The state Department of Environmental Protection has finalized its decision to deny permission for Holtec International, owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, to discharge radioactive water from the closed plant into Cape Cod Bay.

The agency issued a draft decision nearly a year ago , exhilarating local activists, only to make them wonder if the state would ever finalize it as the months dragged on.

In a document sent to Holtec today, the agency says releasing Pilgrim’s wastewater — radioactive or not — into the bay is illegal under the Ocean Sanctuaries Act.

The law prohibits dumping of industrial waste into a designated Ocean Sanctuary, and Cape Cod Bay has been a sanctuary since 1971.

Holtec had applied for a permit modification the agency said was necessary to release the water legally as part of the company’s decommissioning of the plant. The work is supported by a ratepayer-funded trust fund.

Supporters of Pilgrim have argued that authority over nuclear material lies with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, said the jurisdiction issue should not affect this case.

“This is clearly and obviously a prohibited activity, and it didn’t matter [if] it was radioactive wastewater,” he said. “It was a new discharge of industrial wastewater.”

Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said the company believes the discharges were approved prior to the bay’s designation as a sanctuary.

The decision will delay redevelopment of Pilgrim’s waterfront property in Plymouth, he said.

“We’re disappointed by the decision,” he said. “And today’s denial will continue to delay decommissioning and economical use of the Pilgrim lands.”

Holtec has previously said any water to be released into the bay will be treated. But some radioactive material cannot be removed .

State testing in April 2023 showed the water at Pilgrim contained tritium and four “principle” gamma radiation emitters: manganese-54, cobalt-60, zinc-65, and cesium-137. Also detected were metals, volatile organic compounds, and PFAS chemicals.

State Sen. Susan Moran said opponents will keep fighting Holtec on a second front: the ongoing evaporation of the same water into the outdoor air.

“We are going to continue to be vigilant against Holtec’s prioritizing corporate greed over public health,” she said.

Local activist group Cape Downwinders applauded the state’s decision.

“We now look to the state to halt Holtec’s forced evaporation of that same radioactive, contaminated wastewater,” said the group’s director, Diane Turco, in an email.

An activist with the Duxbury-based group Pilgrim Watch, retired lawyer James Lampert — now chair of the state’s Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel — has spoken publicly about the Oceans Sanctuaries Act , saying it outlawed what Holtec was trying to do.

In late 2022, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod hired a Boston legal team to try to block the discharge of radioactive water, and the following April, the group sent a 10-page legal analysis to the state. It said the Ocean Sanctuaries Act prohibits new discharges of industrial waste into Cape Cod Bay and that the law’s narrow exceptions do not apply to Pilgrim.

Today, Gottlieb said the work paid off.

Holtec, he said, “can’t just come in and run roughshod over every community, just because they have more money, and they talk more loudly, and have lawyers to back them up. We do, too.”

The company is considering an appeal.

“We’ll continue to evaluate all disposal options for the treated wastewater,” O’Brien said.

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