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By DERRICK DEPLEDGE
Monday, January 25, 1999 Page: 1A
Times Leader Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON- When Pennsylvania Power & Light’s twin nuclear reactors went on
line in Salem Township in the early 1980s, engineers believed they would have
to store radioactive waste at the plant until around the turn of the century.
By then, they were assured, the federal government would have finished a
special repository to forever safeguard spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear
endeavors.
Radioactive waste was supposed to be buried deep inside Nevada’s Yucca
Mountain, but politics, bureaucracy and serious questions about environmental
safety have hopelessly delayed the project. No decision on Yucca Mountain is
expected until 2001, and, even if the site were approved, it would not be
ready to store any waste until 2010.
This delay means that nuclear waste from Susquehanna 1 and Susquehanna 2
will remain in Berwick longer than anyone imagined.
“At this point, we can only do what we’re supposed to do,” said Joe
Scopelliti, a senior public information specialist at PP&L. “We obey the law.”
Later this year, PP&L engineers will move some spent fuel from two cooling
pools to dry casks that will be inserted into new concrete storage modules.
The number of modules can be expanded, so PP&L can store the highly
radioactive fuel indefinitely.
The storage project will cost an estimated $10 million, money that could be
charged to the federal government, which missed a January 1998 deadline to
accept spent fuel.
Nuclear power now accounts for 22 percent of the nation’s and 39 percent of
Pennsylvania’s electricity. The state has nine reactors. The United States has
struggled about what to do with the waste ever since President Carter banned
the recycling of spent reactor fuel in 1977 out of fear the material could be
used for weapons.
Excess storage already has been built for 10 of the nation’s 109 reactors
and another 29 reactors could exceed original storage capacity by the end of
the year, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group.
Several utilities and states have sued the Department of Energy, arguing that
it should use the $15 billion collected from nuclear consumers in disposal
taxes to make more progress on Yucca Mountain.
Congress also is preparing to intervene.
A bill by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., would create a temporary repository at
the Nevada Test Site by 2002 until a permanent underground storage facility
can be completed at Yucca Mountain in 2010. An identical bill was approved
last year by the House of Representatives and the Senate but expired in the
last days of the legislative session.
President Clinton has threatened to veto the bill because of environmental
concerns, so a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate would be necessary to
override the president.
Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, a co-sponsor of the bill, said Yucca
Mountain seems like an ideal location because of its proximity to the Nevada
Test Site, where the United States conducted nuclear experiments during the
Cold War. Although nuclear waste storage is regulated and considered safe, the
chances for an accident or leak could increase the amount of time waste is
scattered around the country, he said.
“The sooner that you can get this material to a safe and isolated location,
the better,” Kanjorski said.
Environmentalists and most Nevada politicians insist that Yucca Mountain is
not suitable because of volcanic activity and an underground water table that
could disturb buried radioactive fuel.
A viability study by the Department of Energy in December found no major
roadblocks for the project, although scientists will continue to study whether
70,000 metric tons of spent fuel would be safe there for hundreds of years.
The federal government already has spent more than $6 billion during the
past 15 years identifying a site, and the Yucca Mountain facility would cost
$18.7 billion to build and another $36.6 billion to maintain and close after
2116.
Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nevada, said it “should give the public a shock to
see in writing that DOE wants $36.6 billion from them to bail out the nuclear
industry. It is solid gold corporate welfare.”
State Rep. George Hasay, R-Shickshinny, said he was surprised to learn that
the federal government apparently missed its deadline without consequence.
“This stuff is just sitting around,” said Hasay, who has complained to
Kanjorski and Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Philadelphia, and Rick
Santorum, R-Pittsburgh.
“I think something needs to be done immediately, but the federal government
is just sitting on its butt. Congress has to take the responsibility and take
care of this problem.”
PP&L’s Scopelliti said there is little the plant can do in the meantime.
“We still expect the DOE will provide a permanent repository,” he said.
“But we are running out of space.”




