THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310608
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 48 lines
The Department of Energy is taking serious heat over a broken promise.
Virginia Power announced that it would join more than 30 other utilities in a lawsuit to be filed today against the Department of Energy at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
They want the court's permission to stop making payments to the Nuclear Waste Fund until DOE starts taking possession of radioactive waste - the by-product of nuclear power generation.
The Nuclear Waste Fund has amassed more than $12 billion in fees and interest. Virginia Power has paid more than $380 million on that tab through customer surcharges.
The utility companies' gripe: The money they have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund was supposed to pay for DOE's research and construction of a permanent, underground nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
DOE would then begin storing some of the utilities' wastes at Yucca Mountain, out of harm's way for the millenia it would take the materials to lose their radioactivity.
That obligation was affirmed by the Court of Appeals last year, but DOE said in December there was no way it could meet the Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to start accepting nuclear waste.
``We've waited long enough,'' said Virginia Power spokesman Jim Norvelle. ``We're not going to do anything to jeopardize the safe operation of the units, but the obligation remains with DOE.''
As an alternative to paying the fund, the utilities are offering to pay into an escrow account until DOE begins accepting spent nuclear fuel.
Virginia's State Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities, has kept tabs on the problem for nearly a year and a half.
One proposal the commission considered involves lifting a $1 per nuclear megawatt-hour surcharge currently levied on Virginia Power customers.
``We really haven't reached closure on that,'' SCC spokesman Ken Schrad said of the commission's investigation of the matter. ``It's still before the commission.''
The U.S. Geological Survey and Los Alamos National Laboratory are still studying whether Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is an appropriate, safe site. Engineers must take into account the site's susceptibility to earthquakes and volcanoes and its ability to keep out water. If deemed suitable, the repository wouldn't be ready until 2010, DOE says. The agency declined to comment Thursday on the lawsuit or on the 12-year missed deadline.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT VIRGINIA POWER DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY