever and the property will not be marketable. Only by removing the waste is there a chance for the property to be reused for any other purpose but a nuclear power plant, he said. http://groton.patch.com/articles/public-voices-concerns-about-more-nuclear-waste-in-eastern-connecticut