Published Wednesday, July 28, 1999 The State
Committee proposes action against N.C.
By JAMES PILCHER
COLLEGE PARK, Ga. -- A Southeast Compact Commission committee voted Tuesday to seek formal sanctions against North Carolina -- including repayment of $80 million -- for failing to build a regional low-level radioactive waste disposal site.
The Associated PressIf the sanctions are approved by the full commission, it would mark the first time one of the nation's 10 regional waste compacts has invoked an internal sanction process against a member state.
Then-Gov. David Beasley pulled South Carolina out of the compact in 1995, citing delays by North Carolina in building a facility to replace the Chem-Nuclear Systems Inc. operation in Barnwell County as the regional dump.
The committee's action was a form of self-governance.
"It is a matter of us trying to have some way of ensuring each member of the compact is living up to the requirements of the compact," said Paul Burks, a Georgia compact representative.
Burks chairs the compact's sanctions committee, which voted 3-0 to present the sanctions to the full commission at its Aug. 19 meeting in Charlotte.
North Carolina agreed to develop the regional disposal site in 1986 and has since received $80 million in development funds from the seven-state compact. But the project has been behind schedule and over budget, and the North Carolina Legislature voted last week to withdraw from the compact, which was formed in 1983.
The proposed sanctions would include repayment of the $80 million; a fine of $2,500 per day starting Aug. 1, 2001, if North Carolina doesn't provide an acceptable disposal site by then; a limit on North Carolina exports of radioactive waste; and a requirement that North Carolina store all low-level radioactive waste from the seven states until a disposal site is built.
How the compact could enforce the sanctions is unclear. The committee's motion recommends that compact officials go to court if necessary.
North Carolina has spent $30 million of its own money on the project, in addition to the $80 million.
"I should point out that before North Carolina pulled out, the compact unilaterally pulled all its funding after putting unreasonable time and financial demands on the project," said North Carolina state Rep. George Miller, who had been one of the state's two representatives on the compact before the withdrawal vote.
None of the 10 regional compacts created by Congress in the 1980s have developed low-level radioactive waste disposal sites, even though the compacts have raised more than $400 million in development funds.
If the commission decides at its Aug. 19 meeting to file formal charges, hearings would be held. But there is no specified time for when the hearings would begin.
The remaining Southeast Compact states are Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.