Federal inspectors found that Holtec Decommissioning International, the company dismantling the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, failed to establish controls to prevent a worker from being exposed to radiation earlier this year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, found the violation of “very low-level safety significance” when they visited the closed plant on several occasions between May […]
Category: Environment & Health
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Covid has made a comeback in Plymouth this summer
Plymouth has been hit especially hard by the summer wave of Covid that has washed over the state and the country, according to data collected by the state. But even though the virus has made a comeback here – with more people seeking medical treatment – most cases have not been severe, according to medical […]
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State puts Plymouth at high risk for EEE
The state has raised Plymouth’s risk level for Eastern equine encephalitis to high after a horse here was diagnosed with the disease, the first animal case of EEE reported in Massachusetts this year. As of late Tuesday, Carver and Middleborough were the only other communities with a high-risk level for EEE, according to the state […]
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Holtec doesn’t need a permit to evaporate radioactive water from Pilgrim plant
The state says Holtec Decommissioning International, the company that is disassembling the Pilgrim plant site in Manomet, does not need a permit to evaporate radioactive water from the former nuclear power station. That determination – made in a July 18 letter to Holtec from Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of the Bureau of Air and […]
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State won’t let Holtec dump radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay
The state has denied Holtec Decommissioning International permission to dump up to 1.1 million gallons of treated radioactive wastewater from the former Pilgrim nuclear power station into Cape Cod Bay. Holtec is decommissioning the Pilgrim plant in Manomet, which stopped generating electricity in 2019. As part of its plan, the New Jersey-based company asked the […]
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Holtec disputes anonymous claim that a worker was exposed to excess radiation at Pilgrim site
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it has no evidence that workers at the shuttered Pilgrim nuclear power plant, which is in the long process of being decommissioned, were overexposed to radiation, despite a whistleblower’s claim made in a recent anonymous letter to state officials. In an email to the Independent, NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan said […]
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Plovers will force restrictions, but July 3rd White Horse celebration is still on
Officials say bonfires and fireworks won’t be allowed on about a half mile stretch of the beach.
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Discolored and smelly. That’s how some Ponds of Plymouth residents describe their water.
Celeste Harrington, a Ponds of Plymouth resident since 2003, remembers when the water was fine. “Until Aquarion,” she said. “You could drink it out of the faucet. It tasted good.” Now, however, her water is “sometimes brown,” Harrington said, and “it always smells like bleach.” Other residents of the massive South Plymouth subdivision say […]
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Select Board OK’s a plan to stave off disaster
Plymouth’s Select Board has voted to approve a Climate Action and Adaptation Plan for the town, an aspirational outline for how it will cope with rising sea levels and other environmental changes in coming years. Developed over the last year by the Town’s Climate Action/Net Zero Committee, or CANZ, the plan provides an initial – […]
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You can help counter people who trash Plymouth
The town’s regularly scheduled trash cleanups can lead to some dismaying discoveries. “I found an electric fireplace that someone had dumped in the woods,” said Andrea Dickinson, one of the coordinators of the twice-yearly volunteer event. Others have found vacuum cleaners, mattresses, and tires – all tossed along roadsides or wooded areas. The Department […]