Oyster Creek to shut down October 2018

LACEY - The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will be shut down for good in October – more than a year ahead of schedule – in a surprise announcement Friday by plant owner Exelon Generation, which cited costs and other issues.

The accelerated timeline caught officials of the overseeing Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the town of Lacey off guard. Officials for both told the Asbury Park Press they were surprised by the news.

Township Administrator Veronica Laureigh said Lacey didn't learn of the early shutdown until Friday. She downplayed the immediate impact, though Lacey officials in recent months have stepped up efforts to plan for the loss of the plant, which supports about 500 jobs directly and pumps about $80 million into the local economy.

"Even though they stopped operating, they're physically going to stop producing energy, they're still here for a minimum of 10 more years," Laureigh said.

Some employees will stay on after the shutdown and work on decommissioning the plant, according to the announcement. The number of workers to be retained was not set forth in the announcement.

"We will offer a position elsewhere in Exelon to every employee that wishes to stay with the company, and we thank our neighbors for the privilege of allowing us to serve New Jersey for almost 50 years," Exelon President Bryan Hanson wrote in the announcement.

Those offers may not be in New Jersey, however.

"It was a corporate decision. We were informed (Friday) morning," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, about the surprise announcement.

The NRC was planning for a permanent shutdown of the Oyster Creek Generating Station in late 2019, Sheehan said.

"We will have to adjust our oversight plans in response to Exelon’s announcement (Friday) that it intends to move the cessation of operations up to this October," he said. "We have two full-time resident inspectors assigned to the plant. Once the plant shuts down for the last time, we will no longer have a need for full-time on-site inspectors."

However, a resident inspector will remain at Oyster Creek for at least several months after the shutdown to monitor the transition, Sheehan said.

"We require that the decommissioning process for a nuclear power plant must be completed within 60 years," he said.

That means Exelon has until 2078 to fully decommission the plant.

OYSTER CREEK SHUTDOWN: No clear plan for radioactive waste

Radioactive waste

Ocean County Freeholder John C. Bartlett Jr. said the radioactive waste that has accumulated on-site over the past 50 years of its operation will necessitate oversight and security for what he described as "an eternity."

The plant's old radioactive fuel rods, entombed in concrete and steel, will remain guarded at the site of what will become the remnants of the former plant, until the federal government moves the radioactive material to a permanent grave, Bartlett said.

Human beings, animals and the environment in general will need to be protected from exposure to the spent fuel rods for perhaps the next 250,000 years.

For that reason, a network of 42 emergency sirens that cover a 10-mile radius around Oyster Creek will continue to be tested and remain operational long after the plant itself is gone, said Ocean County Sheriff Michael G. Mastronardy.

Bartlett and Mastronardy each said they first learned about Exelon's decision to close the plant 14 months ahead of schedule, when a Press reporter called them for comment on Friday morning.

The freeholder said he the nuclear plant has real estate value of about $100 million but he did not think the plant's shutdown would result in an economic downturn for the county's economy.

"The fact is, its value has been decreasing for many years – which is why it's being closed," Bartlett said. "In a county where the value of our total taxable real estate is about $100 billion, this is not something that's going to be a major impact. Yes, it will be a concern; but nowhere near the range of a catastrophe. It's one of those hurdles we will deal with."

Bartlett said he favors a proposal to replace the nuclear power plant with a natural gas power plant because any future energy company that purchases the site will be able to take advantage of Oyster Creek's existing infrastructure and power distribution network to move its generated electricity out onto the national grid.

OYSTER CREEK: Is it safe from cyber attacks?

Sheehan said Exelon will have to submit to the NRC a "Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report," a kind of roadmap as to how it intends to decommission the plant.

Options for decommissioning include immediate dismantlement, long-term storage or a hybrid approach – some early dismantlement of structures with the rest of the dismantlement work occurring at some point in the future, Sheehan explained.

The NRC will review any proposal to ensure it complies with our decommissioning requirements, he said.

Impact on Lacey

The power plant had been licensed to operate through 2029. But in 2010, representatives for Exelon and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) agreed to move the timeline up by a decade.

George Bailey, 55, who has lived in Lacey for 15 years, said he is deeply concerned about the potential economic impact regardless of what officials are saying today.

Bailey said he understands that a significant percentage of the municipal budget comes from state tax credits associated with the power plant's presence in Lacey and he wants to know what long term plan is in place to make up that amount of money.

Each year, more than $11 million in energy tax receipts – money Lacey receives for hosting the plant – flow into the township's tax coffers, where it supports police salaries, infrastructure and services in this township of about 27,000 people.

That amount translates into more than 40 percent of the township's municipal budget.

"How do you replace that?" Bailey asked. "I'm looking at when the next Township Committee meeting is and I'm going to ask them about it. ... Nobody seems to be able to answer this question."

Paul Berkowitz, 67, who has lived in Lacey for 42 years and is a retired science teacher and administrator in the township school district, wants to know what the federal government is going to do about all that radioactive waste stored on site.

"All of the radioactive (waste), all of the contaminated materials, were supposed to go to Yucca Flat (in Nevada)," Berkowitz said. "The federal government changed their minds years later and now we have 300 to 400 radioactive (waste) repositories all around the country."

Berkowitz said he does not believe that Lacey would have permitted the construction of Oyster Creek in the 1960s had its town fathers known that Congress would have reneged on a pledge to find a permanent tomb for all this waste.

"Total lunacy," Berkowitz said. "Nobody would be stupid enough to want these spent fuel rods for eternity."

OPINION: NJ should fight for full Oyster Creek cleanup

In the video below, plant spokeswoman Suzanne D'Ambrosio discusses the shutdown in a 2017 interview.

EARLIER: Oyster Creek offline for equipment issue

Effect on jobs

"We're working with our employees to help place them in the jobs in locations where they want to go," plant spokeswoman Suzanne D'Ambrosio said. "Exelon has a very large presence and we're opening up that availability."

D'Ambrosio was not able to say if employees would be guaranteed the same pay rate.

What effect the shutdown will have on local businesses is not yet clear, but Laureigh said there should be no short-term impact on the township tax base.

OYSTER CREEK SHUTDOWN: Financial meltdown for Lacey?

Beyond that, she noted, the physical structures will remain on the tax rolls until they are decommissioned.

D'Ambrosio lists some of the nuts and bolts of the decommissioning process in the video below, from a 2017 interview.

Laureigh said Exelon has remained a cooperative member of the local community, sponsoring events and getting involved with sports organizations.

"For the past half century Oyster Creek has safely been operating in New Jersey, with clean, reliable electricity," Laureigh said. "I'm sure it will continue to safely operate and safely decommission in accordance with the guidelines of the DEP and the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)."

In this 2017 interview, then-Mayor Peter Curatolo discusses the future of Lacey post-Oyster Creek.

Environmentalists pleased

Environment advocates said the announcement was good news for Barnegat Bay and blamed the plant for fish kills and algal blooms. The plant's cooling system draws water from the bay, then releases it back out.

More: POLL: How should Oyster Creek energy be replaced?

"It's really a '69 Chevy Nova in the age of the Tesla," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "There are serious problems in the plant."

"The plant is the largest thermal polluter in the (Barnegat) Bay," Tittel said. "They've had some massive fish kills where the water in the bay has gone over 96 degrees."

Janet Tauro, the New Jersey board chair for Clean Water Action, hailed the shutdown as good news for Barnegat Bay.

"They have been polluting Barnegat Bay with their thermal pollution ever since they began operation, so closing it down, you know, is going to remedy that," Tauro said.

Tauro said she also had concerns about spent fuel stored at the plant. The plant has been putting out power for half a century – and the radioactive waste from that generation is still on site. The ultimate fate of that waste is not yet clear, though Congress has recently considered new options for long-term storage.

In October, then-Gov. Chris Christie telegraphed that the plant's closing procedures were running ahead of schedule. At the time, plant officials for the power company denied an early shutdown.

"While we are ahead of schedule with decommissioning planning for Oyster Creek, we (are) committed to operate the plant until December 2019 and we will fulfill those commitments," D'Ambrosio said in an October email.

D’Ambrosio said Friday that the reversal and Christie's remarks last year were “completely unrelated.”

The decision to close early was rather a matter of helping current employees find new work while avoiding fuel and maintenance costs that “continue to keep rising amid historically low power prices.”

Though the timetable is new, the shutdown has been in the works for years. Watch township residents and officials discuss it in the video at the top of this article.

Editor's note: Suzanne D’Ambrosio is married to Asbury Park Press News Director Paul D’Ambrosio. He did not read this story prior to publication.

Alex N. Gecan: @GeeksterTweets; 732-643-4043; agecan@gannettnj.com

Contributing: Amanda Oglesby