Copyright 2000 The Hartford Courant Company
THE
HARTFORD COURANT
September 19, 2000 Tuesday, 7 SPORTS FINAL
SECTION: TOWN NEWS; Pg. B5
LENGTH: 620 words
HEADLINE:
SPENT-FUEL STORAGE PLAN QUESTIONED
BYLINE: GARY LIBOW;
Courant Staff Writer
DATELINE: HADDAM --
BODY:
The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. is
trying to intimidate the town into approving a plan to move its spent nuclear
waste outdoors into numerous concrete and steel casks, a town selectman charged
Monday.
Selectman Fred Edelstein -- who believes that Connecticut Yankee
should pay Haddam heavy tax levies for the privilege -- contended the company
stands to save $6 million annually if it's allowed to transfer all its nuclear
waste from an indoor spent fuel pool to 40-plus steel and concrete casks on
Injun Hollow Road. Contending that the unique cask design proposed by
Connecticut Yankee is not time-tested, Edelstein charged company officials have
exhibited a lack of integrity. The selectman alleged Connecticut Yankee at times
has not responded to his questions, and has a track record of making statements
and then denying them. He charged Connecticut Yankee with obfuscation, actions
intended to muddle, obscure and bewilder the townspeople.
"They try to
intimidate us," Edelstein said during an informational town meeting Monday night
at Haddam-Killingworth High School attended by more than 300. "The reason
Connecticut Yankee wants to move [the spent fuel] is not our safety, but to save
$6 million a year."
Earlier, Kenneth J. Heider, Connecticut Yankee's
vice president of operations and decommissioning, stated a dry cask facility is
the safest, simplest and most proven technology for storing the spent fuel.
Noting the dry cask proposal faces licensing scrutiny from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, James R. Hall, chief of the NRC's spent fuel project
office, estimated the spent fuel could remain on-site for two- to three-decades
until the federal government removes it for permanent disposal.
Heider
described dry cask storage technology as robust, able to withstand natural
disasters such as flooding and hurricane-force winds. Moving the waste out of
the spent fuel pool, he said, will allow the decommissioned nuclear plant to be
re-used industrially, possibly for a tax-producing gas-fired electrical
generation plant.
Hall voiced confidence dry cask storage offers a
sealed system with several formidable barriers to keep the nuclear waste from
contaminating humans and the environment. The nation's oldest dry cask storage
facility, in Virginia, began storing nuclear fuel waste in 1986, he said.
Now, the NRC has approved 19 spent fuel storage facilities in 15
different states, Hall said. Connecticut Yankee's proposed cask design has
several significant differences the NRC will thoroughly examine during the
licensing process, he said.
Haddam Neck resident Peter Smith, warning
the spent nuclear fuel would likely remain on-site for 30 to 40 years, said the
ability of the steel and concrete casks to safely withstand degradation over
time has not been proved.
"It's not a proven technology as far as I'm
concerned," said Smith. If the NRC and town grants Connecticut Yankee approval
for an outdoor nuclear waste storage site, Smith questioned whether the company
could possibly import spent radioactive waste here from out-of-town nuclear
facilities.
"It's conceivable they could do that," Hall said.
Dorothy Gillespie, a resident who teaches earth and environmental
sciences at Cheshire High School, questioned the logic of storing spent fuel in
potentially vulnerable casks in a river valley prone to geological changes.
"This stuff is going to be lethal for a long time," she said of the
nuclear waste. "We need to make intelligent, informed decisions."
Gillespie pointed out that problematic Yucca Mountain,
the Nevada site the federal government envisions as a permanent nuclear waste
repository, still faces numerous regulatory hurdles.
LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2000
