Nota: lo stesso identico problema delle centrali nucleari italiane. Ma noi abbiamo un vantaggio: potremmo imporre a chi ci aveva consegnato il materiale fissile, in base alla normativa internazionale, di riprenderselo. Ma gli italiani non lo sanno... perché?

HARTFORD - THREE NEW ENGLAND GOVERNORS, FACED WITH THE DECOMMISSIONING OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, ARE ASKING CONGRESS TO FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO TAKE THE SPENT FUEL FROM THOSE FACILITIES.

In a joint statement before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in Washington Thursday, Govs. John Rowland of Connecticut, Argeo Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts and Angus S.King Jr. of Maine charged the federal government's failure to abide by an early- 1980s congressional mandate to remove the spent nuclear materials from shutdown plants stymies the potentially lucrative reuse of the sites.

The governors contended that the Department of Energy faces no technical or legal hurdles that would prevent it from immediately beginning to remove spent fuel from the decommissioned plants.

They want Congress to ensure that the DOE solely earmark Nuclear Waste Fund money for hastened removal offsite, rather than for building or maintaining onsite storage facilities.

"When decommissioning is complete (by no later than 2004 for these plants), the states and localities reasonably anticipated that the plants' nuclear licenses would be terminated and the sites would be available for other productive uses," the governors stated. "Because the States' citizens paid DOE for disposal of spent fuel (as part of their electric rates), the states had no reason to expect that these fully decommissioned plant sites would be involuntarily appropriated as long-term spent fuel storage sites."

In Connecticut, the state has been forced to consider a plan to put the waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, in storage casks at the site of the closed Connecticut Yankee plant. It is a discussion likely to be repeated as officials decide what to do with spent fuel at the closed Millstone 1 power plant in Waterford.

Maine Yankee and Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts are even further along in the decommissioning process.

It was lawsuits filed by the three "Yankee" plants, combined on appeal, which are once again generating interest in the debate. The companies that own the three plants contend that the DOE, having failed to fulfill a contractual agreement to start accepting the spent nuclear fuel by January 1998, is in breach of contract. The companies are seeking compensation for the cost of having to store the fuel in the meantime.

The appeals court ruled that the utilities do have the right to seek damages in court.

Unless there are further appeals, the issue will be referred back to a lower federal court to determine damages. DOE General Counsel Mary Ann Sullivan said a decision whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, or perhaps seek a settlement, will be determined in the next few weeks.

Russ Mellor, president and CEO of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Yankee Atomic Electric Co. testified at Thursday's hearing that the lengthy litigation could be avoided if the federal government agreed to site and operate a central, temporary storage facility for the nation's used nuclear fuel until a permanent repository is ready to begin accepting waste.

Mellor lamented that after spending two decades and $6 billion, the DOE still has not determined the suitability of Yucca Mountain in Nevada for a permanent waste repository.

Calling the DOE seriously behind schedule, he said the agency has acknowledged that permanent disposal will not be available for a decade at the earliest.

cNew Haven Register 2000