Nevada Power owner assuming waste liability

Sierra Pacific Resources says it won't campaign to bring nuclear waste to the Nevada desert when it inherits Portland General Electric's decommissioned nuclear power plant.

The Trojan nuclear plant near Rainier, Ore., on the Columbia River northwest of Portland, is one of the PGE assets Sierra will buy in a $3.1 billion acquisition announced Monday. Sierra is the parent of Nevada Power Co. of Las Vegas.

The nuclear plant was closed in 1993. As part of the decommissioning process that began that year, all fuel was removed from the reactor and placed in an on-site storage pool.

Used fuel at the plant is considered high-level waste -- the type of material some federal authorities hope to dispose of in a nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain northwest of Las Vegas.

The Yucca Mountain plan is mired in controversy with Nevada's congressional delegation leading the fight against a federal proposal to locate the nuclear waste dump in the sparsely populated desert. Opponents of the plan argue that transport vehicles would come too close to the state's populated areas and that long-range effects of nuclear exposure on the environment are unknown.

"We don't believe any state should be forced to take shipment of something its citizens don't want," said Steve Oldham, vice president for strategic development for Sierra Pacific Resources. "That has been our long-standing position. And, as an owner, we should have an even greater say in the issue."

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Director Robert Loux is emphatic that nuclear waste from Oregon won't make its way into Nevada.

Loux, whose agency is a part of Gov. Kenny Guinn's office, said Sierra Pacific's ownership of the nuclear plant won't have any impact on his organization's stance -- he doesn't intend to allow anybody to bring nuclear waste to the state.

One of the last stages of decommissioning the Trojan nuclear plant occurred last summer.

In mid-August, a 1,000-ton reactor vessel was loaded aboard a specially built barge and floated 270 miles up the Columbia River to a disposal site 45 feet deep at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington.

The reactor and some of its plumbing was considered low-level waste that could be buried at Hanford. The high-level waste was stored in a steel-lined pool on the Trojan site. As part of the final stage of decommissioning, 781 spent fuel rod assemblies were removed from the pool last summer and placed in an outdoor dry cask storage facility.

"PGE set a high standard for decommissioning nuclear plants with its handling of Trojan," said Oldham.

Today, the plant site is being turned into a park. The state of Oregon is interested in taking it over, assuming that the nuclear waste is removed.

And residents of Oregon are counting on that.

"The decommissioning has not been a hot issue here," said Jason Eisdorfer, an attorney for the Citizens' Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group that has been monitoring Trojan's shutdown.

"I think the reason it hasn't been a high-profile issue is that most Oregonians believe it (the nuclear waste) is leaving at some point," Eisdorfer said.

"Right now, we aren't contemplating anything but storing it on site," Oldham said. "We believe science has to dominate the debate (over how to dispose of nuclear waste). When the science is clear, then public policymakers can discuss the best way to dispose of the waste."

But Eisdorfer says leaving the waste at the plant site isn't what locals have in mind and he even made light of what could happen if that occurred.

"Keeping the waste there isn't much of a park, is it?" he asked. "What would happen, would there be giant squirrels or something?"

While giant squirrels aren't likely, a giant controversy over Trojan's costs is.

Late last month, a coalition of consumer groups filed petitions with the Oregon Secretary of State's Office to force a vote to repeal legislation signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber allowing PGE to recoup $304 million in costs associated with closing Trojan.

Eisdorfer said some of the groups believe their petition drive was the last straw for Houston-based Enron Corp., pushing the company to sell PGE to Reno-based Sierra Pacific.

The controversy began in 1993 when Trojan was closed. The plant's steam generators did not work properly and PGE determined that it would be more economical to shut down the plant than to pay for repairs.

The Oregon Public Utilities Commission allowed PGE to collect 87 percent of the undepreciated value of the plant -- about $250 million over a 17-year period. But the commission also permitted the company to collect its normal rate of return on the plant of about 13.49 percent -- $304 million from 1995 through 2011. That's the amount that was disputed by the consumer groups.

State officials estimate residential customers would pay an extra $1.90 a month for 17 years on the disputed amount as a result.

The commission was taken to court. The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the consumer groups in 1998. That's what led to the legislation that overturned the court's ruling.

In the meantime, the appelate court's ruling also was taken to the state's Supreme Court. The matter is on hold in light of the new legislation and the subsequent petition drive seeking its repeal.

The question now is who will oppose the consumer groups? Enron, the former utility's owner, probably would have mounted some kind of campaign to protect its investment. But now, its on the verge of selling the company.

Sierra Pacific's Oldham says his company won't insert itself into the issue because the deal hasn't closed and won't until late next year. In fact, the ballot issue may come to a vote in November before PGE is signed over to Sierra Pacific.

Oldham said Sierra Pacific is prohibited in Nevada from passing along expenses associated with the Oregon matter to Nevada ratepayers.

archive