NRC Approves Licensing for Seabrook Plant

Apparently bringing one of the country’s bitterest nuclear power fights near an end, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved a full-power operating license for the Seabrook atomic power plant, endorsing plans for the emergency evacuation of 10 nearby towns and the New Hampshire seashore.

Commissioners took only 10 minutes to confirm their climactic decision in a controversy that has raged for almost 18 years and that has brought the arrest of thousands of demonstrators and the bankruptcy of the plant’s first owner.

“We see nothing at present that persuades us that Seabrook cannot be operated safely,” said Kenneth M. Carr, NRC chairman, as he announced the decision, taken on a 3-0 vote, with two abstentions. “We believe that the emergency plans will provide adequate protection for the public in the event of an accident.”

But as plant owners hailed the decision, Massachusetts Atty. Gen. James Shannon announced that he would go to court for a fourth time in the struggle, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington for a stay of the commission’s decision. Opponents of the 1,150-megawatt station denounced the NRC as having a pro-industry bias.

“This action is the culmination of a long line of irresponsible ‘public be damned’ decisions by the NRC,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said. “This is a rogue agency that lives by its own set of pro-industry rules.”

Officials at New Hampshire Yankee, the 12-member consortium of utilities that now own the reactor, said that it could be on line by late spring, barring intervention by the appeals court. It is designed to provide electricity for 1 million homes and businesses across a six-state New England service area.

The Seabrook site, originally planned to have two reactors, sparked furious controversy almost from its beginning.

Situated 40 miles from Boston, it came under sharp criticism from Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and other state political leaders on grounds that the surrounding towns and the seashore area could not be safely evacuated in an emergency, particularly if one occurred during the summer with the beaches crowded with thousands of people.

One of the project’s most conspicuous supporters in public office was then-New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, who is now President Bush’s chief of staff.

At a press conference at Seabrook after the decision, New Hampshire Yankee President Edward A. Brown said that Sununu had played no role in the battle “plus, minus, or neutral since leaving New Hampshire.”

Brown told reporters: “Some have called Seabrook a bellwether for the future of the entire nuclear industry in the United States. I can’t predict if that will be true or not. But if the licensing of our plant helps to preserve the option of generating electricity by nuclear power in our country, then I believe we have made a very important contribution to America’s energy future.”

In the course of the construction, thousands of demonstrators descended upon the site, attempting to occupy it, battling with police who used dogs and tear gas to turn them back.

Delays, inflation and technical problems saw the original cost, projected at less than $1 billion, soar to an estimated $8 billion before the financially strapped Public Service Co. of New Hampshire canceled plans for the second unit after it was 25% completed in 1983.

Shortly thereafter the publicly owned utility company, with 5,000 workers laid off, filed for bankruptcy protection.

The final cost of the single unit is now estimated at $6.3 billion.

With the evacuation plan already the source of furious debate and public opposition, the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear disaster struck, and Dukakis refused to go along with a planned test of the evacuation plan.

The NRC’s decision Thursday brought only a pale hint of the environmentalist and anti-nuclear demonstrations that dogged Seabrook through the 1970s.

At the gates of the plant, about 75 protesters stood in the snow awaiting the expected license approval. At least 10 were arrested when they blocked the gates. And about two dozen young people demonstrated as the commission voted at its headquarters in Rockville, Md., outside Washington.

As the meeting got under way, a man identified as Roy Morrison of the anti-Seabrook Clamshell Alliance was escorted out of the building after he began accusing the commission of attempting to “silence the truth” and of “sending men, women and children to their death.”

In approving the full-power license, the commission affirmed the earlier recommendation of its licensing board. The outcome had been widely expected since last May when the go-ahead was given for low-power operation of the reactor. Spokesmen for the nuclear industry said Thursday that Seabrook could help New England avoid an energy crisis.

“There is no question that as time goes on, even the people who opposed Seabrook will recognize its benefits to their region and their way of life,” said Harold B. Finger, president of the U.S. Council of Energy Awareness. “Seabrook can be viewed as an environmental powerhouse. It will light the homes and run the factories of New England while emitting no greenhouse gases and while displacing 11 million barrels of oil every year.”

As word of the decision reached the Seabrook plant not long after noon on Thursday, workers inside the gates hoisted a huge orange and white sign reading: “License Approved.”

“I live downwind of this plant and so does George Bush’s summer home,” said Bill Linnell, a resident of Cape Elizabeth, Me., who stood in the small crowd outside. “If he wants to pollute his back yard, I wish he wouldn’t do it (to) mine.”

Rudy Abramson reported from Washington and John J. Goldman from Seabrook.