Agenda - 06-17-1986 - Laserfiche WebLink

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AS PROPOSED BY C.A.S.H. (Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris) RESOLUTION FOR AN ALTERNATIVE TO SHEARON HARRIS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT Whereas the citizens of North Carolina have resoundingly voiced our opposition, through a recent state-wide referendum, to the location of a high- level nuclear waste site within the borders of our beloved state, and Whereas high-level nuclear waste is stored in cooling ponds on-site at nuclear power plants for a number of years until the waste has "cooled down" sufficiently to be transported to permanent waste sites, and Whereas high-level nuclear waste from power plants is then transported along the roads, highways and railways of North Carolina and other states to permanent waste sites, through cities, townSand rural areas such as Orange County that may not even use the electricity generated by particular nuclear power plants, and Whereas the cost of decommissioning a nuclear power plant has been es- timated by Carolina Power and Light to be as low as $100 million, but by other experts to be as high as $200 million to $3 billion and even $17 billion (allowing for inflation over a thirty- or forty-year period), and these costs will be passed on to consumers and taxpayers, and Whereas the casts of construcing a high-level nuclear waste dump run about $10 billion, and taxpayers, whether they use nuclear-power electricity or not, will be required to share in this expense, and Whereas communities throughout the United States are making clear their opposition to the locations of high-level nuclear waste sites, thereby increas- ing the likelihood that old nuclear power plants will be left as they are and not be properly dismantled and decommissioned, and Whereas the proposed Shearon Harris nuclear power plants poses a potential threat to the public health and safety of the citizens of Orange County both as an operational plant that could have a serious accident and later as an old plant that is not properly decommissioned and disassembled, and Whereas there are safe alternatives to nuclear fuel, and the cost of con- verting Shearon Harris to non-nuclear fuel is less than the total costs of completing Shearon Harris as a nuclear power plant, proper handling and tem- porary storage of spent fuel rods on-site, Shearon Harris's share of the con- struction and maintenance of one or more high-level nuclear waste dumps, proper transportation, storage and monitoring of Shearon Harris's nuclear waste, and the ultimate cost of properly decommissioning Shearon Harris, Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Commissioners of Orange County, on behalf of the citizens of Orange County, their health and safety, take whatever steps are necessary to secure the conversion of Shearon Harris to the non-nuclear generation of electricity. Be it further resolved that the Board of Commissioners of Orange County make known their opposition to the licensing and operation of Shearon Harris as a nuclear power plant to Carolina Power and Light, the North Carolina Utilities Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.