Government Eager to Secure Third Nuclear Reactor

DURING HIS RECENT CHANCE to brief Gov. Martin O’Malley on the state of the county, Calvert County Commissioners President, Wilson Parran asked the governor for his particular help securing a third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs Power Plant.

Calvert Cliffs is owned by Constellation Energy Group of Baltimore and went into operation in 1975.  Earlier this year, Constellation had the choice between two of its plants, Calvert or New York, for an additional reactor.

“No decision has been made,” Parran told The Bay Net.  “[But], we’re getting closer to having a decision made as to when and where a third reactor will go in.”

The power plant is the county’s largest employer and its largest source of tax revenue.  Parran explained that the facility currently generates $16.2 million in annual tax revenue, employs a large quantity of local residents and is responsible for relocating many more to the area.  According to Parran, Constellation Energy encourages its employees to get involved in community and government committees and they’ve made financial contributions to several major county organizations.

The plant’s safety record and community mindedness have made the Commissioners eager to secure that additional reactor.  So eager, in fact, they offered Constellation a 50% tax break for the first 15 years after the third reactor is operational.

Even with the tax break, according to Parran, the reactor will generate an additional $20 million in tax revenue annually.  If the third reactor performs like the first two, the county stands to gain nearly $1 billion dollars from just that reactor in the next 30 years.

Additionally, building a new reactor means “over 2,000 construction workers and 350-400 permanent jobs after it goes into operation.”  Most of those jobs are skilled labor jobs.

On Aug. 14, Constellation Energy Group will make a report on the state of its recently filed Environmental Impact Study.  Constellation will sponsor a project open house at 5 p.m. and a community information meeting at 7 p.m.; both events are open to the public and will be held at the Holiday Inn in Solomon’s Island.
The question for Calvert residents and the rest of Southern Maryland is whether the potential revenue is worth the potential risk.

According to the Southern Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club, the reactor will generate, “1,250 metric tons of radioactive waste during its 40 years of operation.”  This waste, spent fuel rods, are stored at the reactor site.  In addition to its potential for leakage, such quantities of radioactive waste could attract a national security threat.

In 1996, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) fined the plant $50,000 for problems with emergency equipment that had been identified in 1992 but still had not been repaired four years later.  And, there is also the ever present potential for a nuclear accident at the plant.

Commissioner Parran told The Bay Net that minor and major accident drills are conducted annually.  These drills involve both the county emergency service providers and the plant’s emergency personnel.

Constellation also recently established a central communication center for both county and plant personnel so that media outlets and residents have one source of info in the event of an emergency.