State wants higher fee for nuclear operators

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Sep 13, 2004 | by Sheehan, Tom

MADISON - State health officials want to increase a fee on Wisconsin nuclear power plant operators in hopes of bailing out the state's environmental radiation monitoring program, which operated at a $30,774 deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The state Department of Health and Family Services wants to increase the annual fee charged to utilities from $55,940 to $95,000 per reactor to help the program meet minimum testing standards established by a trade association, said Paul Schmidt, chief of the department's radiation protection section.

The change would put Wisconsin in the middle of the pack for fees for nearby states, although fees and programs vary widely based on a brief telephone survey of officials in nearby states. Minnesota has no fee; Illinois bills utilities about $440,000 a year per operating reactor for one of the most extensive monitoring programs in the nation, said Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Division of Nuclear Safety.

DHFS analyzes sampling results, but mostly contracts out for testing of air, fish, plants, water, soil and sediments around the state's two active nuclear power plants in Kewaunee and Point Beach and an inactive plant near the Vernon County community of Genoa along the Mississippi River.

Wisconsin also samples for possible radiation effects from the Prairie Island plant in Minnesota and from a nowinactive plant just across the border in Zion, Ill. Operators in other states and owners of inactive nuclear plants aren't required to pay the fee. But Dairyland Power Cooperative voluntarily contributes for monitoring around the La Crosse boiling water reactor site in Genoa, which haulted operations in 1987, Schmidt said.

Wisconsin cut back the frequency of sampling in recent years in an effort to save money, but the program is still sufficient to protect public health, Schmidt said.

At the La Crosse boiling water reactor site near Genoa, for example, the state eliminated precipitation, shoreline sediment and well water sampling in 1988.

Sampling of vegetation, soil and some surface water was further scaled back in 1998, 1999 and 2000, according to the state's 2003 annual report on the facility.

Chances of a problem at an inactive plant are smaller than at an operating facility, and testing also is done by utilities and reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Schmidt said. Testing has never revealed a concern at any of the sites monitored by the state, Schmidt said.

The federal government, which used to pay states for independent radiation monitoring, decided to drop its independent program in the late 1990s because it duplicated utility efforts, said Roland Lickus, chief of state and government affairs for the NRC's regional office in Chicago.