New U.S. Permit Fees Threaten Universities’ Reactors : Regulations: Scientists fear that a $62,100 annual charge will force programs to close. Officials say they need to cover the costs of licensing facilities.

A new federal policy that has begun charging hefty fees to universities that operate nuclear reactors threatens to put some science programs out of business, including the University of California system’s last remaining research reactor at UC Irvine.

Starting today, universities that operate nuclear reactors will be charged $62,100 for annual operating permits that used to be free. The fee imposed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has stunned scientists, some of whom said that the levies could doom their facilities, which are used by researchers in fields as diverse as geology, art history, medicine and archeology.

“If the fee stays, I think the university would be inclined to close down the facility,” said UC Irvine chemistry professor George Miller, who manages the 250-kilowatt reactor in the basement of the university’s Physical Sciences 1 Building.

The Irvine reactor, which opened in 1969 and has an annual operating budget of less than $30,000, is the last research reactor operating in the UC system. It is used by researchers from throughout the university system, which once had four reactors among its nine campuses.

“If we only had to pay the fee once, I suspect everyone would find a way to do it and hang on,” said Arthur Johnson, director of the Oregon State University Radiation Center. “The problem is that the fee may be charged every year, and the NRC is thinking about adding more fees for inspections and other services. If that happens, I think you’d see a lot of people give up and close down.”

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials apologized for any hardship but said they are conforming to the wishes of Congress and the orders of a federal judge in Washington.

Ruling in March in a lawsuit filed by nuclear fuel processing company, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the NRC’s justification for exempting colleges from the new fee structure.

Until then, federal regulators declined to charge licensing fees to universities and other nonprofit institutions because regulators believed that society benefited from their research and they could not pass on the higher fees to customers.

Now, in a new attempt to comply with a 1990 congressional mandate to recoup virtually all of its operating costs from the reactor operators it regulates, the NRC has calculated the cost of regulating the nation’s 46 “non-power” research and test reactors and billed each licensee for an equal share of the cost.

Of those 46 relatively small non-power reactors, 36 are on university campuses. Seven others are operated by state governments or corporate laboratories. For instance, General Atomics Corp. of San Diego, which built many of the nation’s research reactors, is licensed to operate two units. Three other California firms, all in the Bay Area, also operate reactors.

Three research reactors run by federal agencies are exempt from the new annual fee.

The NRC, which had insisted on payment by the end of September, softened its stance earlier this month. Glenda Jackson, a senior fee policy and rules analyst for the regulatory agency, said license holders can postpone paying the fee or closing their reactors by applying for individual exemptions before Nov. 17.

Grounds for judging these applications are still being drawn up, she said, but the NRC could simply waive the annual license fee for some reactor operators.

Several university officials said they plan to ask Congress for legislation to permanently exempt nonprofit research institutions from licensing fees.

It is uncertain whether the NRC can afford to exempt many universities without some relief from Congress.

The NRC already has decided that it owes refunds to power-reactor operators for fees paid in 1991 and 1992. Back then, when Congress first told the NRC to wean itself from general fund revenues, the agency increased fees on power-reactor operators and nuclear fuel suppliers to make up for the blanket exemptions to all nonprofit licensees.

Jackson said the NRC has not decided how it can afford refunds without increasing fees on the refund recipients. Power reactor operators pay about $3 million in annual fees per unit.

“The NRC is in a real bind,” said David D. Clark, director of the Ward Laboratory at Cornell University.

Cornell is also in a bind. It is one of three universities operating two reactors, so it faces annual fees of $124,200--the equivalent of two senior tenured faculty positions. Other colleges with two reactors are Texas A & M and the University of Illinois.

Clark said the fee is astounding and “a real shock” but said he doubted that it would force Cornell to shut down either of its reactors.

“I don’t think many schools will give up the ghost . . . but clearly some will,” he said. The annual licensing fee “is going to be a heck of a thing to face every year.”

Nuclear engineers, the people who design and operate reactors, are trained on one of the Cornell reactors. The second, more powerful unit is used to study the chemical composition and structure of objects using a technique called neutron activation analysis.

This process, which is the function of the Irvine reactor and most other non-power reactors, helps geologists identify the composition of rocks, aids archeologists tracing the source of clay in pottery, enables art historians to see under paint layers to learn how artists revised their works, and allows atmospheric scientists to study chemical reactions that cause chlorine to gobble up the ozone layer.