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 […]
Category: Environment & Health
Posted inEnvironment & Health
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 […]
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Stephens Field remake is on track for a July finish
Most of Stephens Field is torn up, but the outlines of the reimagined waterfront park are emerging as the long-anticipated $5 million project moves toward a planned mid-July finish. Signs of progress at the site are obvious as work – which began in October – picks up steam with the arrival of warmer weather. […]
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You’ve heard of tiny houses, but what about a tiny forest?
A.D. Makepeace announced Friday it will create a tiny forest, called a Miyawaki, at the entrance of the Redbrook development in South Plymouth. The company, working with a group of Redbrook residents called Sustainable Redbrook, said it will create an organic, dense, and diverse forest made up of 350 native trees and shrubs. Makepeace said […]
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The town’s water supply is fragile. Is enough being done to protect it?
Everyone can agree that Plymouth’s precarious aquifer, which supplies the town’s drinking water, needs to be protected. But local activists warn that an increasing number of industrial, commercial, and residential development projects, as well as sand-mining operations, are putting the quality of our water at increasing risk. Town officials say they are trying to […]