Thursday, November 20, 1997
N.C. battles Dec. 1 deadline on waste dump funding plan
by Estes Thompson
Associated Press RALEIGH -- State officials are asking that a proposed loan to help explore the site for a low-level nuclear waste dump be turned into a gift as a Dec. 1 deadline approaches for presenting a funding plan.The deadline was set earlier this month by the Southeast Compact Commission, a regional oversight group that provides money for the project. That group said it would cut off future financing if North Carolina didn't ensure that it had funding lined up for the license stage as well as the building stage.
''We want to know if we spend the money we'll have a site. This is the line in the sand,'' said Kathryn Haynes, executive director of the compact commission.
State officials held a fact-finding meeting Wednesday and plan another today.
One problem with the Dec. 1 deadline is that two days next week -- Thanksgiving Day and the Friday after it -- are state holidays and government offices are closed. The authority may have to hold a telephone meeting next week to discuss final action.
The Southeast Compact Commission was created by Congress, along with others in the nation, to oversee regional disposal of low-level radioactive waste. The wastes include such items as reactor parts, grease, rags and materials used in labs.
The project has cost the compact commission and the state some $100 million so far, including site exploration at a Richmond County location that later was abandoned. North Carolina taxpayers have contributed about $40 million of the total.
At the fact-finding meeting, state officials asked a group of electric utilities to consider giving the state $7 million.
The utilities -- Entergy, Southern Nuclear Operating Co., TVA, Virginia Power, Florida Power and Light Co., and Florida Power Corp. -- originally had proposed lending the money. The memorandum of understanding the power companies drafted said the $7 million would become a gift if the project was canceled for technical reasons but would have to be repaid if it died for political reasons.
''If someone says we want the money back because the site didn't go for political reasons, who's going to determine it was for political reasons?'' said Warren Corgan, chairman of the state's Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority.
The money will be needed by May 1999 to complete studies on the site south of Raleigh before state radiation regulators decide whether to license the repository.
Ken McCracken of Southern Nuclear, who represented the utilities, said he would have to ask his executive committee if they would approve making the loan a gift.
Members of the compact commission are Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.