The nuclear waste stored in Waterford and Haddam can’t stay in Connecticut more than 30 years, a timetable set by a recent federal appeals court ruling.
The operating Millstone Power Station in Waterford and the decommissioned Connecticut Yankee site in Haddam together store nearly 1,800 metric tons of spent uranium. Per an agreement with all nuclear plants in the country, the U.S. Department of Energy was supposed to take that waste in 1998 and transport it to a permanent nuclear storage facility, but the permanent facility never was completed, so the uranium remains stored near the nuclear reactor sites like Haddam and Waterford.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission – a division of the U.S. Department of Energy – decided in December 2010 that it could leave the nuclear waste temporarily stored in casks and cooling pools at nuclear plants for up to 60 years after the plant closes. Prior to that decision, the time limit was 30 years.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and several other state attorney generals appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia to have the time limit reverted back to 30 years after a reactor closes. They won the decision on Friday.
