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L <br />ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />A Resolution <br />In Opposition to the Progress Energy Plan and Permit Application to <br />US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Opposition to any <br />Application for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to the NC <br />Utilities Commission for the Expansion the Shearon Harris Nuclear <br />Power Plant by the Construction of One or More Additional Nuclear <br />Reactors and Associated Storage Pools for Spent Fuel Rods <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well - <br />established practice of opposing activities that could prove harmful to the <br />public health, safety and welfare, particularly in regard to feasible threats to <br />that health, safety and welfare; and <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well - <br />established record of concern as security and safety issues at the Shearon <br />Harris nuclear power plant and the potential magnitude and catastrophic <br />consequences of a nuclear power plant fire leading to an airborne release <br />of nuclear waste materials; and <br />WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners, through the work of Dr. <br />Gordon Thompson and Diane Curran, Esq., has established to the <br />satisfaction of the scientific community the potential for spontaneous <br />combustion of spent nuclear fuel rods during low water conditions in the <br />spent fuel rod storage pools; and <br />WHEREAS, the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant already has the largest quantity of <br />pool stored spent nuclear fuel rods in the United States; and <br />WHEREAS, the expansion of the pool storage of fuel rods at Shearon Harris nuclear <br />power plant would be vastly increased by the addition of one or two new <br />reactors and associated fuel rod storage pools at the facility would only <br />exacerbate the consequences of a fuel rod fire; and <br />WHEREAS, the vastly increased quantity of pool stored spent fuel rods at Shearon <br />Harris nuclear power plant and the relative ease of bringing about <br />conditions that would lead to fuel rod combustion and associated <br />catastrophic atmospheric release of highly dangerous nuclear material will <br />serve to enhance the attraction of this facility for terrorist attack; and <br />