THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507200598
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Fed up with costly delays in a multibillion-dollar project to store spent fuel from the nation's nuclear power plants, the State Corporation Commission is considering letting Virginia's electricity customers off the hook for helping to fund the program.
The commission on Tuesday formally opened an investigation into what to do about the federal government's much-criticized Nuclear Waste Fund program.
Since authorized to do so by Congress 13 years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy has collected from utilities and their customers more than $9 billion in fees and interest for a site to store radioactive waste and spent fuel.
Customers of Virginia Power have chipped in about $343 million so far and face at least $400 million more in additional assessments. They contributed $23 million last year alone, or about $13 for an average residential ratepayer. The state commission has so far allowed Virginia Power, which is contractually obligated to pay DOE the money, to recoup it from its customers.
But because of legal challenges and major design and construction problems, the earliest the nuclear-storage site planned at Yucca Mountain, Nev., will accept wastes is 2010 - 12 years beyond the original planned opening date. And there is strong support in Congress for further stretching out or even permanently halting work on the dump, located on a former desert bombing range about 100 miles from Las Vegas.
Power-industry executives say Congress is hoarding about $4 billion in unspent nuclear-dump funds in a financial sleight of hand designed to make the federal budget deficit look smaller than it really is.
Meanwhile, DOE has proposed compensating states for storing the wastes within their own borders after 1998. And spent fuel continues to build up at nuclear plants.
At Virginia Power's Surry Power Station, for instance, about 640 metric tons of uranium are stored - 374 in a pool of water between the plant's two units and 264.5 about a half-mile away in containers on an above-ground pad. The utility recently started construction on a second such pad to handle the swelling waste.
Ken Schrad, a spokesman for the state commission, said Virginia's utility regulators are tiring of the bungling and fiscal trickery in the federal nuclear-waste program.
``It's a legitimate concern by the commission,'' he said. ``They just don't think that Virginia ratepayers should continue to pay into a fund that isn't used for its intended purposes.''
James Norvelle, a Virginia Power spokesman, said the utility welcomed the commission's probe. ``We share the commission's unhappiness,'' he said.
There's a potential problem for the utility, however. If the commission cuts off contributions to the program from its customers, Virginia Power may still have to pay DOE the money - out of the profits it now splits with shareholders.
In opening its investigation, Virginia joins dozens of other states that have formally criticized or challenged the federal government's handling of the waste program.
In June 1994, energy authorities from 20 other states filed a lawsuit against DOE, accusing the government of reneging on its commitment to create a permanent storage site.
Virginia's commission wants comments from the utility industry, customers and other parties on dozens of questions before it makes a decision. Among other things, it's interested in whether utilities should start developing their own strategies for permanently storing nuclear fuel.
Comments should be sent by Oct. 31 to Clerk of the Commission, c/o Document Control Center, P.O. Box 2118, Richmond, Va. 23216. All comments should include the case number, PUE950060. by CNB