MassPIRG Criticizes Pilgrim As too Expensive, Dangerous

The Boston Edison power company has mismanaged the Pilgrim nuclear plant and used it to bilk the public, an activist research group argues in a recent report.

In a report entitled, "Whitewash," the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MassPIRG) urges the permanent closure of Pilgrim on economic and safety grounds. The reactor has been closed for more than two years.

A Boston Edison spokesman criticized the report as distorted and anti-nuclear, saying it was based on outdated figures.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will decide later this fall whether to open the reactor. Massachusetts officials testified against reopening at a hearing last week.

The report is also linked to Question Four on the November ballot, which would shut down both of the state's nuclear power plants and is specifically aimed against Pilgrim.

The report finds Boston Edison makes about $20 million per year on rate increases meant to pay for the reactor, even though Pilgrim is closed.

In addition, MassPIRG disputes Boston Edison's claim that the plant, once running at full capacity, would save ratepayers money.

Finally, the Whitewash report also finds that the company could buy up to 2000 megawatts of power per second, at four cents per kwh, from companies, in other states and Canada.

According to Alan Nogee, the report's author, it would cost $350,000 a day to keep Pilgrim closed and get power elsewhere, but it costs $900,000 each day to run the plant even while it is closed.

On safety, Nogee said the plant is cooled by corrosive salt water, has suffered 16 years of "management abuse" and has a containment design which the NRC has found would fail in 90 percent of all serious accidents.

Company spokesman Michael Spataro termed the report "a bunch of anti-nuclear rhetoric," and said it deceptively based its results on 1982 and 1983 statistics, ignoring more recent ones.

He said NRC officals found that an accident would break Pilgrim's containment system only once in 10 million reactor years, because it includes dozens of safety features.

As for the 2000 megawatts MassPIRG said are available, Spataro said only 500 could actually get here because there are not enough power lines from the areas where the electricity is generated.