DOE is sued over nuclear storage deal

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Eight nuclear power companies have sued the Department of Energy, alleging the department cut an illegal deal with Peco Energy Co. that siphons money away from the DOE's proposed nuclear waste site project at Yucca Mountain.

At the center of the suit is an old contract the DOE made with the nuclear utility industry.

Spent nuclear fuel has been piling up at the nation's 103 nuclear plants, so much waste that some plants threaten to close. In 1987 the department promised to haul the highly radioactive material to a first-of-its-kind underground waste dump beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- by 1998. But feasibility and safety studies are ongoing at Yucca, so the DOE missed its deadline.

Now some utilities are suing DOE. But one company, Peco Energy Co., made a special arrangement with the department: The DOE effectively pays Peco the cost of storing the utility's nuclear waste on-site at its Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. In exchange, Peco will not sue the DOE.

Other utilities were upset because the deal allows Peco to decrease the amount it pays into the DOE's Nuclear Waste Fund, estimated at roughly $10 billion. The money is set aside to study, construct and open Yucca Mountain as the nation's waste dump. The nation's nuclear utilities -- actually, their ratepayers -- have been contributing to the fund for years.

The eight plaintiffs say it's not fair or legal for one utility to decrease its contributions to the fund.

"We feel this is jeopardizing the integrity of the fund and in turn jeopardizing completion of the permanent used fuel repository," Michael Jones, spokesman for Southern Nuclear Co., one of the eight plaintiffs, said Tuesday.

The eight companies, which operate 14 plants, are: Southern Company affiliates Georgia Power and Alabama Power, Duke Energy, Entergy, Carolina Power & Light Energy Inc., Florida Power & Light Group Inc., TXU Corp. and Northern States Power Co.

The DOE plans to "vigorously defend" its settlement with Peco.

"The Peco settlement, to which the plaintiffs here are not parties, was an effort by the department to address responsibly the delay in our ability to begin acceptance of commercial spent nuclear fuel," DOE lawyer Mary Anne Sullivan said in a written statement.

Nuclear power plants produce roughly 20 percent of the nation's energy, according to industry sources. Their waste has been piling up for several decades at the plants.

The industry has been battling Nevada officials and its lawmakers in Congress over Yucca Mountain. Nevada politicians adamantly oppose the project.