nuclear-news

If Indian Point Nuclear Reactor melted down – who would pay ?

NEW YORK WONDERS WHERE NUCLEAR CLEANUP FUNDS WOULD COME FROM, Next Gov 25 Sept 13 Who — and what pot of money — would drive cleanup after a severe nuclear-power-plant incident is a question still left unanswered by the federal government, New York state officials say in a recent legal filing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Under the Price-Anderson Act, which Congress first passed in 1957 and has renewed several times since, the nuclear-power industry’s liability in the event of a catastrophe at one of its facilities is limited. The industry pays into an insurance account — which NRC officials say has a current value of $12 billion — that would be used to compensate the public for various damages incurred as the result of an incident. Those costs could be related to hotel stays, lost wages and property replacement.

However, how actual cleanup of the contaminated area surrounding a compromised facility would be paid for remains unclear, the New York state attorney general’s office notes in the Sept. 13 filing with the commission. In 2009, NRC officials informed their counterparts at the Homeland Security Department and the Environmental Protection Agency that the Price-Anderson money likely would not be available to pay for offsite cleanup — a revelation made public a year later when internal EPA documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Another three years have gone by and the federal government has yet to provide a clear answer, the New York AG office says. Last year, NRC Commissioner William Magwood acknowledged in a presentation to the Health Physics Society that “[t]here is no regulatory framework for environmental restoration following a major radiological release.”……….

September 26, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA