It’s a beautiful weekend afternoon on Cape Cod. Families with bikes, kids, and pets head to rental homes. Fish swim, crabs glide, and seagulls circle overhead. Beach car parks and grocery stores are overflowing. Dinner reservations and plans to watch the sunset are underway. I love Cape Cod summers.

This summer, however, is overshadowed by a threat from Holtec International to dump nearly a million gallons of sewage from the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Cape Cod Bay. Holtec says an existing permit gives them the green light to dump the pool’s fuel waste water here. The company argues that once the water is treated, it should be able to release it.

Ken Moraff, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s water division, disagrees. In a letter recently released by the office of U.S. Senator Edward J. Markey, Moraff states, “Your reading of the permit is, in fact, manifestly inconsistent with the unambiguous provisions of the permit.”

In addition to pointing out that the EPA does not agree with this position, Moraff warned: “Holtec Pilgrim is not authorized under the current (permit) to discharge pollutants (contents) into the water from spent fuel pools”.

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What are these pollutants? I don’t know, although I live less than a mile from the bay. The general public does not know and has no way of knowing. Holtec has not been transparent about specific contaminants.

In a recent interview, Heather Govern, vice president of Clean Air and Water at the Conservation Law Foundation, questions that even Holtec knows what pollutants they may be releasing. However, lead, zinc or carcinogenic chemicals are expected to be found in this type of wastewater. Holtec’s 2020 permit lists these pollutants as substances of concern.

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The need for information, transparency and agency is paramount. Melissa Ferretti, president of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region 1 and the EPA. She noted that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that “all indigenous peoples have the right to be consulted and to cooperate in good faith before the approval of any project affecting their lands, territories and other resources. , in particular with respect to the development, use or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”

Kris Singh, the managing director of Holtec, has promised that no wastewater will be discharged until a third party selected by Markey’s office confirms that “radiological levels are low enough to ensure the protection of life. local navy”.

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I am however very skeptical about the possibility of achieving this level of protection and the protection of all forms of life, not only marine life. The Plymouth Board of Health, chaired by Dr Barry Potvin, has drafted a resolution strongly opposing the dumping of weakly radioactive water from Pilgrim into the bay. They describe the health risks from exposure to or ingestion of multiple long-lived radionuclides as cumulative and severe. They cite tritium, in particular, as a long-term risk to their only source of aquifer water supply because it is not removed by existing filtration procedures used in purification attempts.

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There are other ways Holtec can dispose of the water, including shipping it to another location, like the company that is dismantling the Yankee Atomic nuclear power plant in Vermont does.

My deepest fear is that when holidaymakers return home, many Cape Town residents head south for the winter and the freezing January winds blow, Holtec suddenly and silently dumps a million gallons of radioactive water in the Bay.

If this dumping occurs, the existential threat of Holtec will become a reality and Cape Cod will never be the same again.

Jo-Anne Wilson-Keenan, East Dennis