Team 2364B of the Silver Lake Middle School VEX Robotics after school club, won the qualifying tournament last Saturday, Feb. 2, in North Scituate, RI, for the New England VEX Qualifying competition. They will go on to compete in the New England Regional Championship Feb. 23 in Framingham. From left are JD Keegan, Max Colombo, Wes Hawley and Sami Areski, with their certificates and trophy. Not pictured are Gavin McKenna and Dylan Whittemore. (Photo by Julie Walker)

By Julie Walker
Special to The Express

Silver Lake Middle School VEX Robotics Club is accepting congratulations on their recent victory at the New England VEX Qualifying Competition, Turning Point, held Saturday, Feb. 2 in North Scituate, Rhode Island.

Team B from Silver Lake, after a grueling day of matches, won the tournament!  This is the first time a team from Silver Lake has accomplished that feat.  In addition, they also won the design award.

Robotics is big at Silver Lake.  There are two after school robotics clubs: VEX Robotics and LEGO Robotics.  The VEX Club builds robots using VEX parts, and VEX sponsors the competition. 

The Silver Lake VEX Robotics Club has four teams of students who competed in the Turning Point qualifying competition.  Of the four, Team 2364B will advance to the New England Regional Championship Feb. 23, at the Walsh Middle School in Framingham.

Team B members are JD Keegan, Max Colombo, Wes Hawley, Sami Areski, Gavin McKenna, and Dylan Whittemore.

The “Turning Point” competition began with nine ranking qualifying matches for each team.  Once the teams were ranked by how many points they scored, the top teams chose their alliance partner team to compete with in the elimination rounds.

The Turning Point game has very specific ways to score points.  In this game their robot had to flip caps to their color, turn flags to their color, raise caps with their color on top to the top of posts, and park on their color in order to score. 

Each match consists of red and blue alliance partners competing against each other. In the ranking qualifying matches, alliance partners are randomly selected for each team. Each team then plays in a set number of ranking qualifying matches. Once the ranking matches are complete, the top ranking teams have the privilege of choosing their alliance partner for the final elimination matches. 

Each match lasts only two minutes. The first 15 seconds is an autonomous portion of the game, where student-written computer programs are run to score as many points as possible. The alliance with the highest score during “autonomous” are granted the autonomous points.  Then there are 1 minute and 45 seconds of driver-controlled competition. This portion is both offensive and defensive with the ultimate goal of scoring the highest number of points in your alliance color. The alliance team with the highest points wins the match.

On Saturday, Silver Lake Team 2364B was ranked 4th and they were chosen by the 3rd ranked team from North Andover to be their alliance partner. 

Students from Silver Lake designed their robot to flip the caps, turn the flags, place caps on the posts and park on the platforms.

Each Silver Lake Team has students who worked primarily on the robot design, others who worked primarily on the programming, and some who were involved in both. 

This year, VEX introduced a new Robot platform, V5, with a smart brain and smart controller that required the use of a new programming language C++.

“Silver Lake didn’t receive their new V5 kit until January 3.  Students on Team 2364B  built a new V5 robot and learned the new programming language in less than a month,” said a proud Julie Walker, club advisor.

Congratulations, teams, for an outstanding performance!

Silver Lake Middle School offers Automation and Robotics (AR) to 7th graders as an elective. AR is a Project Lead The Way (PLTW) course that utilizes VEX robotics for mechanical builds and automation through programming using RobotC.

Ray Scott, a member of the Carver TRIAD gave thumbs up as he enjoyed lunch prior to the event. (Photo by Stephanie Spyropoulos)

Lock your doors. The message was strong, straightforward and imperative to personal safety.

How to avoid becoming a victim was the message sent in  a number of ways through the topics discussed at last week’s Senior Safety presentation.  Plympton police officers Dana Smith, and Doug Mazzola, Carver TRIAD members, Plympton Council on Aging, and members of the Plympton fire department, all brought their expertise to help senior citizens avoid becoming victims.

The messages at the luncheon held last week at the Plympton Town House were eye-opening for many who attended.

Financial scams, not offering personal information on the telephone and being aware of exits in buildings and large crowds were several topics that were touched on at the assembly.

Mazzola repeated the ‘see something say something’ phrase that has been adopted in this day and age when there can be questionable actions in everyday life.

“If you are alerted to the sensation that something doesn’t feel right use your instincts,” he said.

Plympton Fire Captain John Sjostedt III spoke about the upcoming changes to cell services. The regional call centers are now able to receive text messages for an emergency when there is no other way to communicate. Text 911 and include your physical address.

Among other heavier topics were recent mass shootings, lockdown and shelter in place drills, and student and staff training exercises and strategies that Smith has practiced as resource officer at the Dennett Elementary School. 

“Creating distance by moving yourself away from an unsafe situation is the best option,” said Smith.   Be aware of the exits when you are in a crowd.  Know your location.

He briefly shared his feelings on the Sandy Hook School shooting and drew on his experiences and knowledge that active shooter and safety drills afford to staff and students.

Smith also offered effortless alternatives that everyone can use to avoid potential unsafe situations such as not using an ATM after dark. Locking the car door when you step away from the vehicle is a simple thing to do; thieves look for any opportunities and prevention can make all the difference.

Smith also reminded the group to use their body language.  Perception can send a strong message to a perpetrator.  Carrying yourself with confident body language keeps you from appearing to be an easy target.

Seniors came away with a new awareness of some of the safety issues that they might encounter and some valuable strategies to employ.

Claire Müller of Boston, who grew up in Duxbury not far from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, voices concerns about a license transfer for the power plant at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public input meeting in Plymouth Jan. 15, 2019. (Photo by Abram Neal)

PLYMOUTH — Officials gathered Tuesday, Jan. 15, at Hotel 1620 in downtown Plymouth for a public input meeting regarding the decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station and a potential license transfer from the current license holder to another company which is promising a significantly faster decommissioning process.

Representatives were present from the federal United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Louisiana-based Entergy, Inc., which is the nuclear plant’s current owner and license holder, New Jersey-based Holtec International, which is seeking permission from the NRC to take over Pilgrim’s license from Entergy, and Comprehensive Decommissioning International– a joint venture formed in 2018 between Holtec and Montréal, Canada-based SNC-Lavalin– which would, according to plans, be Holtec’s subcontractor for decommissioning the station.

Pilgrim, the commonwealth’s only currently operating nuclear power station, located off Rocky Hill Road in Plymouth, will cease to produce power at midnight May 31, 2019, according to an Entergy representative and will then move into a decommissioning phase.

Officials presented two NRC-approved plans to the public in a contentious, three-hour meeting. Entergy’s plan, known as SAFSTOR, would see spent radioactive fuel rods moved into dry storage on-site, with the plant being maintained and monitored in a manner that allows radioactivity to decay over time. It is then moved into what is known as DECON, where the plant is dismantled and the property is decontaminated. The process can take up to 60 years before the NRC finally allows the license to be terminated.

Holtec, which, said Joy Russell, a Holtec senior vice president, is the world’s leader in spent nuclear fuel management and storage, promised that her company could decommission the plant much faster. Through efficiencies created by using Holtec products, CDI could decommission the site, moving it through SAFSTOR into DECON much faster, they say, with plans to restore most of the site by 2026.

An NRC monitored trust fund is maintained by the license holder to ensure that enough money for the decommissioning process exists. If the license transfer is approved, Holtec would receive the decommissioning trust fund from Entergy, worth over a billion dollars as of the last report submitted to the federal government.

Russell said, “Holtec’s used fuel storage and transport expertise is in use by 116 nuclear reactors around the world. The spent nuclear fuel and irradiated components, which represent 98 percent of the radioactive source at a decommissioning site will be stored in Holtec canisters … Holtec’s partner in CDI, SNC-Lavalin, has over 30 years of managing decommissioning projects for both commercial nuclear facilities and government entities around the world.”

But Holtec itself has no experience in decommissioning any nuclear power plant in the world and has recently made headlines in California at the Southern California Edison San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station for possible NRC safety violations where Holtec dry-storage casks are used.

A four-inch loose metal screw was located in a cask about to be loaded with spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre. Holtec made design changes to the casks which they did not report to federal regulators, according to media reports. They said the changes were not significant enough to report, but the NRC is investigating.

After this story was originally published, a representative of Holtec and CDI contacted the Express on behalf of Russell, and in an emailed statement said, “A loose screw was found in a container during Holtec’s receipt inspection; part of quality assurance measure that Holtec performs on all canisters before fuel is loaded, to ensure the safety of canisters used for spent nuclear fuel.”

Neither plan addresses the fact that radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods will remain on the site for hundreds of years, if not indefinitely, if they are not transported elsewhere by the federal government. At the meeting, representatives of the NRC, a federal agency, blamed Congress for their inaction on the matter.

More than a dozen members of the public spoke against Holtec’s decommissioning plan, some more than once, citing fears of terrorism, climate-change and environmental concerns, having enough money in the decommissioning trust fund, concerns about the types of cannisters used, among others. Only one person spoke in favor of Holtec’s decommissioning plan.

Mary “Pixie” Lampert, of Duxbury, spoke at the meeting against Holtec’s plans on behalf of the Duxbury Selectmen and later spoke to the Express. She said that she is most concerned about the decommissioning trust fund running out before decontamination is completed. She also does not want spent nuclear fuel to be stored on-site, saying that although moving it to higher ground as Holtec has suggested is better than nothing, it is still vulnerable to terrorism.

Claire B.W. Müller, of Boston, asked, “Are Holtec and CDI willing to go above and beyond to protect the spent fuel from terrorism and climate change or will they just do ‘the floor’?

At the meeting, Russell responded that she was a nuclear scientist and had to live near nuclear power plants, too. She later responded to the question in writing.

“Holtec and CDI are committed to safety, security and being responsible stewards of the environment.”

The spent fuel canisters will be stored at 75 feet above mean sea level, and some 350 feet from Rocky Hill Road. Holtec’s canisters have been tested to withstand assaults by both human and natural events including missiles, planes, tornadoes and earthquakes. There are no “minimum standards” when it comes to security.

The current regulations imposed on the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel have been vetted by the U.S. Government for terrorism, environmental challenges and other hazards. The current regulatory standards are the result of these professional studies and validation by third parties.

Security of the spent fuel pad includes 24/7 on-site personnel, intrusion detection, and fencing. For reasons of security we cannot go into further details. Safety, security and environmental protection are at the heart of all that we do,” she said.

Müller, who said she grew up in Duxbury, responded to Russell, “I’m of course glad to hear Holtec intends to uphold current regulations for health and safety (that is a given: the “floor” of what is necessary), but the fact is our world is changing faster than our currently shutdown, underfunded federal agencies can regulate and dysfunctional Congress can legislate.

Doing the minimum will not be enough. Changing and ever worsening climate science shows that sea level rise, as well as world terrorism … means we need a decommissioning that goes above and beyond. The health of our families, our communities and the land demands that.”

The controversial meeting is likely only the beginning of more to come as activists such as Lampert and Müller say they plan to continue to challenge the license transfer.