Progress Energy's Nuke Plants Strike Out at Atomic Safety Board

Progress Energy went 0-for-3 at an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board last week as the utility tried to push its proposednuclear power plants in Levy County.

The three-judge panel rejected Progress's attempts to squelch a full hearing into environmental harm posed by siting two reactors in the floodplain of Floridas Nature Coast.

The scientific body of knowledge supports our conclusion that construction and operation of this proposed nuclear power plant in the floodplains of Levy County would result in irreversible damage to the aquifer system and other water resources," said hydroecologist Sydney Bacchus, who joined the Ecology Party of Florida and other environmental groups in opposing the project.

Any energy option that results in such catastrophic environmental impacts cant be justified as renewable energy, Bacchus concluded.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also a party in the proceeding, argued that meeting state conditions for approval was sufficient to provide overall protection of water resources.

With these latest three rulings, the judges found that Progress and the NRC had failed to show that the deficiencies had been corrected as described in the draft environmental impact statement, so these issues will require a full hearing, currently scheduled for 2012, said Ecology Party chair Cara Campbell.

Read the original petition and the three new rulings here.

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