Maine Yankee owners win suit

Staff and news services
Portland Press Herald
Thursday, October 5, 2006

Operators of three closed nuclear power plants, including Maine Yankee in Wiscasset, have been awarded $143 million because the government has failed to take away their used reactor fuel rods.
The award by the U.S. Federal Court of Claims settles a longstanding legal fight waged by operators of the three reactors. The others are in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued that the federal government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste would be taken by 1998.

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on Saturday, was unsealed on Wednesday.

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., operator of the Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of the Connecticut Yankee reactor; and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of the Maine Yankee reactor.

The companies had asked for $177 million.

Company officials said the decision does not solve the underlying problem that sparked the lawsuit -- the government's failure to meet a deadline to dispose of spent nuclear fuel that is today being stored in above-ground facilities in three New England states.
"We hope this ruling will spur the U.S. Department of Energy to begin fulfilling its obligation," said Michael Thomas, vice president and chief financial officer of the three Yankee companies.
Thomas said in an interview that he expects the government to appeal the decision. There was no immediate comment from the Energy Department on the issue.

The money would be used to reimburse ratepayers for some of the three plants' decommissioning costs, he said.

The federal government collected $24 billion from nuclear plants over more than a decade to pay for waste storage, and was obligated to take used reactor fuel from commercial power plants by 1998. The government missed the 1998 deadline because it doesn't have a place to put the spent fuel.

A proposed central repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is behind schedule in being completed.

The used reactor fuel remains in above-ground, dry cask storage at the sites near Wiscasset, Rowe, Mass., and Haddam, Conn.
Yankee Rowe was shut down in 1992 and the other two reactors closed in 1997.

The Yankee company first asked the court to order the Energy Department to dispose of the rods, but the request was denied, said Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes.

The court said the company could sue the federal government for monetary damages, Howes said.

He said the latest order allows the company to seek additional damages if the government does not collect the spent rods.
Howes said the company will continue to lobby politicians to have the spent fuel removed.

He said the company expects the Yucca waste site to be licensed by mid-2007 and ready to receive fuel by 2017. The site was once expected to open in 2010.

In a written statement Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, chastised the energy department for dragging its feet on the Yucca Mountain site.

The three reactors operated by the Yankee companies are each owned by as many as eight New England utilities.

-- Staff Writer Elbert Aull contributed to this report.