Seabrook Licensed After 20 Yrs. : Full Power Expected in 3 Months

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today licensed the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant to begin producing commercial electricity after a two-decade battle marked by mass protests, lawsuits and bankruptcy.

The NRC decision, made in a 3-0 vote ratifying recommendations by the commission’s staff and several lower-level boards, sets the stage for the 1,150-megawatt reactor to begin operating at full power within three months.

Two of the commission’s five members abstained because of their prior involvement in Seabrook issues.

NRC Chairman Kenneth Carr said, “We believe the license should be issued and believe the plant can be operated safely.”

A single protester who began to make an anti-Seabrook statement was removed by police from the meeting room before the vote.

Anti-Seabrook groups in New Hampshire and officials in neighboring Massachusetts, meanwhile, were pursuing several legal efforts to block the plant’s operation. Unless a federal judge imposes an injunction, however, plant operators will begin the process of throttling up the plant within a few weeks.

The NRC placed a stay of up to 14 days on the license to permit legal challenges.

NRC spokesman John Kopeck said it would take about a week for the commission staff to put together operating papers for Seabrook.

While opponents had predicted defeat in advance of today’s vote, they said the battle over Seabrook has helped win the larger war against nuclear power.

“The price paid to finally secure Seabrook’s license has been so great that no utility will ever again be willing to risk the high economic costs, the bad public relations and the protracted political fight necessary to bring a nuclear power plant on line,” said Ken Bossong of Public Citizen, one of several groups opposed to Seabrook.

In the mid-1970s, during construction of the plant, thousands of anti-nuclear protesters flocked to Seabrook and hundreds were arrested in acts of civil disobedience. The protests picked up again last summer as the plant drew closer to a full-power license.

The Seabrook construction period was marked by a sharp decline in public and investor support for nuclear power. According to Public Citizen, 111 U.S. reactor orders were canceled and 11 operating plants were retired during Seabrook’s construction.

Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, not a vocal Seabrook opponent in previous years, spoke out against the plant during his 1988 presidential campaign. His stance helped him win support in the New Hampshire primary but heightened friction with former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, a staunch Seabrook supporter and now President Bush’s White House chief of staff.

Partly because of Sununu’s and Bush’s support for Seabrook, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. James Shannon has argued for the last year that the NRC was hopelessly biased in favor of licensing Seabrook.

First conceived in 1968, Seabrook was to have been a twin-reactor power plant costing $1 billion. By 1986, with one reactor ready to operate, the partially completed second reactor was mothballed. Today, Seabrook’s cost has risen to $6.4 billion.