N.C. Firm Agrees to Rancho Seco Pact

The Duke Power Co. of Charlotte, N.C., has agreed in principle to operate the troubled Rancho Seco nuclear power plant that serves the Sacramento area, officials said.

Details of the agreement are to be worked out between lawyers for Duke and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which owns and operates the 973-megawatt plant southeast of the city, district spokeswoman Monica Siewert said.

Duke operates seven nuclear plants, all of them, like Rancho Seco, built by Babcock & Wilcox, the firm that built the ill-fated Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.

Siewert said she had no knowledge of the terms of the agreement. But a district board member, Ed Smeloff, said Duke has been trying to negotiate a $30-million-a-year deal to operate the plant.

Smeloff, who favors shutting down the plant, flew Wednesday to Charlotte to criticize Duke management at a shareholders’ meeting for its “disreputable tactics” in involving itself in district affairs and in local politics.

Two measures that will be on the June 7 ballot in Sacramento could decide the fate of the plant.

One measure, placed on the ballot by a citizens’ group called Sacramentans for Safe Energy, could shut the plant permanently.

The second measure, sponsored by the utility district board, would give the plant an 18-month trial run before voters would again be asked to decide its future.