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County opposes nuclear plant expansion

Posted on August 7, 2008August 15, 2008 by Staff

by Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously last week to pursue objections to the expansion of Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris nuclear plant.

The county will seek an extension of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s comment period about the expansion and hold a public hearing, tentatively scheduled for Sept 2., to gather input from citizens about the proposal.

“We have several concerns,” Barry Jacobs, chair of the board of commissioners, said this week, “but first we want to hear what the public thinks.”

If the board decides to move forward with legal action, it would not be the first time Orange County has raised objections about the plant. It fought the relicensing of the plant challenging the use of storage pools for spent fuel rods.

The legal work preparing that case costs roughly $325,000. Noting that Orange County paid about $300,000 of the legal bill, Jacobs said county officials hope to learn whether they can count on other local governments to pitch in on a new effort. He estimates that it would cost about another $100,000 to update the work done in the last challenge and to file to formally intervene in the proposed expansion.

In addition to the use of storage pools for the fuel rods — which would increase under the expansion plan — commissioners are also concerned about the plant not being in compliance with fire-safety regulations, an additional draw of water from the Cape Fear River and questions about how security is handled at the plant.

“This is not the best run plant in the U.S. by a long shot,” Jacobs said.

Julia Milstead, a Progress Energy spokesperson at the Harris plant, said the company respects the county’s right to express its opinions about the expansion. Progress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, she said, are “committed to transparent and open process.”

Although it has filed for the expansion, Milstead emphasized that Progress has not yet reached a decision on whether to expand Harris.

She said it would be irresponsible of the company not to plan for the future.

The proposed expansion would add two new reactors to the plant.

Also this week, the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NCWARN) filed a
motion with the NRC to stop the expansion, citing many of the same concerns as Orange County.

2 thoughts on “County opposes nuclear plant expansion”

  1. Librarian says:
    August 7, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    What a horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars, in a time when they cannot fund fixing the Air Conditioning in their schools.

    The time for changing the BOCC is now. We need leadership that has a grasp on reality and doesn’t watch “The China Syndrome” to gain technical expertise.

    Shame on the BOCC for wasting taxpayer dollars on this.

  2. Pete MacDowell says:
    August 8, 2008 at 7:10 am

    Those Freudian slips are, I am sure, one of the banes of journalists’ existance. Progress Energy’s spokesperson is identified first as Julia Milstead in your article. In the next paragraph you identify her as “Mislead.”

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