Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, December 27, 2004
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 26, 2004

Reporters Notebook:

Below are some of the best Reporters Notebook items published in Week in Review this year:

OCTOBER

At a news conference, Congressman Edward Markey railed against President Bush's decision to site a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The Massachusetts Democrat sang a modified version of George Gershwin's "Our Love is Here to Stay":

"Plutonium is on its way. And it's here to stay. ... The Rocky Mountains may crumble. Yucca Mountain may crumble. ... But plutonium is here to stay."

After the news conference, Rep. Shelley Berkley was told she was late for another engagement.

"Goddamned song," the Nevada Democrat said with a smile.

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San Diego Union Tribune
December 25, 2004

Desalination plans focus on San Onofre

By Jose Luis Jiménez
Staff Writer

Water officials in San Diego and Orange counties have determined there are no unsurmountable obstacles that would prevent construction of a desalination facility near the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Encouraged by the conclusions of an early study, conducted jointly by the San Diego County Water Authority and the Municipal Water District of Orange County, officials are turning toward getting other stakeholders to support the project.

They include Camp Pendleton, which owns the site; Southern California Edison, which operates the San Onofre plant; and state regulators, who will issue the permits.

The desalination plant could supply southern Orange County, San Diego County and Camp Pendleton with up to 100 million gallons of potable water daily.

Should all parties agree to a more detailed study, it would be at least a decade before water could be produced at the site.

There are significant obstacles to overcome before the ocean water could be poured into a drinking glass.

They range from persuading Camp Pendleton to permit the plant to be sited on the base to the public's perception about the quality of the water and the nearby nuclear power plant.

Additionally, environmentalists are wary of plans to develop desalination projects next to power plants.

Some answers might be forthcoming in about 60 days when a decision will be made on moving forward with a detailed feasibility study.

Water districts are drawn to the San Onofre site because of the decommissioning of the Unit One nuclear reactor, which went online in 1968 and was shuttered in 1992.

The pipes used to draw in seawater to cool the reactor could be used in the desalination process, lowering the cost of constructing the desalination plant by tens of million of dollars.

Two potential sites have been identified. One is east of Interstate 5 and about a mile north of the nuclear facility. The second is on state park land just south of it.

Officials at Edison and Camp Pendleton are neutral on the project, but they have expressed some concerns.

For Edison, the project cannot impede the ongoing decommissioning process and the power plant's current operations.

Once the Unit One reactor is removed, the site will be used to store nuclear waste until a permanent dump opens at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, said Ray Golden, an Edison spokesman.

Edison, however, is expected to remove the cooling pipes as part of the decommissioning process, but the utility is trying to convince state regulators it would be environmentally sound to leave the pipes in place.

The state is conducting an environmental impact report on that matter.

Units two and three, which generate enough power for 2.2 million homes, have permits good through 2022 and an option for a 20-year extension, Golden said.

For Camp Pendleton, the issue is one of compatibility. Any plan that does not further Pendleton's primary mission – to train Marines – is greeted with skepticism, said Edmund Rogers, a civilian who represents the base on the water authority's board of directors.

In addition to the desalination plant, there is talk of developing sea ports off Camp Pendleton to handle liquefied natural gas and car imports.

"The purpose of Camp Pendleton is to train Marines to win wars," Rogers said recently. "Anything that detracts from that, Marines look at it negatively."

Environmentalists, meanwhile, might be seen siding with the military in this matter.

San Diego Baykeeper, though not yet taking a stand, has reservations about putting a desalination project next to a coastal power plant.

Placing a desalination facility next to an aging power plant is likely to extend the operating life of the electricity producer, increasing the danger to the environment, said Bruce Reznik, Baykeeper's executive director.

"The desalination facility itself may not be a big polluter," Reznik said. "But the environmental damage by these power plants can be devastating."

Fish are inevitably killed when water is drawn in to cool the generators, Reznik said, and the warm water that is returned to the ocean affects the immediate environment.

Baykeeper would like to see more water conservation and recycling before desalination plants are considered.

But water officials say conservation alone won't solve the region's water problems. Scarce supplies and the expense of getting new sources have them considering the desalination facility. Officials are focused now on determining whether it is a pipe dream or realistic.

- Jose Jimenez: (619) 593-4964; jose.jimenez@uniontrib.com

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Atlanta Journal Constitution
December 24, 2004

Member of PSC finishes big job

By Margaret Newkirk

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

For more than a year, one of Georgia's public service commissioners has been pulling a special kind of double duty.

Commissioner Stan Wise has been juggling his commission job and a post as president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, or NARUC.

His unusually long tenure at NARUC's helm ended late last month after 16 months.

NARUC is no household word.

But the organization is well-known — and alternately loved and hated — among electric, gas and phone monopolies and their would-be competitors across the country, and among federal regulators and the members of Congress.

It's the lobbying organization for utility regulator issues, and their voice in federal policy.

NARUC is also where fledgling utility regulators go to learn their craft, where seasoned ones go to learn what new developments are headed their way and where industry lobbyists go — at least during NARUC's quarterly conventions — to bend ears.

NARUC presidents usually serve just a year. Wise's tenure, though, began four months early, after his predecessor ended up on the losing side of a gubernatorial election and lost his commission seat.

In Wise's time at NARUC's top, the organization has been instrumental in affecting federal policy on a number of utility-related issues.

Among them: A fivefold increase in funding for the stalled nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain and renewed tax incentives for alternative and renewable power suppliers.

The organization also butted heads with federal regulators — like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Federal Communications Commission — over what it considered ill-conceived encroachments on state regulatory rights.

NARUC is the bane of those wanting to blunt state power over public utilities — and the attacks can get fierce.

Wise bristled earlier this year when a Wall Street Journal editorial writer dubbed NARUC and its members both "mini-dictators" and micro-managing "busybodies," related to NARUC's push for state regulation of new Voice-over-Internet technology.

Opponents say NARUC is trying to stifle competition and newly competitive technology.

"I didn't like that," said Wise, who typically champions a pro-business, pro-competition philosophy.

But Wise calmed down. He said he deeply supports NARUC's position, which is meant to preserve consumer and public protections that state regulators have required of phone companies over the years, and make them available to customers of a technology that may replace phones.

"I felt better, " he said. "Really, we shouldn't be upset. We took a stand for consumers.

"I'm not a big utility. I'm a regulator. And when I testified to Congress about this, I was testifying as a regulator."

The Voice-over-Internet battle was one of NARUC's largest during Wise's tenure as its president. It's ongoing. Wise says it was also one of the issues on which commissioners from all 50 states agreed.

Other issues were state-specific — and news to a Georgia regulator like Wise: "About half of the commissioners actually do water. They regulate private water companies."

And a number of issues pitted NARUC's state regulator members against each other.

Getting a long-planned Nevada nuclear waste depository up and running isn't hugely popular in Nevada.

It's of interest, though to the Georgia ratepayers who've been funding the still-nonexistent depostitory for years. Through their electric bills, said Wise, "Georgia ratepayers have paid $800 million to the federal government for this, and it went into a black hole."

NARUC members also tend to part ways over electric deregulation and environmental regulations on coal-fired power plants, based on their individual state interests.

As a commissioner from a coal-burning power state, Wise says he considers clean air "an admirable goal" but one that has to be achieved correctly. He said existing rules are confusing. "I do know there's a connection between clean air and our health. But it is so vital that we do the right thing here."

As a group, NARUC has pushed clean-coal technology research, a kind of middle ground in the clean air debate.

Like most state utility regulators from the still-regulated South, Wise opposes some of the more aggressive electric deregulations plans proposed by FERC over the past several years.

He said those plans would have left state regulators with only an advisory role in key decisions about electric transmission.

"That means no authority, no law, no statute, no name, no teeth," he said.

As a group, NARUC worked with FERC on smaller, less controversial issues.

Wise's presidency ended Nov. 17, although he remains on the national group's board.

He says next year promises more fighting over Voice-over-Internet regulatory control and a new push on an energy bill: NARUC was among those lobbying during the last one.

Volatile natural gas prices, he said, may be the "next scary thing on the horizon" and may prompt the next big regulatory battle.

"People are going to be looking at whether and how they trade gas contracts, at hedging and the like," he said.

"If they ever see evidence of manipulation, Congress will step in and regulate the stew out of them."

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Hampton Union
December 24, 2004

plant shows off ‘Defense in Depth´

By Susan Morse
smorse@seacoastonline.com

SEABROOK - Seabrook Station unveiled $14 million in security upgrades on Wednesday, in the first media tour of the nuclear power plant since the week after the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"In the days prior to Sept. 11, it was no problem getting groups in here," said spokesman David Barr.

The upgrades were mandated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2003, with a completion date of this Oct. 29. The NRC required enhancements to the physical structure, training and employee qualifications and a contingency plan, leaving the implementation up to the individual plants.

The $14 million for the new security measures was paid by Seabrook´s owners, FPL Energy Seabrook Station, part of FPL Group, which also includes the subsidiary, Florida Power & Light.

In a tour of the grounds, Barr showed the new security systems called "Defense in Depth," layers designed to restrict access to the protected area.

A vehicle barrier system, a continuous line of double jersey barricades filled with stone, has been set up to prevent vehicles loaded with explosives from getting close to the plant.

Where a parking lot used to be located in front of the main entrance, is now a grassy mall. The plant built a new parking lot for employees beyond the jersey barriers.

The barrier can withstand the force of a fully-loaded dump truck, said Barr, calling it, "the great wall of Seabrook."

A new vehicle trap has been set up for drivers who need to get onto the protected area. The vehicles are stopped between steel bars and are searched.

A second new, inner security fence lines the protected area. The fence ends at the marsh, which is "a natural barrier," said Barr.

Elevated guard towers have been added to the perimeter.

The focus of the security measures is the nuclear reactor, an 180-foot high dome made of 6 feet of steel reinforced concrete. There are two domes, said Barr, nestled like cups, with 5 feet of air space in between. The actual nuclear fission process takes place underground, in the reactor vessel.

Fission produces heat to create steam. On the non-nuclear side of the plant, the steam turns turbines which produce electricity.

The radiation released from the process is less than two ten-thousandths of 1 percent a year, said Barr, much less than the 3 percent released from a TV set.

A second reactor never went online. Last year Seabrook´s owners removed the rusted dome and replaced it with a new cover. The space between Unit 1 and Unit 2 is the "50-yard line," said Barr.

Barr said he could not identify where the spent fuel rods are stored. The waste is supposed to go to the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada. With that plan in litigation, nuclear power plants have been forced to store spent fuel rods in dry storage on site. By 2009, Seabrook´s space will also be full and dry storage will be needed, said Griffith.

On a daily basis - in a security measure that has been in place since Seabrook went online - workers pass through an explosive detector, a metal detector and an X-ray machine.

Then they go through a hand geometry sensor, which identifies them before being allowed through the turnstile gate.

To get a badge, workers must pass a psychological assessment, get an in-depth background check going back three years, an education check, and alcohol and chemical screening tests.

The force of over 100 security guards is employed by national contractor Wackenhut. Wackenhut and the nuclear industry has come under fire by nuclear watchdog groups for overtime worked by security guards and turnover of employees.

When asked, Barr indicated he didn´t know the amount of security turnover at Seabrook Station.

"I´d be making it up," he said.

The NRC recently mandated restrictions on the amount of time security can work.

"One of the things we clearly monitor is the work hours," said Security Manager John Giarrusso. "The last thing we want to do to is burn out anyone."

Seabrook employs more than 600 people, said Griffith, and hires more temporary workers for maintenance during power outages for refueling.

Seabrook Station has been operating since 1986. In that time, it has declared nine unusual events - three of them weather-related. The classification is the lowest declared emergency at a nuclear power plant. Seabrook has never declared any higher emergency classification.

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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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