Nuclear panel showing cracks
There's no ringing endorsement here: At a time when Plymouth is gearing up for the start of the relicensing process for the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, the town's Nuclear Matters Committee is being criticized as dysfunctional and rudderless by a local selectman and a member who recently resigned.
Selectman Chris Lombard said it would be an ''embarrassment" to the town if the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission began the process while the local advisory committee on nuclear issues was unable to function effectively.
Lombard also said Plymouth's selectmen ''have not as a whole put their best foot forward" in supporting the nine-member advisory panel. ''We do the appointments to the committee, and let them flounder," he said.
Marie Fehlow, who was appointed to the committee last July, resigned two days after Christmas, saying the panel met three months in a row without a quorum, lacks a chairman, and has not reorganized even though it is without leadership.
In her resignation letter, Fehlow said ''it is now clear that the Nuclear Matters Committee is so dysfunctional as to be unable to carry out its charge." She also said she was concerned over the town's inability to fill the places of members who resigned.
Town Manager Mark Sylvia said that after receiving Fehlow's letter, the Board of Selectmen's chairman, Kenneth Tavares, asked him to put the matter on its agenda, but no date has been set for the discussion.
The committee is down to four members, according to the selectmen's office. But even that number is in dispute. The selectmen's office said the four include the panel's former chairman, Robert Walulik, an employee of Entergy. But Entergy spokesman David Tarantino, who sometimes attends the committee's meetings, said Walulik is off the panel.
Linda Benezra, president of the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters, said her organization is trying to promote a public discussion of the issues in advance of the relicensing decision. While a new license to operate the plant in Plymouth would not go into effect until 2012, when the current permit expires, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide on the renewal application in 2008, Benezra said.
The league plans to hold its first public forum on Pilgrim this spring, with the issues to include ''security in the age of terrorism," said Benezra. ''We have an aging plant -- what do they intend to do to bring it into the 21st century?" She said the Plymouth plant continues to be a depository for nuclear waste.
Benezra said the Nuclear Matters Committee has an important role to play, and her organization is hoping to get residents more involved in the process. ''We're feeling this committee isn't operating effectively," she said.
Lombard, who has served as his board's liaison to the committee, questioned Tarantino's role in the meetings, and said he has seen the Entergy official treating Fehlow rudely. However, he said, he was not present at a meeting last month when a confrontation between Tarantino and Fehlow reportedly prompted her to quit.
''He's a guard dog, almost," Lombard said of Tarantino. ''As soon as it's in his area, he comes to their [Entergy's] defense."
Tarantino said recently he attends the meetings only when invited. He also disputed the assertion that he reacted inappropriately after Fehlow questioned him at last month's session.
''In the case of Marie, we have a long history," he said. ''She tends to be a kind of an interrogator. Our purpose is not to go there to be interrogated. Her question was way off base, and I told her so."
Fehlow, who also heads the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters' nuclear issues study group, declined to discuss the incident. She said she would continue to be involved with the nuclear issues through the League of Women Voters.
Lombard said Fehlow, who has been involved with the issue since the 1970s, was probably the Nuclear Matters Committee's most knowledgeable member. He said the incident last month raises questions about the treatment of residents who participate in town affairs. ''Why donate your time and come out on a cold night, when you bring up a question and somebody jumps down your throat?" he said.
Lombard said Fehlow's resignation raises other questions about the effectiveness of town government practices. He said communications from Entergy have not been consistently distributed to selectmen, and in turn were not passed on to the Nuclear Matters Committee. Further, town committee members who stop attending meetings cannot be replaced until the board has received a written resignation from them, he said.
He said he has been ''beating the drum" to improve the Nuclear Matters Committee for a year and a half, and had proposed that the panel join selectmen for an issues workshop. But that proposal was not supported by fellow selectmen, he said.
Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox@verizon.net.
