Yankee plant closed but its waste remains

SPRINGFIELD — With the site of one of the country’s first nuclear power plants finally considered safe for public use, all that remains of the reactor that stood for 47 years in the woodsy town of Rowe is its radioactive waste.

The federal government announced this month that the Yankee Rowe site had been officially decommissioned. But 266,000 pounds of spent fuel is still sitting on about 3 acres of land, sealed in protective barriers in the Western Massachusetts town teetering on the Vermont border.
Yankee owns the 30 acres the plant was built on, and company officials are deciding what to do with it. Some ideas have included turning the space and an adjoining 2,000 acres owned by the company into an area for recreation and land conservation.

A report on possible land uses is expected to be submitted to Yankee’s operators this fall, company spokesman Bob Capstick said.

“They can do whatever they want with it,” said Dave McIntyre, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The land wouldn’t be released if it weren’t safe.”

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There are 28 nuclear power plants in the country that are decommissioned or in the process. Along with Rowe, eight communities in seven other states are waiting for the Department of Energy to haul away nuclear waste, McIntyre said.

The Boston Globe