By John Stang
A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to pay more than $103 million to the owners of three retired nuclear power plants for failing to meet its legal mandate to remove spent nuclear fuel from the properties.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge Nancy Firestone ruled on Feb. 21 that the federal government must pay $40.74 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., $34.43 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., and $28.09 million to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., which owns Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts. The three corporations are three individual entities that share a president and some management services.
Wayne Norton, president of the three Yankee companies, said in a news release: “We are very pleased to have been awarded an additional $103.2 million in costs for our ratepayers resulting from the Department of Energy’s continuing failure to honor its contractual obligations to begin removing spent nuclear fuel and Greater than Class C waste from our three sites.”
Under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Department of Energy was supposed to begin accepting spent fuel from commercial reactors for disposal by Jan. 31, 1998. It has not yet taken any of that radioactive waste. The planned repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is years from approval and construction, if ever, and two proposed interim storage sites are still undergoing licensing.
Under the “Standard Contract,” nuclear utilities agreed to pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund that would finance the repository in exchange for DOE’s commitment to take title to, transport, and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
The government has already paid out about $6 billion from its judgment fund to utilities that remain stuck paying to store the spent fuel. The total liability is estimated at tens of billions of dollars.
Maine Yankee went through decommissioning from 1997 to 2005; it has 60 canisters of spent nuclear fuel and four canisters of Greater-Than-Class C waste. There are 15 canisters of used nuclear fuel and one canister of Greater-Than-Class C waste stored at Yankee Rowe., which closed in 1992 and completed decommissioning in 2007. Connecticut Yankee, decommissioned from 1996 to 2004, is storing 40 canisters of fuel and three canisters of Greater-Than-Class C waste. Each site requires $8 million to $10 million annually to store the fuel.
“This case is now the fourth in what will be likely a series of many more cases over the government’s continuing breach of the Standard Contract at the three different sites owned by the Yankees,” Firestone wrote in her ruling for summary judgment.
Both sides have acknowledged the federal government owes the Yankee companies the $103 million, according to Firestone’s ruling. However, the federal government said summary judgment should be withheld while the sides contest another $1.2 million allegedly owed the Yankees in a case related to workers’ benefits.
“The Yankees argue, and the court agrees, that there is no just reason for delay for entry of a final judgment. Where, as here, the government has stipulated to its liability for a specific dollar amount of damages and prejudgment interest is not available, justice requires that the Yankees receive their payments without delay,” she wrote.
Since the three Yankee companies are not legally allowed to collect money for the Yucca Mountain delays and other related costs in advance, they must file a lawsuit every few years to collect what they are owed.
The Yankee companies have previously secured $472 million in compensation in three lawsuits on this same issue since 1998. The fourth lawsuit, filed in July 2018, covered costs incurred since 2013.
