North Anna could get more reactors

NRC says additional reactors at North Anna wouldn't harm the environment

By RUSTY DENNEN

Date published: 12/8/2004

By RUSTY DENNEN

Environmental considerations won't stand in the way of the possibility of additional nuclear reactors at North Anna Power Station, should Dominion Power be allowed to build them.

That's the preliminary conclusion of a draft environmental impact statement, which will be the subject of a public hearing Jan. 19 in Louisa County. The session will begin at 7 p.m. at Louisa Middle School.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission scheduled the hearing as part of an ongoing review of Dominion's application for an early site permit to allow up to two new reactors at the plant on Lake Anna.

In its announcement yesterday, the NRC said the early site permit should be issued.

"There are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites, and that any adverse environmental impacts from possible site preparation and preliminary construction activities at North Anna could be redressed," according to the NRC.

"It's not really a surprise," said Louis Zeller, administrator and community organizer for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which opposes any new reactors at the plant. "Many of the major objections that [we] and others have raised have been dismissed out of hand--mostly regarding impacts on human health."

Brendan Hoffman, a spokesman for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization in Washington, said yesterday that the agency hasn't had a chance to review the voluminous report.

"What is clear is that the main things that need to be addressed--terrorism, the security situation and the impact of a plant" adding reactors 60 miles from nation's capital--haven't been, he said. Lake Anna forms the southwestern boundary between Spotsylvania and Louisa counties.

The NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled several months ago that concerns over security, radioactive waste and safety issues would not be admissible in an environmental review of Dominion's proposal.

An environmental coalition was allowed to challenge the potential impact on fish and whether plans to cool additional reactors at North Anna were sufficient.

But those issues weren't enough to sway the NRC in its environmental review.

Dominion's early site permit application would allow the utility to resolve site and environmental issues prior to submitting a construction plan and to "bank" a site for 20 years. Dominion is the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power.

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Date published: 12/8/2004