Letters submitted by BDN readers are verified by BDN Opinion Page staff. Send your letters to [email protected]
Maine Yankee produced power from 1972 to 1996. It was shut down in August 1997 as no longer economically viable, with decommissioning completed in 2005. The cost of decommissioning was $700 million and 542 metric tons of high level waste is stored on site. Decommissioning costs are paid for by utility ratepayers.
Estimates put the amount of stored, high-level radioactive waste in the U.S. at 80,000 metric tons at more than 72 sites.
Under a contract that the U.S. Department of Energy signed with all nuclear plant owners, as well as the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the DOE was to have a disposal facility open and receiving spent fuel from Maine Yankee and other commercial plants by Jan. 31, 1998. Because the DOE missed the 1998 deadline and has yet to remove any spent nuclear fuel or other waste, Maine Yankee must plan to store this material on-site likely for many years to come.
Since 1998, Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Company, and Yankee Atomic Electric Company have been in litigation with the DOE seeking monetary damages as a result of the DOE’s partial breach of its contractual obligations to take title and begin removing spent nuclear fuel and Greater than Class C waste (GTCC waste) from the three sites by the end of January 1998. Four rounds of litigation are now complete. To date, the three Yankee companies have recovered approximately $575.5 million in court awarded damages.
This is essentially paid by taxpayers. There is no end in sight.
Patrick Walsh
Belfast
