Goal

The goal of this project is to help communities and utility companies improve planning for identifying potential socioeconomic impacts caused by their closure and exploring mitigation opportunities. We achieved this goal by fulfilling the research objectives outlined below:

Objectives

Objective 1: Identify socioeconomic impacts on host communities caused by the closure of a nuclear power plant

Objective 2: Document and characterize factors that contribute to socioeconomic impacts on host communities caused by the closure of nuclear power plants

Objective 3: Document mitigation efforts to help inform best practices for future decommissioning projects

Findings

Finding 1: The common socioeconomic impacts are: joss loss of utilities workers, loss of a major tax contributor, increased financial burden in a community, raised residential property tax, decreased expenditures in the local economy, funding adjustments for schools or municipal services, land reuse, and changes to the town’s economic outlook and morale

Finding 2: Host communities experience a large loss of tax contributions factors into further socioeconomic impacts

Finding 3: The lawsuit between Carlton and Dominion created further and potential socioeconomic impacts

Finding 4: The premature closure of Crystal River 3 created impacts for communities outside of its hosting community, Citrus County.

Finding 5: Stakeholder involvement is a key contributor to successful mitigation efforts

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Geographic Information System (GIS) maps of sodium concentrations in community groundwater sources throughout Massachusetts

Recommendation 2: Prioritization Framework which highlights the risk causing factors of road salt contamination in groundwater sources

Recommendation 3: Statewide Fact Sheet about road salt and its impacts to drinking water sources and information on the prioritization framework